tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69053126966990482662024-03-05T07:17:31.604-08:00mommy goes to b-schoolRandom stuff about mommyhood, school, working full-time, and anything else that I happen to think of.natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-35312561637121833062012-02-17T13:21:00.000-08:002012-02-17T13:21:39.167-08:00Courtney Spoo 5K Walk - Last Chance!!Courtney had a little trouble with the original url, so please use <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/Courtney-Spoo/" target="_blank">http://www.gofundme.com/Courtney-Spoo/</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJcIGryHTijxsDUiEGHx8-QOlJiZJNcT5aU0t16jl6nC4NtaqvO8c96Ek2AeC54rE9zCzF_f-62_LuEI3MxfmRE2T_9dJ8h80aQg2lSGP7NATo6XMfPYyyNuaMQElwmo3zexpmkI2VflZO/s1600/Courtney_flyer_fixed_final.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJcIGryHTijxsDUiEGHx8-QOlJiZJNcT5aU0t16jl6nC4NtaqvO8c96Ek2AeC54rE9zCzF_f-62_LuEI3MxfmRE2T_9dJ8h80aQg2lSGP7NATo6XMfPYyyNuaMQElwmo3zexpmkI2VflZO/s640/Courtney_flyer_fixed_final.png" width="480" /></a></div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-11496134390723101672012-02-07T21:33:00.000-08:002012-02-07T21:33:44.646-08:00Courtney! Help Courtney before I lose my mind!Here is the corrected flyer. Please donate or pledge before I lose my mind. This is my first time ever organizing something like this, but Courtney is such a cool person and mom that I just had to do something. It's easy to donate or not donate to all these "causes", but rare that you get to actually have a hand in helping someone that you could meet (if you walk with me on the 19th!) Also, I have screwed this flyer up so many times, please don't let my lack of attention to detail prevent you from helping Courtney with her chemo bills.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIzkBlpEIzm6Za1AU6b73xM2dKt2ITlKNzHPGp8m3HN1D3KGHLB0sa9t2yy_Nqy6ixH6xISlMCB9feYEJ9bXILuCqlHnnSYckfZ-VWfAS0G3ga8XmucJhSn0FzNzVMhI_Qy6VKUd7ChsRY/s1600/Courtney_flyer_fixed_last_time.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIzkBlpEIzm6Za1AU6b73xM2dKt2ITlKNzHPGp8m3HN1D3KGHLB0sa9t2yy_Nqy6ixH6xISlMCB9feYEJ9bXILuCqlHnnSYckfZ-VWfAS0G3ga8XmucJhSn0FzNzVMhI_Qy6VKUd7ChsRY/s640/Courtney_flyer_fixed_last_time.png" width="480" /></a></div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-31517404141343890212012-01-25T21:37:00.000-08:002012-02-02T20:32:01.381-08:00Courtney Spoo 5K Walk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKf5SaU5eEJZ717ZAy6YPOqLCs8b9yn9HEqOwWqeHlsb9EZ7Km69Ij-qOIHOiHU4by_ctPt_-IRewfYA3cKK2JWxJTns8Y7IsCtO_FupieIFsY_fxWhMkCsuhnQhE2rAJQOFLmjhlDhHGN/s1600/Courtney_flyer_fixed3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKf5SaU5eEJZ717ZAy6YPOqLCs8b9yn9HEqOwWqeHlsb9EZ7Km69Ij-qOIHOiHU4by_ctPt_-IRewfYA3cKK2JWxJTns8Y7IsCtO_FupieIFsY_fxWhMkCsuhnQhE2rAJQOFLmjhlDhHGN/s640/Courtney_flyer_fixed3.png" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-57246601210101567002011-11-01T10:24:00.000-07:002011-11-01T10:24:27.283-07:00Bling My Bag<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I recently got a new company-issued laptop. It's a behemoth, a 17-inch with a battery back that adds another two or three inches behind the hinge to its girth. This presented a serious problem for me. It won't fit into my cute laptop roller bag. In fact, I scrolled through many websites and could not find anything it would fit in for less than $400. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdu4tgXkMhdMsDefAvZmVDdO5BvEh4jBaIQqmyvLlR8GEEmWPMDIdNrCmW9owNZ1K-DDxtFk4cjX5FHuWDl2HL0kuZo5-W61xcGtm1KIPM3NeQ-91yM8UGswipa8ae2hiUjGTwLPDB02hv/s1600/bag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdu4tgXkMhdMsDefAvZmVDdO5BvEh4jBaIQqmyvLlR8GEEmWPMDIdNrCmW9owNZ1K-DDxtFk4cjX5FHuWDl2HL0kuZo5-W61xcGtm1KIPM3NeQ-91yM8UGswipa8ae2hiUjGTwLPDB02hv/s320/bag.jpg" width="191" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I ended up with this bag. It's company-issued, it fits my laptop, and it's . . . well . . . meh. I feel like I got lost on my way to LAX. It needs <i>something, </i>that <i>je ne sais pas</i> that magically transforms it. So that's where you all come in. Please help me transform this blah bag.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here are the constraints:</span><br />
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<ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">It has to be work-ready. Nothing that is going to get me stereotyped into the cat lady or the nutty Disneyphile, for example. It goes without saying that it can't be risque or involve anything NSFW.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The design has to be theoretically removable. This means that with some work I could take it off if I ever have to give the bag back to the company. However, the likelihood that they will want it back after I am done with it is in reality pretty small. Which brings me to the next constraint . . . </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">It has to be durable. The reason I didn't just go with a cute tote is that<b> I am hard on "stuff"</b>. I break things, spill things, swing things around. And if I don't, DD surely will. So it has to be built to last.</span> </span></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I can follow directions fairly well, even semi-complicated ones, but I am no da Vinci. If you give me a pattern, I might be ok.</span></span></li>
</ol><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">That's it. Design away! Please give me your ideas; I'll post the finished product as soon as it's done and make sure you receive your due credit.</span></div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-19280492703919174372011-09-10T16:19:00.000-07:002011-09-10T16:19:25.791-07:00Insomnia: A Tragicomedy<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's been a really, really long time since I could sleep on my own without some kind of chemical help. Too long. Along the road, I have blamed my insomnia on all sorts of things. Maybe writing it out will help me figure out what it really is. Or maybe it will just be entertaining.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I've always been a light sleeper; maybe it's better described as a dark sleeper. If there is a smidgeon of light shining through the window, I know it and I'm up. If there is sound outside my window, I'm up. I can rarely take naps - only if I'm completely exhausted or in the first trimester of pregnancy, and there's nothing else to worry about. