How's your work life balance?

Work life balance is a popular term in most big companies these days.  At my last employer, we often heard upper management say that they wanted us to have a good work life balance. But as buyers, most of us we were still writing orders on the weekends, and checking emails around the clock. Not to mention traveling at night or on the weekends. That's just what we had to do in order to get the job done.  As working moms and stay at home moms, we get lots of stuff done because we have too (see last post titled "Moms.  We just DO").  We fit that whole Dilbert list up there into our daily lives.  We are awesome at time management and running the show both at work and at home.  We thrive when we are needed and when we are busy.  But are we biting off more than we can chew?  Are we so consumed with having to "Lean In" and do it all, that we are actually burning ourselves out?

What is most important to you?  Is that what you are doing best? If not, maybe it's time to rethink your priorities.  For most of us moms, our first priority is (usually) our family.  But are we really putting them first? Or are our jobs, our commute, and our to do list all getting in the way? What are you ignoring or putting on the back burner because your time is stretched so thin?  Maybe it's your kids, your spouse, your health, or your lack of sleep?

Yes I know that you are important.  People are counting on you. You have quite a lot to do.  And by all means you should do the things that only YOU can do.  Do those important things that need to be done NOW and that will get the biggest results. But you don't have to do everything.  I know it's really hard, but on a few of those non-essential things try to outsource, delegate or say no to some stuff.  I know that you CAN do it all, but hey, you don't HAVE to.

Laundry: The Neverending Story




My new motivational sign for the laundry room. LOL

The problem with the laundry is that it is never completely done.  Since it is never completely done, there is no sense of accomplishment; there is no check off on my to do list.  When I was a working mom, I did a load of laundry here and there.  Some loads at night, most loads on the weekends in between the kids' activities.  I used to work with a mom of three kids that would put a load in before work, and put it in the dryer when she got home.  She would do this every day.  EVERY DAY. 

When we lived in Omaha, our house had the washer and dryer downstairs, and all the bedrooms were upstairs.  There was a laundry shoot from the master bedroom closet into the laundry room, which was kinda fun.  It was easy to send the dirty laundry flying down the chute. I could even convince my kids to put their own laundry down the chute, most of the time.   As a result, there would always be tons of dirty laundry piled up down there.  Sometimes it would get washed and dried and then unloaded onto the dining room table for folding.  It would then stay there indefinitely. I am talking weeks at a time.  Many days my girls would go to the dining room table to get dressed.  Don't judge.  They would always look for socks there on the dining room table.  On the rare occasion where I actually took everything upstairs, they would get upset when they came downstairs to look for socks in the dining room, only to realize that they had to go back upstairs to their actual dressers for socks. 

At our house in NC, the washer and the dryer are upstairs, as are all the bedrooms (insert Hallelujah Chorus here).  SO much easier!  And yet it is still never completely done.  I suppose mainly because I would rather do ANYTHING else than fold laundry.  Today I did 6 loads --- washed, dried, folded and 80% put away.  My mother is the ultimate laundry professional.  She even irons; remarkably she loves to iron.  I am not kidding.  I am sure that I will never reach her level of laundry professional.  I certainly didn't inherit her good housework genes, that's for sure. 

My husband started packing for a business trip last night and joked that he was going to have a matching sock party.  I did not find that at all funny.  However it's true that I hate to match socks.  I have convinced the girls that it's ok to wear unmatched socks.  It's a fashion trend! Hubs also said that he was going to buy 365 pairs of socks so that he could just throw them away every day.  Hmmm, now that sounds like a good business idea to me!

Moms. We just DO.

Working moms do it all: work all day, housework at home, homework with the kids, grocery shop on weekends, and on and on.  After the birth of my 3rd child, I had a female boss of mine say to me, "I don't know how you do it -- 3 kids!"  This lady had no kids of her own.  Most of the time working moms don't know how they do it, either.  They just get up everyday and do what they have to do.  It's not like most of us have a choice.

