Calendar challenges

I sat down tonight to put everything from our home calendar and my phone calendar into my new life planner. Between what's in my head, what's on the fridge, and what's in my phone, it's amazing I haven't missed more appointments in the last couple months.

C's school has umpteen events, the preschool has a ton going on, I have work appointments and, when I can, I see my friends. I the middle of all that there are the kids themselves, the husband, and the simple fact that I work 25 hours per week.

Oh, yeah, and that coaching thing that I want to do. Four four day seminars being hosted in a town over an hour away. Seminars that I somehow have to fit into my already hectic life.

The first seminar is scheduled for the first week of May, Wednesday through Saturday. That Monday M kicks off a 4 week trial and that Friday C has grandparent's day at school followed by a Spring concert in the evening.

The second seminar is scheduled for the first week of June, same days... that week C is off school Thursday and Friday.

We'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. It might involve a bunch of driving to get back for the concert, and it might involve hiring a temporary sitter for those four days to drive the kids around and be there in the evening. But it definitely won't be easy or guilt-free. 

When I first got everything down on the page of the planner, I blanched. The timing couldn't be worse. The timing could never be worse. There's always going to be a school event, a daycare thing, a work to do. There's always going to be me facing two paths - the mom path and the personal path - and feeling torn no matter which I chose.

I looked to see if maybe there were alternate seminar dates, but for the time being these are the only two sessions offered. I hesitated, looked at the already chaotic week, then I wrote them down in the book, in pen no less, and I made a mental note to find a childcare solution for the days I'd be gone.

If I didn't truly believe that this was the road I need to take to eventually be home more for my kids, if I didn't truly believe that this was the right path for me, I might have shrugged my shoulders, closed the book, and moved on. But I need to remember that those two paths - the family path and the me path - they bob and weave and intersect over and over again. Even more importantly they feed off of each other.

I can't be a great mom if I'm not at peace inside my head, and I can't be at peace inside my head if I don't pursue my dreams. Maybe the calendar challenge is really a big deal, or maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill - letting Egmos do his thing, creating the doubt, making me think I'm not worth the effort and the extra hassle.

Either way, I'll find a way to make it work. I have to.

Money, money, money.... not that funny

Thank you to TurboTax for sponsoring my writing about household finances.Learn more about how TurboTax can help you find every tax deduction you deserve. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

I have... issues with money. I just looked through my archives so I could link back to some posts and prove this to you, but each and every post touching on money that I've written or attempted to write is apparently sitting in draft mode destined to remain unpublished and unread. If that isn't proof enough, I don't know what is.

I don't want to go into details. It's not worth it really. Suffice it to say that anything to do with money causes me great anxiety. So, instead of dealing, budgeting, tracking, being smart, I leave it all up to M.

Checks come in for work I've done and I stack them on the mantel. Presumably he takes them to the bank because they don't linger up there for long.  I only notice because they're gone when I put new checks up there.

I know. My attitude is somewhat horrifying.

Fact is, it's easy for me to be lazy and hands off about our family finances. I married a man who's great at saving money. He keeps my our spending in check and he stashes everything away. He's smart and he's responsible and so I can hand my checks off to him and close my eyes. And while it works wonderfully from a stress perspective, it means that today I have no idea what I've earned this year.

I've been working hard. I've been bringing in money. But beyond my regular paycheck, the rest is a bit of a blur. Since we don't live paycheck to paycheck, whatever I earn just goes into savings. It takes away the pressure of needing to count the pennies rolling in. It also means that I can accept gigs because of what they are rather than what they pay and if the payment is late... truthfully, I barely notice.

It hasn't bothered me at all for the last year, but now I want to have a better sense of what's coming in. How well have I really done? I struggled for a year freelancing and earning peanuts, now that I'm actually earning money blogging and writing I'm curious to know what it amounts to. Is it at least paying for my book habit?

Add to that the fact that, should everything go as planned, I'm going to be growing that freelance income by leaps and bounds, and really, it's high time for me to start keeping track of my income. Eventually it will come to impact our family finances as more than just savings. When that day comes I want to be actively involved in the process.


It's another of my hopes and plans for the year. I'll say here for the first time so you can all witness it: "I am willing to become financially responsible and aware." 

Now I just need to figure out how...

Are you willing?

Hot on the heels of my epiphany about my future career, I rushed out and bought some books on the subject.  On the recommendation of the coach who inspired me to take the leap I purchased the books sold by the three nearby schools to see which had a philosophy I could really endorse.

The first book I read, the one put out by the school this particular coach had attended, had some really interesting points that caused me to stop and think.

