Confusion with a side order of guilt, please!

 It's been an incredible length of time since I've written anything. I'm talking more than a year, so bear with me people.

I'm just having trouble figuring out my life right now, I'm hoping this will help me clear my head. See, I have three children, a husband and a desire to provide and develop my career. The problem: not enough hours in the day, or arms on my body. How can I manage everything and be everywhere at once? Duh, I can't. Of course, I realize that.

I'm faced with a difficult decision, once I'm not sure I am capable of making correctly. Do I quit my full-time, dead-end job an hour away? Do I keep working there in hopes that sometime soon someone will recognize the effort and pay me what I need to make the job worth the drive?  Or, do I simply pack my things, give my notice and finish the month?

Adding to that confusion is the fact that my kids need me more involved in their lives and home more. I've been the only one working for several months now due to an unfortunate lay off my husband suffered...while he's back to work now, that means that my ability to single-handedly manage all three kids' activities, appointments in addition to my schooling and the photography business I'm trying to get off the ground is limited. To say the least.

Bottom line is that I can't afford (financially and probably mentally) to stop working completely. But is there a happy medium? Can I work part-time and maintain the household duties and mom duties?

Third layer of happiness: I worked hard to get my degree and an pursuing an MBA. I think I deserve a position with flexibility and a great pay rate. Now back to reality-employers do not care about you or your family or your problems. So I've applied to several places in the restaurant/cafe/beverage industry in hopes that I can find a part time position close to home that can close the financial gap we will face if I'm not working where I am in the near future. However, what are they going to pay-minimum wage? Do I want to work weekends, nights and holidays? Of course I don't! Will I do it? Of course I will!

It's just never ending. I've been at my current job for almost a year.  I'm not happy and I don't love it. I also recognize that it's work and I'm not supposed to love it, otherwise it wouldn't be called work. Is it too much to ask to at least enjoy it? To get paid for my effort and time?

I've also interviewed for a job I'd really like to have for a big company that's the same (hour) distance from home recently. I haven't heard anything yet, but if I'm offered the job I want to take it. But then I have to worry about the kids' activities and appointments. How can I leave my youngest daughter while she's crying and sick and begging me to stay home (like this morning)? This job also pays significantly more, in case I didn't mention it...

In the end, I'm just not sure what to do, what's right for me and my family. I know that I'm stressed out, unhappy and exhausted right now and have been for awhile now. I just want the best for the kids, so if it means I clean toilets, flip burgers, or drive an hour to work I guess that's what I have to do...