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">However, things got much worse somewhere down the road. It's easy to blame it on pregnancy (if you slept like a rock through all three trimesters, I bet you have a colostomy bag) or the extreme sleep deprivation of those first few months of my daughter's life. In fact I think the most ludicrous advice I have heard about child-rearing, at least for me, was to sleep when the baby sleeps. I have to pause a minute to let out all of the expletives in my mind associated with that phrase . . . ahh now that's better. Ok. I couldn't "just sleep" when my daughter slept. I don't nap, and especially don't nap when I am worried about the baby. I had post-partum depression and anxiety, and a million things could have gone wrong with said baby if I took a nap! There were a zillion things I could be doing at naptime! Like cleaning (which I hate to this day, and would beat myself up about because if I couldn't do such a simple task then I must certainly not be able to take care of a baby), sanitizing pumping equipment, sanitizing bottles, doing laundry, obsessing over whether she slept, et cetera, et cetera. So I didn't sleep much at all.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then when she did sleep, we all got sick. I got sick for a very long time. That's what happens in daycare, it doesn't stay in daycare. Oh no. It comes back to your house and infects your whole family. I remember our first Thanksgiving party at daycare when all of the parents were there and I had bronchitis and I covered my mouth when I coughed. And another mom said, "Don't bother; we all have it." And she was right. Hubby and I burned through our sick days and then our vacation like it was truly en fuego. Luckily the happy munchkin would bounce right back; she's had two and a half rounds of antibiotics in her entire 3 years and three months' existence. In contrast, I had 13 rounds of antibiotics in one year. On top of the PPD which I still had, I was now either sick or recovering from the side effects of the antibiotics for six straight months. This combination, I tell you, will truly drive you to the nuthouse. Things were happening to my body that most people dare not to speak of, and they were chronic. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Somewhere in the haze of the sickness, somewhere around her year and a half mark, I realized I needed serious help to sleep. I was no longer sleeping every other night; it was more like two nights no sleep, one night six hours. Rinse & repeat. So I went to my GP and got a prescription for Ambien. Sweet Jesus, rest at last! I slept GREAT on Ambien. I would bound out of bed the next morning with a big ol' smile on my face. This was awesome for about two or three weeks, which is about the time the doctor told me I should wean myself off of Ambien. Easier said than done. One of the side effects is that you can't sleep the day after you take it! Or the day after that. Or the day after that . . . </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Four months went by, and I decided I needed another GP. I was snapping at my husband over the tiniest little things and crying every day. Every day. It was then that I got a new GP and went through a sleep study (I most definitely do not have sleep apnea and I do have severe chronic insomnia), and we determined that maybe some happy pills were in order, as well as a therapist.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That was probably the best advice I had gotten to date. The therapist and I worked on why I thought I was a bad mother, which had a lot to do with that sentence a few paragraphs back that went, "If I can't do x, then how can I possibly expect to do y" and a lactation consultant who might be super-qualified to help you figure out how to latch, but has never had a day of PPD training in her life. More expletives in the head. . . that's better. So I started to get better sleep hygiene habits, and started a worry journal. The worry journal was great after a few weeks, as I could look back at all the stuff I worried about and see that either it worked out fine, or it didn't and I got over it. So the depression went away.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But not the insomnia. So I eventually quit the therapist, stayed on the happy pills, and decided a glass or two of wine would knock me out just fine, or some melatonin. And they did, and that was fine, till I got bored of drinking wine (I know! perish the thought) and read that melatonin was not good if you wanted to get pregnant. Because we were fine, right? And we want another baby. Well my body told me that we were NOT fine, and eventually I went back to the doc and was given an anti-anxiety med. This one worked GREAT for sleep, it still does. But it's not one of those things you take when you want to get pregnant. In fact, it's gone rockstar-bad for some people. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Finally this spring I decided maybe I needed a psychiatrist. She switched my happy pills to happier pills and finally the anxiety is going away. She tells me maybe now is not a good time to get pregnant (and I agree, reluctantly). Maybe I have to sleep on my own before it's a good time. Ok. Then work got REALLY crazy. I'm doing two fulltime jobs! I even got Employee of the Month, which is awesome if you're single and have no attachments. Now it's a reminder to me of how much time I had to spend with people at work and not my family, how much I missed out on this summer. Thank you, I'd gladly pass up that award and the plaque and the nice paperweight in exchange for my overtime back as vacation. Alas. . . </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We recently went for a trip to see our families. It was awesome. I finally stopped obsessing about work and have decided that I'll give them my all for 40 hours a week, but that's it. That seems to be helping. But I am scared to ease off that insomnia medication. Every time I have tried (before family trip), it goes like this. <i>Ok I'm not taking it tonight! I'm gonna sleep! Umm what if I don't? Oh no it's x am and I'm not asleep! Oh no! . . . let's think about. . . a song! (get pumped up on song) Noooo I want to sleep! Let's think about nothing. Nothing turns into something . . . </i> I psych myself out of sleeping. Hmm.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So I guess I don't really fit any type of description of insomniac anymore. Kid's too old and I'm too happy with her for it to be PPD. I've been practically bulletproof from sickness (cross my fingers) for the last year and a half, so it's not that. Stress at work has eased. I'm an insomniac for no reason. Yay me.