Instead of thinking about goals and absolutes, this program inspires people to think about their life's intentions. Who do you want to be? What do you want to be known for? 

There's a long list of possible life's intentions to get the thought process started, but what really struck me wasn't just this notion that we can work towards our overarching intentions, but more how we have to frame our intention.

It's one thing to say you want to do or be something. It's another to say you are willing to do or be it. One puts you outside of the action, the other puts you smack dab in the middle of it.

As Maria Nemeth says in Mastering Life's Energies, "The secret to using affirmations in a way that works is to affirm what you know to be true now, not what you hope to be true in the future. You already are who you are willing to be."

So saying "I will be skinny when..." doesn't really work. It's nebulous and intangible. Instead "I am willing to take care of my body" is something you can do today that puts you on the path of the intention. It might not yet be true, but at least you're taking the first step in the right direction.

So here it is people, some of the things I am willing to be and do today.

- I am willing to take care and be proud of my body.

- I am willing to be a successful writer.
- I am willing to be an attentive mom.
- I am willing to be a supportive and fun wife. 
- I am willing to be a good supportive friend.
- I am willing to embrace my true potential.
- I am willing to be open to what comes next.

What are you willing to be? What are you willing to do? How does changing the wording change the way you feel about your intention?

Winter in California

On Thursday I was shivering in Dallas, thanking online friends for reminding me to throw my winter jacket in my suitcase.

44F in Dallas, Texas. How wrong is that?

I came home and smiled when the pilot announced that the temperature was a balmy 66F at 7pm in San Jose. It's been cold for a while. It's lovely to see the warmth return.

We know it's a fluke. We know the rain will come back and the temperatures will drop again. But this weekend we took wanton advantage of the weather.

Sandcastles in January. How wrong is that?

The Journey Begins with a Single Book

Her fingers glide under the words, following along as her mouth stumbles over some words and lets others flow out.

We are both snug in her top bunk and I'm trying hard not to think about the tiny railing right behind me. I built this bed and while I'm confident that it will hold her 40lb body safe, I have considerable doubts that it would do the same for my significantly heavier one.

"hhh....a.....t"

She hesitates and glances at the picture.

"Pan!" She says triumphantly.

"Don't look at the picture, read the word." I chide gently, smiling at the silly image of a boy wearing a pan as his hat.

She goes back to the word and reads it flawlessly this time. We high five over our grins and she keeps reading.

A page or two in, I pause and ask her to explain to me what's going on in the story. We laugh for a moment at the ridiculous image of a pig sitting on a tin man's lap and we resume our reading.

Not long ago I was the one who read to her, the keeper of the words, and she was the one who interrupted with the questions.

I shift a little, poking her pillow into a better place. I love to read - can devour a book in mere hours - and I've cherished evening reading fests with my girls - stacks of books piled precariously next to us on the couch.

The reading material is changing over time and the voice of the reader is getting younger. Even Little L is begging to be taught to read. But this shared intimacy over a love of book has remained a constant in our evening routine.

Through books I have traveled to the four corners of the world and imagination. Through stories I have learned about people's emotions, strength, joy, and sorrow. Books have shaped how I think and who i am and I'm proud to be holding my daughters in my arms as they start their own journey.


This post was written as part of a BabyCenter campaign to help promote literacy. Click here and take the pledge to read more to your child.

Another 100 Things

Last week I waxed poetic about the 100 things posts that used to be all the rage a couple years ago. I love those posts, they're such a fun way to get to know a blogger. The About Me page is always interesting, but something happens in the 100 things list.... the blogger's personality starts to shine through and before the end you really feel like you know the person behind the words.

I had a blast writing my first 100 things, so much so that I'm going to try it again. After all, I wrote that list 2 years ago; while the early stuff hasn't changed, I'm definitely not the person I was then. (My first 100 things post can be found here!)

