work at home

Mid- to later-life career changes are on the rise in the United States. As the baby boomers get close to retirement age, a large percentage of them are thinking about winding things down. Still, a significant number of boomers plan to continue working. Many of these boomers want to make dramatic changes in their careers. Some lucky boomers may even find their “life’s calling” at this stage.

Carol R. Baldwin, a sixty-something grandmother of 11, is one of these “late bloomers.” She began her second career over ten years ago after being inspired by a startling dream. After being prodded by her husband and her son, Michael, Baldwin decided to sit down and begin her second career.

"One night after my husband went to bed, I put pen to paper, and, like a hole suddenly blown in a dam, the book came pouring out,” Baldwin says. “Sitting at a table between the kitchen and the living room, I pounded the keys for sixteen to seventeen hours a day while life went on around me. By the time the book was completed, I had lost twenty-five pounds and had eyes like a raccoon.”

Until that moment, Baldwin had never once in her life considered becoming a writer. “I never even thought about it remotely,” Baldwin says. “The cool thing about it is that once I started, the words just flew. It was like it was something I was meant to do and I have never enjoyed anything as much.”

As she was deep in the writing of her book, “The Outlaw,” she realized that the Outlaw that she dreamed about was really her husband of over 45 years, Robert, in a fast-paced time-travel adventure of the American West.       

Baldwin is happy and comfortable in her new chosen home-based career. “I consider myself to be very lucky to have finally discovered my love of writing,” says Baldwin. “There is no telling where I might go from here.” HBM