</span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-17452680127324616242011-06-12T15:35:00.000-07:002011-06-12T20:49:07.955-07:00Going Paleo<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">By now, I'm calling it official: we're going <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet">paleo</a>. The<a href="http://www.robbwolf.com/"> paleo diet</a> just makes sense for our family. It started out with Hubby. During <a href="http://www.dragondoor.com/">kettlebell</a> class, he became more and more interested in this diet that was supposed to make you stronger and feel better. That led to research and reading and soon he was on the paleo diet.</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I found this to be terribly ironic. Four years ago, I went in tears to a nutritionist. I was uncontrollably itchy and had been living this way for over a year. None of the doctors could find anything wrong. I also have P<a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/polycystic-ovary-syndrome/DS00423">olycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)</a>. She looked at my diet and said, "All I see is sugar, sugar, sugar." She advised me to quit wheat, gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, and any fruit except Granny Smith apples. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The results were extraordinary - I quit itching within a day and felt truly better in a week. I ate this way without fail for about four months, and since I have not returned to eating the same foods. My Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (which has been traced to insulin resistance) disappeared. Of course, after I raved about it, Hubby forgot about it until he saw it in class. Husbands! </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">At any rate, Hubby went entirely paleo very quickly. I have been making the conversion gradually. The household itself, though, had already started making the transition. Nobody ate the bread and it went moldy. My daughter, M, is eating cereal only around once a week. We started having grass-fed beef <a href="http://www.openspacemeats.com/">delivered to our door</a>. We started building a home vegetable garden with blueberries and strawberries as well. At a festival one weekend, a <a href="http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/index.php">vendor</a> asked what we would think about having organic fruits and vegetables delivered straight from the farm - I said sign us up! So now we're taking full advantage of the farmlands north of us and getting it way cheaper than the grocery store, too. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">During this time, Hubby dropped 15 lbs. (and counting) without dieting. I started to feel better and the junk food and wheat just weren't around. M still drinks milk of course, and we still have cheese occasionally, but that's about our only cheat (except for my continual love of wine). Our final decision came when we had to pick what we were doing for her lunch at her new school. They have what they call "hot lunch" at a rate of $4.50/day (ouch!), consisting of sandwiches and potato chips, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and pizza. Alternatively you can pack your little munchkin's lunch. We have been rather spoiled at our current daycare, where an on-site chef is employed full-time. But now, we decided we couldn't in good conscience or good financial sense go with the hot lunch option. This actually simplifies things because now we'll be making lunches for three ahead of time instead of one. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Hubby has been really creative with our diet. Instead of having chili, we'll sub the beans out for broccoli slaw. We eat all kinds of fruit and vegetable varieties, as you never know what's ready for picking from the farm and will show up at the door. We eat sweet potato fries occasionally. We make breakfast for M instead of throwing cereal at her in a cup on the way to school. And the infrared grill which makes all food rock is getting a true workout. And we actually eat leftovers before they go bad! Imagine that!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Since we made the switch, we're finding out some of our friends have been doing this for a long time, some of them for various health reasons. We're not alone.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">One more reason I <3 steak!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In all this craziness, I have found that sometimes it is actually <i>better</i> to work a little at night and on the weekends so that I can get ahead of my overloaded to-do list. This is contrary to what I usually have experienced in the past; normally this just makes me crazy. But since the work itself isn't all that bad, just the amount of it, things seem to go better when I put in an extra hour on the laptop here and there with no distractions.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The other thing I discovered is how much a workout can take a load of stress off of you and just burn it off. Last week I felt simply panicked at how much was on my plate, and burned rubber to get to Zumba in time to screech into a parking spot and run in. Soon I was working so physically hard that I forgot all about my other stuff. Much to my family's delight, I was a much more calm and pleasant person. The key is to find something that you love to do to expend all that energy, not just slaving away on the treadmill (unless you're into that sort of thing). So don't lose yourself so much in taking care of other people or working that you forget to let yourself take care of yourself once in awhile. You might even do it all better as a result.