So, without further ado...
1. I was born in France
2. Years and years ago (ok fine, 34 years ago)
3. I never, ever thought I'd live in California
4. In fact, I used to make fun of California
5. I have no idea why.
6. I love it here now
7. I can't fathom ever living somewhere else.
8. Something about seeing the sun almost every day makes me happy.
9. The last two years have felt like ten.
10. In a good way.
11. I've been looking for my path.
12. Two years ago I thought I'd found it.
13. Now I'm really sure I have.
14. I do worry that in two years I'll read that and laugh.
15. I want to be a life coach.
16. Well, I want that to be my career rather than just my friends' private coach.
17. I have a great plan for making that work.
18. It's going to take a while,
19. but I'm not letting myself get discouraged.
20. I have two delightful daughters.
21. And one fictitious son - Max - who lives only in my heart.
22. Really, fictitious. Honest. Dream baby, not angel baby.
23. I have somehow created a life for us that is based in a town we don't live in.
24. Friends, schools, community... all 30 minutes away.
25. We hardly know our actual neighbors.
26. This makes playdates rather challenging.
27. But it does mean we can go to the grocery store in our pajamas without worrying about running into anyone we know.
28. Of course we go to the grocery store in our jammies.
29. Our Safeway is across the street from a University.
30. We'd stick out like sore thumbs if we didn't wear jammies.
31. That's just another reason I love living in CA.
32. You can't go to the grocery store at night in France.
33. I haven't been home in over four years.
34. I miss it.
35. If I'm honest, I really mostly miss my friends.
36. Though maybe also the yogurt aisle and the chocolate aisle in the grocery stores too.
37. I love chocolate.
38. I love candy even more.
39. Gummy candy. Especially if it's a little stale.
40. That might explain why I never lost the second baby weight.
41. I lost some, but not enough.
42. I find it hard to muster the energy to want to do something about it.
43. Then I go shopping and I get depressed.
44. I don't go shopping very often.
45. I do buy too many books.
46. I can't help it.
47. I love to read.
48. I get terrified at the thought of having nothing to read.
49. I'm also addicted to reading comic strip anthologies.
50. It's what I read during the week.
51. I think it's why I'm good at writing dialogue.
52. I save novels for weekends.
53. I usually read one per week.

54. I've done the math on what that costs, so I don't buy all the books.
55. I borrow some when I can.
56. But I'm still addicted to book stores.
57. I love walking around amongst the shelves, imagining my books being there one day.
58. I've written one book.
59. I have pages of notes on two others.
60. I'm not sure I'll ever manage to finish editing the first though.
61. Every time I finish a round of edits I find new things to work on.
62. I can't let myself start on the new books until this one feels really done.
63. I'd much rather be writing than editing.
64. I worry that when I finally send out my book to agents that they won't like it and that they won't hate it, they'll just think it's meh.
65. If I never get it fully edited, we'll never know.
66. I can find a million ways to procrastinate on editing.
67. 100 things about me post anyone?
68. I never thought I'd enjoy spending my mornings at Starbucks as much as I do.
69. I've met some really interesting people there.
70. Even if I lived closer to the kids' schools I'd still go there to work in the mornings.
71. Just too many distractions at home.
72. Like the Tv.
73. And the laundry.
74. And a million home improvement projects that never get done.
75. I could pretend that one day our house will be magazine ready.
76. but really, I don't ever want it to be.
77. I do want the laundry to get done and stay done.
78. A girl can dream, no?
79. While I'm dreaming, I'll dream for more time.
80. With more time I'd start knitting again.
81. I'd cook more too.
82. And I'd run.
83. I'm a failed runner.
84. I want to run. I love to run. But I get off the couch less and less.
85. That probably explains #41.
86. To be fair, I always jack up my back when I run.
87. I hate having an untrustworthy back.
88. Throwing out my back makes being a mom challenging.
89. We just got a Tempurpedic bed.
90. I'm having trouble adjusting to it.
91. I'm not good at handling change.
92. If it helps with my back I'll learn to live with it.
93. Right now I miss my cozy, cushy old bed.
94. It's not like I'm in it enough anyway.
95. To get everyone to school on time I have to wake up at 6am.
96. I am not an early riser.
97. I live for the weekends when M lets me sleep until 9.
98. Then the girls come cuddle with me.
99. That's when I know everything is well in my world.
100. It's not what I expected and it could change at any time, but right now I'll take it as is.

I bullied challenged some online friends to write their own 100 things. Click on their links below to get to know them too. And if you have your own 100 things -- current or not! Post it, please? I really do love them.

Being away

Our weekday routine is down pat.

I get up at 6:15 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 6am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I shower and have breakfast. At 7 the girls roll out of bed and head to the kitchen for breakfast, which I feed them while prepping C's lunch, getting their clothes ready, and finishing my tea.

M eats with the girls and helps me get them dressed, then, while I'm brushing their hair he kisses us all goodbye and heads off to work. Shortly after I load the girls into the car and start the long morning commute.

I drop one off in one town, head 20 minutes away to drop the other off, then I head to Starbucks for my morning coffee and to get my own day started.

At 5:15 I retrace my steps, dashing from work to pick up Little L. As I'm hurrying to daycare M is making his way to C's school to pick her up. We meet up at home around 6pm -- just in time to feed the girls and get them ready for bed.

On nights when M can't pick C up, I have to go from daycare to the school and then back south to our home. We get there around 6:45, making the evening a tad more challenging, but doable nonetheless.

When I go out of town things get a bit more hairy.