Kate Winslet with her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Last week I saw Kate Winslet on the Today Show talking about shooting the movie Divergent.   She told the Today Show that when they called her up to do re-shoots for Divergent she thought, “How am I going to do this?  I would feed and shoot and nurse and the milk would go back to the hotel and my equipment would come back, and we’d do the stunt and I’d act,” she said. And then Kate Winslet just totally summed it up. She said, “There’s something really empowering about going, ‘Hell, I can do this! I can do all this!’ That’s the wonderful thing about mothers, you can because you must, and you just DO.” 

I have seen some moms (me included) that thrive on the stress.  The more there is to do, the faster we work to get it done.  Big project at work? Nailed it.  Birthday party for 2 year old? Bouncy house and cotton candy machine, check. Coach a soccer team? Why not?  Bake cupcakes for school party? Who needs to sleep?  Run a half marathon and raise money for charity? Sure! I look back at all the things I've juggled over the past 10 years and it makes my head spin.  I look at other moms I know and I am amazed.  I know one who has 2 kids, teaches school and runs triathlons.  I know another who has 4 kids, works full time, and decided to become a foster parent.  Another mom of 3 homeschools, blogs, and just wrote her first book.  Whether we are working moms or stay at home moms, we get stuff done, because all of us moms just DO.

My food obsession and the lunchbox

I have always been obsessed with food.  What's for lunch? When's dinner? What are we having? Is it time to eat yet? How many calories have I eaten today?  When I was a working mom I would usually pack my own somewhat healthy lunch of salad or soup or yogurt or whatever.  For my girls the lunch debate was much harder, as they wanted chips, juice boxes, and junk.  Being pressed for time in the mornings I would throw together a lunch of 100 calorie packs, peanut butter crackers, and granola bars.  Or we would consult the school lunch menu and possibly go with a bought lunch of pizza, hamburgers or nachos (yes this is actually passed off as a school lunch).

When we got back to NC, I was shocked to learn that here my kids could purchase "extras" with their school lunch.  Cookies, cake, juice,  and ice cream are all available every day for children in Kindergarten through 5th grade.  They don't even need cash, as they just punch in their pin number.    I know when I was a kid, I would have gotten ice cream every day if it was available!  When I was a kid, we just got a tray, and that was your lunch, no choices, no questions asked.

So now that I have more time, I have been on an overall quest to eat healthier and make better meals for my kids.  I follow a great blog called 100 days of real food -- http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/
This lady posts pictures of her kids' school lunches and it has inspired me.  I bought these great Ziplock divided containers and have been trying to sneak in more fruits and veggies into the lunchbox.  Here's what they took today:

 

Sarah's lunch - she loves peppers and cucumbers

Olivia's lunch. Tomatoes are one of the only vegetables that she will eat.  I know the lunch meat is not great, but baby steps, right?

 

I made these banana whole wheat muffins this morning from a receipe on 100 days of real food - really! I know that these lunches have a long way to go, but at least I got them to eat some vegetables instead of another processed food. The crackers are wheat thins.  Also not great, but at least there's whole grain in there.   I also packed water bottles, and an ice pack.  Hurray for the #tinywin !

Do you hate what you do?

When I was a working mom, I really had to make time for exercise or else I didn't do it at all.  Mostly it was a drag and I'd find myself on the treadmill counting the minutes or in a class trying to avoid the instructor's gaze.  Over the years I have done Jazzercise, Yoga, running, weight lifting classes, and random machines at the gym.  Now that I am a stay at home mom, I have more time to try and get in shape.  I needed something different, mostly just to motivate me to do it.

