Modelling and Family/Job. How?

My wife and I don't have kids aside from our four legged, self propelled, fertilizer dispenser .  So for me it's easier than it is for a lot of folks.  After supper, when all the "other duties as required" have been performed I can usually squeeze in an hour or two of modelling time a night.  I usually get to bed around 10:30 and am back up at 4:45. 

I can work away from home for weeks at a time, then be at home for weeks too. What I do is take sub assemblies away, or take tracks with me to make up in a hotel room. It gives me something to do at nights and keeps my hand in too. Only problem is painting but that can wait till I get home for a while. I have made smaller scale stuff too but they where just to fiddly for me

Pmitch

Fatalgrace

I feel like I can never get the time I want to work on models.

Join the club.

Fatalgrace

 How do y'all negotiate family/job/kids and find time to build?

With great difficulty.

Fatalgrace

Get up super early? Work super late?

Whenever I can get the opportunity - usually late evening.

Fatalgrace

Ideas.

Afraid not - but if you do have any please let me know.

 I do try to get bench time as much as possible, but it's nowhere near enough, although sometime life is kind & I get a good run at it.......................

When my wife is helping with homework after dinner, I try to hit the bench for 30 minutes. Or if the dauther is a soccer, volleyball, dance pratice, then it is good modeling time. Sunday afternoons are a great time, we try to keep Sunday's as family / home time.

  I earn it.   I make sure all the chores are done, the wife is happy, kids' homework is done, dishes and house picked up.  My wife works full time, and I'm a stay-at-home dad, so that's my job.  Then I can use that as bargaining power to get a few hours in my office.  I also stay up late after the kids are in bed.

   ----Chris

I'd like to say i earn it too. However I spend all day and many times nights at the hospital. I guess my question is if weekends are enough time to scrape together a moment or two for building. I feel like Im never gonna get better because I dont have enough time doing. It seems like I find myself always reading about modelling and not DOING enough modelling.

Normal?

I usually get some bench time after I get home from work and before the wife gets home from work.  Then we talk, figure out supper, some more bench time, then spend the evening watching the tv.  During the winter (Nov-Mar/Apr) I get more bench time on the weekends since we are not at the cottage.  The only idea I have is to make sure she is happy and chores are done!!

Just me and the missus. But we have the living room set up so i can work on my models, watch tv, do chores and spend time with her all at them same time. Multitasking to the extreme lol.

At times, I wont get to my hobby room for a week or more. Sometimes, I'll get to spend all day there building and watching football. Like everything else in life, I try to find a balance.

I have a family and work but do deserve some "me" time now and then.

Fatalgrace

I feel like I can never get the time I want to work on models.

As has been said - join the club!

To quote Calvin & Hobbes "there's never enough time to do all the nothing I want".

How do y'all negotiate family/job/kids and find time to build?

Wife and I have two young kids. They are exhausting. I try to give her all the escape time I can. That and I make it abundantly clear that modeling time is a priority for me - in fact probably my greatest "just for me" priority. I'm also exceptionally crabby when I don't get bench time...

Get up super early? Work super late?

Super late. I've always been a night person anyway. I usually go out to the bench at 10-10:30 after I've done my stint getting the children to fall asleep. Then I'll stay out there until 1-2. I've learned to live on not much sleep. It sucks, but I'm a lot better mentally if I've had a night of modeling and 4.5 hours sleep than no modeling and 6.5 hours sleep. Go figure.

And , no , i don't wear the pants in my family. Thanks for asking.

Me either. But the wife's noticed a big difference in my overall attitude when I have my modeling time. Thus...we make it work.

I wear the pants in my house! Mrs. Griffin just picks them out for me!

For me it's about finding time. It's just the wife and me, but we have two grown daughters and two granddaughters so family's a priority. I'm currently unemployed, but I went back to school and between that and searching out job leads/making contacts takes almost as much time as a full-time job.