</span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-83080550283636592192011-02-03T20:49:00.000-08:002011-02-03T20:49:00.606-08:00The Juggling Act <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Yesterday morning, I was feeling pretty together. I even got a compliment from my daughter's daycare teacher on our littl<a href="http://www.mabelslabels.ca/">e nametag clothing stickers</a> and wrote down the url for the site where we get them. I drove to work with a song in my heart, parked the car, popped the trunk and realized: <i>I left the laptop at home</i>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Yes it happens to the best of us and I am, admittedly, not the best planner and organizer. However I do manage to hold my own - most of the time. I've come a long way from the disheveled mess I was two years ago. I have taken some well-published advice and made up a few tricks along the way, adding in a dash of Lean and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). Here's my crazy method that usually works well:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Rule #1. Do little tasks when you remember them, not when it is convenient</b>. If I would have put my laptop into my trunk the minute I finished with it, like I usually do, I would have never had that 'doh! moment the other day. Or when I saw it in the hallway at 10pm the night before. Or at 7am in my pj's. This goes for taking out the trash, taking the laundry downstairs, and pretty much everything else that is easy to forget repeatedly. If you are a parent, you are constantly distracted and the chance of derailment by munchkin or anything else is very high.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Rule #2. Sync calendars with your partner</b>. This way, you don't get sidelined by a surprise activity, whether that is a commitment that one of you made that the other might have forgotten, or something else that one of you plans to do but forgot to tell the other one. The added benefit is if one of you forgets to look, the other one picks up on the activity in their calendar. In business we call this having a project plan. Here, your family is the overall project. As in business, don't put every little task or reminder in here or it gets cluttered up and ignored, and you have no concept of what the big stuff is anymore.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Rule #3. Try, try, try to put your stuff in the same place.</b> Everyone knows this and we're all guilty of breaking this rule at one time or another. Sooner or later it catches up with ya.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Rule #4. Get your kid to help you</b>. I was shocked to find out how helpful a two-year-old could be. If they have enough motivation they can accomplish quite a bit, like finding lost keys, cleaning up, etc. and may well find the task more enjoyable than you ever would.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Rule #5. Stick to structured routines</b> during the week and leave the spontaneous things for the weekend. If you always do the same routine, chances are it takes a lot less effort to remember. For my morning, it's get dressed, check on the munchkin, feed the fish, feed the cats, start the coffee, make breakfast. Like clockwork. Little kids crave routine - can you really blame them? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Rule #6. When it all comes crashing down, laugh, brush yourself off, and forgive yourself.</b> None of us are perfect and things go wrong all the time. There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on it. As I learned in a well-known weight loss program, One day at a time, no guilt, and move on!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Two years ago in the middle of PPD, I would let something as small as forgetting a bib to completely ruin my self-image as a mother. Today, I remind myself that forgetting a bib is nothing more than that, forgetting a bib. If everyone's still alive and in one piece, you will recover and that's all that matters.</span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-18716879200717614162010-12-27T09:57:00.000-08:002010-12-27T09:57:44.822-08:00School, Parenting, and Networking - It Shouldn't Be ImpossibleThe <a href="http://www.princetonreview.com/business-school-rankings.aspx">Princeton Review</a> sends out a comprehensive survey to MBA students in order to come up with their B-school rankings. The survey asks questions about everything from the professors to the facilities, from minority to family-friendly programs. As I was taking the survey this year, I tried to honestly gauge where I felt my school was doing well and where it was missing something. One section really gave me pause. It went something like this, although I don't remember the questions exactly.<br />
<br />
On a scale of 1 to 5, would you agree with the following (1 is strongly disagree, 5 is strongly agree):<br />
<br />
<i>My school provides plenty of opportunities for networking.</i><br />
Yes, there are plenty of networking activities going on all the time. But I can't attend any of them because they take away family time.<br />
<br />
<i>My school has part-time options for working students.</i><br />
My school is 100% part-time; all the classes are in the evening. In this we excel. In fact, many students choose this school (including me) particularly because of the part-time non-cohorted aspect because they work or they have kids, or both.<br />
<br />
<i>My school provides resources for parent-students.</i><br />
What? What is that? I know I can't be the only parent, but I haven't run into anyone else that's a parent.<br />
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<i>My school provides daycare for children of students.</i><br />
Um, I think so. At least I know there is a daycare for the professors' children.<br />
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<i>Is there anything you feel is missing from your school?</i><br />
Now that you mention it, I would like to network with other students. But it would be really great to meet other working (or non-working) student-parents and network with my daughter, so I could spend time with her at the same time.<br />
<br />
Thus an idea was born and our school's MBA Parenting Network will kick off in February. So far there's been a lot of interest from the school staff and all that's left is to decide on an activity. We'll probably try to do a monthly activity and a network of contacts. Even if all we end up doing is swapping poopie horror stories, it will be well worth the time for the emotional lift and to know we're not alone.<br />
<br />
