“Yeah. We should probably invite her over more often and once Leigh starts working in the studio she will be around more too.”

“That’ll be good. What about us … are we good?”

“We are. I just wanted to reassure you that I won’t let you down again Tee. If there is anything that bothers you about any of this please just let me know and we’ll fix it OK.”

“I promise.”

“So what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?” Bette asked giving Tina the chance to get things off her mind.

“Well it concerns a career change for me too.”

“Really, what is it?”

“I’m thinking about maybe leaving the center and branching out on my own. It’s an idea that I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while. It’s nothing concrete but if it works it will give me the flexibility to work from home and still have a good income.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“One of the things that I love about working for the center and something that I’ve gotten really good at is grant writing. I was thinking of maybe becoming an Independent Grant Writer whereby I could provide grant prospect research, grant proposal writing, and evaluation services to non-profit agencies and other businesses. It would require some travel but for the most part I could set up at home and once we decide to have our baby I can work at my own pace and not have to worry about commuting to an office. That’s one of the main reasons I want to hold off on investing any of the money from the condo sale. It’ll be in reserve while I get my business started.”

“Tee that’s terrific. I never knew you wanted your own business. You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“I’ve only just started giving it more serious thought and putting some feet to it. You deciding to open your art gallery was an impetus for me to think about what I wanted to do. I’d like to give this a try Bette. The center would be a client so I will continue to do the grant writing for them. As a matter of fact if they can remove the grant writing responsibility from the Director’s job function it would give the new Director so much more time for hands-on involvement. I think it would be a win-win for both of us.”