I build on the coffee table in the livingroom in the evening on occasion to spend time with the wife. Less often I will stay up to the wee hours if I'm really involved in a project.

Electric Blues

At times, I wont get to my hobby room for a week or more. Sometimes, I'll get to spend all day there building and watching football. Like everything else in life, I try to find a balance.

I have a family and work but do deserve some "me" time now and then.

 Boy, can I ever relate to this issue. Although it's just the wife and I bench time is still at a premium. I work 2 jobs and have other outside obligations thus I just take advantage of the snippets of time I budget. For me I'm a morning person thus I 'm up by 3:30-4:00 am and get an hour or so of modeling in before I leave for work. With winter upon us though I get much more time as the yard obligations have diminished. I am blessed with a wife who is a busy body and finds house cleaning and yard work theraputic. Yeah, I don't get it either but I darn sure accept it. I need to incorporate doing fiddley stuff in the living room while watching TV, that would grealy increase my output. But as it is I'm only able to complete about one model a year. Oh, yeah I also found it helpful for my progress to stop overthinking and just do. 

                                                                      Joe

I usually build while my wife is cleaning my house, or in the kitchen making me some pot pie!

 She likes all the cop drama shows and a bunch of other crap, that I just can't get into. Most evenings are spent at the bench. In the winter months, with no work, sessions go into the 2 and 3am hours.

Im single, unfortunatly still living with my parents. my biggest issue with modelling time is I work shift work, so I never have a set sleep schedual so I seem to always be tired. Im trying to push myself into a schedual of modeling atleast 1 hour a day. My work is shift work so Im suppose to work a different shift each week. Luckily I get to trade a shift with someone so I work 2 weeks of 10pm to 6am and one week of 6am to 2pm. I'm on a bowling league thursday nights, and I paintball in the summer. apart from being always tired, I always seem to have motivation to build models while at work., but once I get home it goes away most of the time.

For me if I dont get anything done for along time I get really frustrated and I'll spend a whole day modelling on the weekend and get work done. Just doing it every day seems to be a motivation problem for me due to work.

I find it difficult to combine work, family and other intrests (like sport, to stay in shape) with modelling.
I get very little bench time during the week. After a days work, dinner and some minor chores there is not much energy left. And ofcourse my wife wants to talk tome or watch some tv together. She does not like it when I am at my workbench all evening. As a compromise I often model at the kitchen table.
The weekends are a bit better, I often model for 1 to 3 hours in the weekend (but not in one session).

I feel very fortunate in this regard. I met my wife at our model club meeting. She is very supportive, so much so she's an officer in the club! She's yet to finish a model but is very interested in it regardless.

My work however isn't so agreeable... I started a job back in the springtime and it's been late nights and long long hours every since so my model time is slim. I do make a lot of progress though when time is available. My wife also likes a couple of crappy shows on TV that I don't care about so that's usually my night to model besides the weekends.

This has been my lot for the last six weeks as well, before the Dio group build lots of time, sign my name up for the, squat!!! man!!!!! so I am backing off on some other things to make time for my commitment to the group build. Honestly building time after so long away from the hobby, and so many other things going on in my life will be better than a holiday.

Fatalgrace

I feel like I can never get the time I want to work on models. How do y'all negotiate family/job/kids and find time to build? Get up super early? Work super late?

Ideas.

 

And , no , i don't wear the pants in my family. Thanks for asking.

I don't negotiate... Simple as that.. Wife don't like it? Out she goes... (And I ain't kiddin' about that.. I got three ex-wives t' prove it...)

Hans von Hammer

 

Fatalgrace:

 

I feel like I can never get the time I want to work on models. How do y'all negotiate family/job/kids and find time to build? Get up super early? Work super late?

Ideas.

 

And , no , i don't wear the pants in my family. Thanks for asking.

 

 

I don't negotiate... Simple as that.. Wife don't like it? Out she goes... (And I ain't kiddin' about that.. I got three ex-wives t' prove it...)