You needn't be an MBA student to start your own circle of similar-interest parents. There are a plethora of Mommy and Me-type organizations that already exist, or you can always start one of your own centered around your chief issues du jour. What are you waiting for? Get out there and make friends!natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-62504132651242713532010-11-24T22:10:00.000-08:002010-11-24T22:10:18.197-08:00In-scan-ity<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, the TSA has stepped up its <a href="http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/customer/customer_service_procedures.shtm">screening practices</a> with a choice between a high-powered scanner or a rather intrusive pat-down. Just as a friend <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/aWg1D">posted</a> earlier this week, I take issue with the idea that we need to participate in this three-ring circus.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The deeper problem, though, is our prevailing attitude towards technology, as if it's this panacea that's going to save us from goofing up at work or getting blown up on a plane, even if we take out rational thought processes. I see this at work when an analyst fires up a piece of software that he doesn't really understand and spends two hours on an analysis that he could have done with a five minute hand calculation. Oftentimes, he doesn't even know that his results are unreliable based on his inputs because he doesn't understand the fundamentals of what the software is trying to mimic. I see this in the parent-hysteria marketplace with GPS trackers for our kids, as if a kidnapper would never think to toss the kid's backpack from the outset. And we seem especially susceptible to technology worship when someone mentions the word "terrorist" or the phrase "homeland security". These words should be re-labeled as "fear of the unknown." How did we get so distrustful of our own instincts?</span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Is it the marketing, the fear of not being objective enough and/or getting sued, or are we just purely in lust with the whiz-bang factor of complicated machinery and the like? I wish I knew. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here are a few facts to inform you of the impact of your choices at the airport this season:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">1. It wasn't so long ago that world-renowned hospital <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/10/local/me-cedars-sinai10">Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles</a> was found to have accidentally zapped over 200 CT scan patients with more radiation than they thought they were using . . . This mistake went undetected for 18 months. The CTs were set up by medical professionals. The airport scanners are set up by the TSA.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">2. <a href="http://this./">This.</a></span></div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">3. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text">fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States</a> guards against unlawful search and seizure. I am pretty sure this extends to my private parts. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">4. <a href="http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/tsa-screener-terrorizes-3-year-old-girl">This poor 3 year old girl.</a> I can't even imagine what I would do if they did this to my daughter.</span></span></div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">5. Not one of the terror incidents on planes in the United States (including 9/11) would have been caught by this new scanning process or the pat-down and not by previous procedures. Not one. This process does not scan for liquids, so if you soak yourself in turpentine, you'd still get by (if you wore a ton of cologne I guess).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">6. It is only a matter of time until a terrorist sidesteps this process somehow, builds a better bomb, etc. We're treating this like an arms race when the terrorists treat it like more of a process to terrify us. Looks like it's working very well.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">7. People are getting rich off of this of course. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html">People you're at least vaguely familiar with.</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">8. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Gift-of-Fear/Gavin-de-Becker/e/9780316235020/?itm=1&USRI=intuition+safety+crime">Take a look at this book.</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> I read it while in college and it is still the best literature I have ever found on the topic.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">9. If you are more inclined towards a business approach, I refer you to Lean and Theory of Constraints approaches - technology is almost never the answer. As Edward Deming once said, "If you design it for any idiot to use, any idiot will."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In short, unless technology starts to approach the levels seen in <i>The Matrix</i>, all the scanners in the world are never going to be able to protect you as well as a human being with human instincts, intuition, and ability to read behavior, who has the backing of the authorities and/or their employer (as the case may be) to act on those instincts. That applies to scanners as well as analysis software and stranger danger. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-57729586702054278852010-11-13T16:18:00.000-08:002010-11-13T16:18:44.047-08:00Re-evaluation and Rejuvenation<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">I have to apologize for my lack of content in the last few weeks. I've been thinking about my decision to go to school while my daughter is so young. It is natural to re-evaluate your decisions every once in awhile and certainly it never hurts to check yourself before you wreck yourself. It all started like this . . .</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">I was doing some volunteer work for church and I met a fascinating woman in the process. Since we had a lot of downtime between customers for festival tickets, we had an abundance of time to get to know each other. She works in quite a different industry than me and also runs her own business. As we chatted about the realities of full-time working and full-time parenthood (in my opinion, there really is no such thing as part-time parenthood unless you mentally check yourself out of your kid's life), I began to think about my schoolwork and the stressful weekend the family had. We had run from place to place getting chores done and in my so-called "downtime" I was behind in my schoolwork, not to mention that work was feeling very non-rewarding at the moment. Then a friend stopped by to ask if I'd be willing to sponsor someone through the process of joining our church, which involves a very serious time commitment and an even more serious mental commitment. At this point I was standing in the rain and I just had it. I said that no I couldn't sponsor someone as I was barely together myself. After she walked away, I said "That's it I'm quitting school." </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">The remark wasn't callous - I truly believed I was done at that moment. I wanted a break! I wanted to sit and veg in front of the TV every night and maybe knit some. I wouldn't really gain much time with the munchkin as I don't ever try to do schoolwork when she's awake; at most I would gain three hours on school night. But I was drained.