My friend Diahann asked me if I would be interested in a new workout place she'd found, called 9Round.  I tried it, and liked it, so I signed up for a 6 month membership.  You go through 9 "rounds" or stations with different exercises at each station.  The trainer comes around and tells you what to do at each station. Each round only lasts for 3 minutes.  There's a bell that tells you when to move on to the next round.  In between you do 30 seconds of cardio, which the trainer calls out and tells you what do to.  The whole session takes only 30 minutes and works just about every part of your body. You get to wear boxing gloves for some of the rounds, which is different and fun.  There are no set class times, you just come in whenever you can and go through the rounds.  Here's a link to their website: http://www.9round.com/

I like it because it is over in 30 minutes, and I am working out my arms and abs more (something I didn't get with running).  It's also kind of fun to punch a bag with pink boxing gloves.  There are some motivational posters up in the 9Round gym with Muhammad Ali quotes. I think we all know the "float like a butterfly" one, but this one I found particularly interesting:

 

He hated every minute of training.  Hated every minute? Seriously? Why would you go through all that if you hated it? I guess being a champion was the most important thing to him, no matter what he had to do.  He must've trained for countless hours, weeks, years even in order to get to his goal of being a champion.  He hated it all that time? When I was running I mostly hated it, but loved it when I got to the end of my run. I loved what I was able to accomplish for myself personally with longer and longer runs.   I guess everyone says the trick is to love what you do, find a workout that you love, or a sport that you enjoy playing.  How sad would it be to go through life, hating every minute of what you do?  I like 9Round because for me it's something different.  Even if I hate parts of it, like mountain climbers or planks, it only lasts for 3 minutes, tops!



Where exactly is Nebraska?

Could you name all 50 states on a blank map? Can your kids? I don't think I could.  But I know that I would get more of them right today than I would've have before we moved to Nebraska.  I love this map of how New Yorkers view the rest of the country:

 

 

Nebraska is "somewhere in the middle" for sure.  One of my New York friends (Courtney) was convinced that I was actually living in Wisconsin, not Nebraska, for the entire 2 years I lived there.  My husband kept thinking that we were moving to Kansas, not Nebraska, until we actually got there.  Here's a real map of the USA for our lesson today:

 

 

This is how I described to people where Nebraska is:  Locate Texas (you should be able to do this btw), then go straight up - that's Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plain), above that is Kansas (home of Dorothy and Toto), and above that is Nebraska (home of Warren Buffett and lots of cornfields).  It's pretty much right in the middle of the country.  Some states I just can't remember where they are, like Indiana (sorry Tonya). 

 

One of my coworkers in Nebraska asked me if my family used to go to the beach a lot, since we lived in North Carolina.  I told him no, we lived almost 4 hours from the beach, and that it was really too far to drive very often.  He was from Omaha, where the closest beach is over 20 hours away.  I guess the definition of "close" is relative.

 

While we lived in Nebraska, we visited Des Moines, Iowa,  and Kansas City, Missouri.  When we drove home to North Carolina, we passed through Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  My husband keeps telling me that we should get a big RV and drive around for vacations.  See the Grand Canyon! National Parks! Camping! This does not sound like a vacation to me, as I hate driving and really enjoy room service.  Our 3 day drive from Nebraska to North Carolina was enough driving to last me for a loooong time. The next long drive we take better have Disneyworld on the other end!

I'm baaaaaack!

After 2 years in Omaha, Nebraska, we decided to call it quits.  We made this decision for several reasons, including below zero temperatures, being far away from our families, and generally finding ourselves in the Midwest middle of nowhere.  My husband got a great job offer back in Charlotte, so we decided to move back across the country.  Never have I been so glad to hear southern accents and drink sweet tea.  I am back to being an accidental stay at home Mom.  Although this time I suppose it was accidentally on purpose. 

We were able to move back into our same house in NC.  We had rented it out for the past 2 years and we were glad to find it in good shape upon our return.  I think that we were very lucky in that regard and I am very thankful.  We got rid of a lot of furniture when we moved to Omaha, so now the house has some empty spots.  I also am noticing how some of my 10-15  year old furniture is not holding up so good anymore.  Well I guess it will give me something to shop for.