A wise man once said to never trust a bald barber . . . Just sayin'

I would just make it clear, I worked all day, I cooked, cleaned and got the boy ready for bed, now its my time. Leave me alone, then she left me....much harder to find time as a single parent

Fatalgrace

I'd like to say i earn it too. However I spend all day and many times nights at the hospital. I guess my question is if weekends are enough time to scrape together a moment or two for building. I feel like Im never gonna get better because I dont have enough time doing. It seems like I find myself always reading about modelling and not DOING enough modelling.

Normal?

Fatal, yep.  I rarely get more than a few minutes a week.  I'll concentrate on something I want to do, then when I get to it, try to do it and hopefully have time for other things, like putting a coat of paint on a part.  Yes, it takes a looooonnnnnngggggg time to complete a project.  I'm currently working on a stupid little old Renault R5 kit that I'm adding details to.  It's taken me most of the summer to get to where I am, and I'm not yet ready to attach the interior tub to the chassis.  I suspect it'll take another couple of months before I can get to the point I'm looking at lowering the body over the chassis. 

We are DINKs, too, well, except for the kids with the floppy ears and tails.  I can't imagine trying to do this hobby with kiddos, but I'd probably do something like the others have indicated.  My wife does scrap booking stuff, so we'd probably tag-team to get some time with our hobbies, or try to involve the kids.

The downside is the unassembled stash continues to grow at a rate faster than the finished kits.  On the plus side, it gives you a LOT of time to _think_ about your next steps. 

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

My job and the traveling I do takes a terrible toll on my modeling time. Right now I"m in the U,K.on business  and I can't wait to get back to the desk.

Can't take 'em with me and expect do do anything close to a proper job. Too many tools and supplies would have to go with me.

I think that as long as you can get some time in you're ahead of the game. Nothing ever got done by not doing it.

I have a wife and 2 kids as well so I aim for a couple hours on Sunday's. I set up in the living room, we put on a movie suitable for the entire family and away I go.

Trust me, it gets better... The kids'll soon get old enough that the LAST thing they want to do is hang around the house on a weekend...  With any luck, that also when the wife finds out that she has stuff to do on weekends and she's out most of the day too... Knock out her Honey-Do first thing (but not ALL of it.) Save a few things for Sunday AM and knock them out around the time she wants to start making brunch.... If you get EVERYthing done early, she'll just add more to it...  If you do it right, you should have 4-6 undisturbed (relatively, that is) hours each day... No promises that they'll be 4-6 continuous hours, either... So plan your painting in 15-minute blocks...

And then, once you're retired, you can LIVE in the War Room...  But you must plan for it, stocking up on water, snacks and various sundry items that will allow you to become a hobby-hermit when the time comes...

If I wanted to, I could hole-up in mine for two weeks, only coming out to go through the junk drawer in the kitchen, because I need the filament wire from a five-amp fuse for a hand-mic cord in that P-40 cockpit...

Or the bathroom... Ain't got that problem solved yet...  Well... The second half, anyway.. First part's easy to handle if ya got a Gatorade bottle and window...

Invest a good couple of decades solid as the loving husband/ solid father/ good boss and general all around NCO-ish type and they all go "Whew" life is good, then you have the right to do your thing. Anything upstream of that is selfish.

See you in 20, boys.

bondoman

Invest a good couple of decades solid as the loving husband/ solid father/ good boss and general all around NCO-ish type and they all go "Whew" life is good, then you have the right to do your thing. Anything upstream of that is selfish.

See you in 20, boys.

Precisely why I build at night after everyone else is in bed. At that point its my time, my sleep that I'm losing, and nobody else has to be inconvenienced. 

Thanks for all the great replies. I think that it's this kind of insight that transforms what is a solitary hobby into something that brings the group together. Of note, I've found myself doing more night building during the week and finding a few hours while the rest of the family is napping on the weekends. Hasnt caused any problem because it's time where they would be asleep anyhow. 

Definitely been able to make some progress on this Osprey.