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">A few days later, I made an appointment with the faculty advisor to discuss a leave of absence. I wanted to quit for awhile and then re-evaluate whether I was truly done. The appointment was set for the day after I came back from visiting my in-laws. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">On the plane to the East Coast, I got all my homework done. I was finally caught up! I spent a few wonderful days with my fun family-in-law and rested my soul a bit. While reading the homework, I had some great academic discussions with my husband and realized I understood what was happening with our economy for the first time, and why it really mattered - as in how the decisions by our leaders and the public have such a dramatic effect on our daily lives. Maybe this b-school stuff wasn't so bad after all. I even squeezed in a visit to one of my company's other locations to see how they were doing and say hi to a few long-distance friends. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I discussed my thoughts with my mother-in-law. While my husband had said he just wanted me to do what I really wanted, I needed another person's opinion. Was this school stuff taking a toll on my daughter and husband that I didn't see? We had a great conversation. I will spare you all the details but I ended up knowing that it was worth slugging it out in school and I wasn't dragging the rest of the family down as a result (thank you Mom Mom!) As she pointed out well, as a mom you have to nurture your own soul if you want to nurture those around you. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I left the East thinking maybe I would stay after all. I cancelled the advising appointment. The next school day I went up to my professor's office to get the results of my midterm. He said that I was excelling in the class and he was glad I seemed to be very engaged. That really sealed it for me. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I did make some changes as a result of all this contemplation. At the beginning of every semester, I struggle with the right amount of studying and work to do. It is always a panic. Towards the middle of the semester, if I am doing well, I relax a little and don't freak out if I don't read the next chapter until an hour before class. I'll be looking in the spring to relax more towards the start of classes so I don't throw everyone in the household into a tizzy with me. Also I left a little of the guilt (there will always be guilt) and promised myself to enjoy learning again. As the munchkin would say, "Learning's my favorite."</span><br />
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</span></span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-78516129258827673442010-11-10T22:29:00.000-08:002010-11-10T22:29:44.907-08:00QE2<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Do you know what </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing" style="background-color: white;">QE2</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> is? If not you better figure out quick. This is going to affect all of our lives in the US, and even the lives of those around the world since the dollar is the benchmark currency. I suggest you figure out what it is very soon, and thus how you feel about it. It didn't work all that well in Japan by anyone's estimation, or even here in the US during the first quantitative easing. But we are looking at essentially printing money in the amount of 1/4 GDP into the economy. So all I'll say here is at least know what it is and where you stand. </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">This is a recurring point of discussion in many news outlets and econ classes for a very good reason. Printing money naturally leads to inflation, which has certain consequences . . . </span></span></span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-49628195498756664462010-10-02T15:27:00.000-07:002010-10-02T15:27:11.488-07:00Economics and E-Books<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">For my economics class this semester, I was presented with a choice of a traditional textbook or a digital book for half-price (and no shipping). I chose the digital textbook for many reasons, not just the price. For starters, I hate carrying a bunch of extra weight around every semester. This way, I can carry the laptop and that's it. It's one less thing to clutter up my kitchen island, one less potential target for happy-face stickers, one less giant paperweight at the end of the semester. Not to mention that nobody had to print the book or inventory the book or ship it. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">It's sort of fitting for an e-book to be offered for an economics class. The marginal cost is essentially zero (translation: the publisher can make as many copies as they want and it won't cost them anything more than it did for the first one), it's much less capital-intensive to produce, and the barriers to entering the e-book market are virtually nonexistent. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">However, the first principle of economics is that people face tradeoffs. Who's losing out on this transaction? At least in the world of fiction, the authors are, according to this <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575461542987870022.html">article</a> in the Wall Street Journal. Although authors now get a higher percentage of the sale, the overall sales price of an e-book is much lower than a paper book, so the net effect is a decrease in author payments. In addition, people so far are more likely to buy an e-book from a well-established, popular author than a newbie. The bookstore browsing model just doesn't exist much yet on the internet. <a href="http://www.librarything.com/blogs/thingology/2009/10/ebook-economics-are-libraries-screwed/">Libraries</a> are also getting worried. And there are the <a href="http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/the-kindle-and-questioning-the-economics-of-ebook-publishingthe-conversation-continues/">publishing houses</a>, of course. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">My best guess is that the business of books will work itself out the way that music has with the advent of .mp3's and iTunes. Marketers will have to get creative, of course, with emerging authors. But it's anyone's guess as to when that will happen, or if the situation will find a way to right itself before authors and libraries start to get out of the book business. What do you think? Have you read an e-book lately? Some people will inevitably prefer the weight and smell of an old dusty hardcover to the sanitary landscape of a Kindle. But then again, people used to like typewriters too.</span><br />
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</span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-19761332920531970042010-08-29T14:19:00.000-07:002010-08-29T14:24:38.504-07:00The BlackBerry, my Frenemy<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Last week, my company-issued BlackBerry Curve 8310 died. When I say it died, I don't mean that something malfunctioned; it simply would not turn on anymore. I was secretly excited. I figured I'd have a glorious carefree weekend without my electronic tether.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">After all, the BlackBerry (affectionately known in our household as the Crackberry; I have no idea who coined the term but we adopted it as our own) has been both the bane of and the panacea to my existence since it arrived at our household. My husband brought the first one home from work in 2004. It was a curious thing, and while I was impressed with its possibilities back then, it was also the chief relationship-interrupter. It would go off and my partner would drop everything. I found myself wanting to sabotage it and did everything I could to get him to ignore it. In fact, when we went on vacation in Hawaii, I intentionally buried my nemesis in a pile of dirty laundry in hopes that he wouldn't hear it. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A few years later, I was nine months' pregnant and my RAZR3 died. By this time I was lusting after the QWERTY keyboard and it now had access to the web. Thus began the "love" portion of the show. Through the next few months, when stay-at-home moms became my idols and I truly realized how amazing and rare that talent was, my new CrackBerry became the one connection I had to the outside world. I could breastfeed and check on the world news (which I was in no emotional position to check), read and surf the Web, chat with a friend, anything to get through that first few months.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">As I went back to work, the CrackBerry further embedded itself in my life. I received one for work shortly thereafter. At first, it was great because I could answer little emergencies without firing up my dinosaur of a laptop which took 20 minutes to load. I did start to observe, however, that perhaps I was spending a bit too much time paying attention to the CrackBerry and not, say, having a conversation. It was all too easy to confuse the urgent with the important.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Then the project at work got really crazy and my work CrackBerry started competing for my time with my child. Back to hating it I went. I would have done anything to go back to the RAZR; everyone expected that I read their email as soon as I got it. It is much easier to ask someone to work the weekend over email which seems less confrontational than actually having to talk to the person to do it, right? Soon I was working during almost every time my daughter went down for a nap.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lately, my husband and I are still in the process of learning to balance our electronic ball and chains with our personal lives. This certainly got worse when we bought iPhones for our personal use, to the point where our daughter, at 27 months, already tells us "No phone. I here" when we get sucked in. Fortunately, that all-too-embarrassing and telling moment is rare around here. If we were never admonished, it would be even better.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">At some point, we learned to turn the darn things off and to stop picking them up in our downtime. Life got a lot less crazy. We still do our share of zoning out from time to time, but we've realized our time with each other is a lot more important than what someone posted on Facebook or the latest work disaster. We pick them up when we know there's something in particular going on for work, but those weekends are the exception rather than the rule.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">All of which led me to anticipate a blissfully ignorant weekend. I did have my blissfully ignorant weekend, but I guess I haven't been noticing how many of those I've been having recently, so it was not all that different until Monday morning when I realized I had no idea where I was supposed to be. Did I have a meeting? Where was it? Somehow it really turned into my day-planner more than anything. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I'm not sure whether the smartphone has affected me in a positive or negative way. In some respects, my attention span is surely shorter than it used to be, but at least I am more prompt. As a society, we consume an astonishing array of information, but what we have gained in breadth, we might have lost in depth. When was the last time you read an entire newspaper instead of skimming the headlines on a website? Do these grown-up toys make our lives more enjoyable for what we can do with them, or have they killed our ability to find joy? What do you think? I'm sitting on the fence for now (with Pandora playing in the background, skimming the Wall Street Journal . . . )</span></span>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-22285464356910036522010-08-21T21:01:00.000-07:002010-08-21T21:19:49.211-07:00Back to school<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">When I tell people that I'm also a mom (if I'm at school) or that I'm going to school (to one of my mom friends), the reaction is usually about the same: "OMG!! R U SERIOUS?" Then the classmates ask me How can you Possibly Handle a Kid with school, or the moms ask how it's going and how I manage, because they're thinking about going back. Or they secretly also think I'm nuts.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">Let me explain how it works. I am not and never will be Superwoman. However, mommyhood gives you an edge over the average student. Whether you want to or not, you learn time management. As in if you do not drop whatever else it is you're doing RIGHT THIS SECOND, your kid is going to run into traffic / impale the cat / throw your favorite shoes into the toilet or God-knows-what else. So there is no option to study while your kid is awake. There is only naptime and nighttime (occasionally poopytime if it's a big one, sorry folks) so you better get it straight. This ongoing situation has made me terribly productive and aware of how valuable any free second actually is. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">I had lots of time to get it right before having a child. Seven years of college to be exact. I think I spent a year of that between the gym and the bar. Those days are gone, baby!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">This translates into being better at being a student in the following ways:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">1. So what if I have to start reading the textbook two weeks before class? That's the only way I'm going to cover the course material, and this is how I chose to spend my free time.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">2. Anything that doesn't involve Special Agent Oso is incredibly absorbing and interesting. Really. Anything.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">3. Group time in group projects is double time to get it done. Any minute spent in group time is time I could be spending with my kid. And I'd most likely rather be spending time with my kid. So if you're in my group and you want to flirt with another person in my group, you sure as hell better be doing it outside of group time, or I am going to go Chuck Norris on your ass.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">4. I have learned to give up most things that are not important or interesting. My time is filled up with the important and interesting, which is a really fun way to live. So yes I probably missed the Lakers game. But I can analyze a 10-Q.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">5. In all this busyness and chasing after the kiddo and schoolwork, I have also learned to be patient. Patient enough to take one class at a time and no summer classes . . . which means I will be graduating . . . not anytime soon. And that's just fine.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';color:#993399;">What do you think? If you had to do college again now, if you have a child, or even if you don't, would you be better at it the second time around?</span></div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-27679227413202399092010-08-19T20:49:00.000-07:002010-08-19T20:49:03.503-07:00The Science Embassy: Guest Post: Wilbur and Orville's Mom<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC33CC;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;">Just as I was about to start my own blog, I ended up doing a guest blog. Life is strange that way.</span></div><div><br /></div><a href="http://thescienceembassy.blogspot.com/2010/08/guest-post-wilbur-and-orvilles-mom.html?spref=bl">The Science Embassy: Guest Post: Wilbur and Orville's Mom</a>: "Introducing fellow science diplomat Natalie Straup. As we add more writers to this blog I will continue to update a list of diplomats on th..."natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905312696699048266.post-14838236029744226972010-08-17T22:16:00.000-07:002010-08-17T22:38:05.806-07:00Hello<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">This is a blog about the three main aspects of my life right now: being a mommy, working full-time, and pursuing an MBA at the same time. It's not easy, but it's what I do, and it's not rocket science (which is part of what I do at work). Hopefully you'll get a little bit of everything out of this.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">I became a mom in May 2008. I thought I would morph into the perfect, quintessential mom the moment I gave birth. That's not exactly what happened. What really happened is that eventually, my daughter taught me what is important in life, which turned out to be something different than what I thought it was. That process is still ongoing.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">As far as work goes, I can best describe myself as someone who has career ADD. I have a BS and an MS in Mechanical Engineering. As far as I knew at graduation, this would mark the end of the learning process and the beginning of 30 or 40 years of running around in a lab coat and solving the world's problems. How funny that seems to me now! I always imagined myself as a working mom. However, the picture a DINK (dual-income no kids) husband or wife has of a working mom in their head does not quite capture the reality. It has its really wonderful moments and its not-so-great ones.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#993399;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';">On top of all this and struggling with a post-partum mood disorder, (I will get to that at some point), I decided what I really needed was a Masters in Business Administration. Seriously. You can stop the chortling now. At the time, I was a bit bored with my current job (see ADD reference above), my husband was in his last semester of business school, and it looked like something interesting that had relatively little to do with what I was working on then, but enough to get someone to pay for it. Three cheers for working for a big corporation! I'm about to start my third semester. I've learned what works and some things that my family would definitely prefer I not take on. At the end of the first semester, I think I found the real reason I enrolled in business school. I want to make a difference in the world for the better, for my daughter and for everyone in a tangible way. I have always fantasized about working for a non-profit company, but I think I've found a way to help the world through business. That sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Save the planet! Save the people! Save the bottom line! Are these things really symbiotic? We shall see . . . </span></span></div>natdragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15014919442182672544noreply@blogger.com0