To get both girls to school and daycare on time, M has to be late for work. While L can be dropped off early, there is no early care for C. 8:30 is the earliest she can be dropped off, meaning there's no way for M to be at work before 9. And in order to be at daycare by 5:30, he has to leave work by 4:45, which makes for a very short work day. Not ideal for those lawyer types.

Once in a while when I have to be out of town for a conference or a work trip we make it work. We call in help -- relying on family and friends to collect one child while M is picking up the other. It works for a day here or a day there, but it's not something we like doing often.

It's looking like we're going to have to get used to it. 

The Life Coach program that I want to attend is located in Sacramento, about a two hour drive from here. There are four three day seminars that have to be taken on site. Add to that a blog conference or two -- key if I want to make a name for myself as a social media career coach -- and now we're talking 6 trips, 6 times when I really throw my family's routine for a loop.

It's the constant struggle that moms face. My dreams and aspirations versus the good of the family. 

We'll plan, we'll get help, we'll prep the girls and make it work. It won't be easy, but it won't be the end of the world either. And in the end it'll be well worth it.

I'll get to spend at least 12 uninterupted nights in a hotel room.

I mean... I'll have a career that allows me to be both fulfilled and the kind of mom I aspire to be. Ahem. Right. That's totally why it's worth it.

A glimmer in the quest for balance

Other than the need to define my "word," the movie Eat, Pray, Love left me with a quote that kept resonating in my head and my heart.

"Balance is never letting anyone love you more than you love yourself."

I heard that and something clicked. In my eternal quest for balance in my chaotic life, I've always looked for everything to be balanced inside my head, inside me, but what if that quote illustrates the simple central notion to balance? What if instead of everything being balanced within me, it's about being balanced within versus without?

• Never letting others believe in you more than you believe in yourself. 
• Never letting others challenge you more than you challenge yourself.
• Never letting others expect more or less of you than you expect of yourself. 

It's not just about all the things in your head and your heart being balanced against each other, it's about you being in balance with the world pushing up against you.

I headed up to bed after the movie ended, my head spinning with the revelation.

You don't balance in a void. You balance within your world. There's the world and there's you. The two halves of the scales have to match.

I've always thought that finding balance was something that happened inside, but really what you have to dig deep to find is the counter pressure to what the world is throwing at you. You can only feel where that pressure is hitting when you stop to focus on it. Taking time to listen and take stock helps you work thought the noise and the chaos. A whining child is an overwhelming annoyance until you focus and discover what is causing the distress and the ensuing noise. Once addressed - hunger, exhaustion, frustration - the annoyance disappears. The counter pressure has been applied.

"Who is expecting what and how does it compare to what I'm expecting of myself?"

Answer that question honestly and you'll be on the way to finding that coveted balance.

Random Act of Kindess Redux

A month ago I posted about my Random Act of Kindness issue, and granted I was beyond stressed at work, but the comments drove me batty for the most part.

I love you guys, I really do, but I must have been having trouble conveying the difference between random acts of kindness and random acts of charity, because 90% of the comments were of a charitable nature rather than kindness nature.

Then I let go of the ire and focused on what was really happening.

While at first I chaffed at the notion that not everyone was worthy or deserving of kindness, I quickly realized that the issue wasn't the kindness, the issue was the money.

With spare cash to hand out, we panic, we freeze.

I did.

I've had that $100 burning a hole in my pocket for a month.

I wanted to do something nice for someone at the airport. I did. I kept my family away from as many people as possible to keep from spreading the stomach flu more than absolutely necessary.


I wanted to pay for some coffee at Starbucks. I never found the right opening.

I would have paid for someone's food in a drive-thru line. There are none that we ever frequent.

I would have paid for someone's gas, but the logistics were beyond me. I couldn't leave the kids in the car to go inside and pay.

I made up for it in a ton of little ways - holding doors, smiling at strangers, chatting up people. I even gave computer support to a Starbucks patron! But I never doled out the cash.

After a month it finally occurred to me that it's not the recipients that are the issue - we're all worth of kindness. It's the money. When you throw money in the mix it shifts the balance.

If I smile at four people and turn their serious looks upside down, odds are they'll smile at four people themselves, and keep the smile ball rolling. But if I buy someone coffee and ask him to pay it forward, I've essentially indebted him to someone, not something I feel good about.

So I'm eating my words. And I'm taking the $100 and conducting a random act of charity. One that makes me feel like I'm also doing a random act of kindness.

Did you know that diapers aren't covered by WIC in California? So you can get formula and food for your kids, but you have to pay for diapers out of pocket? Consider how many diapers a child goes through in a childhood. (Also, please remember that you can't wash diapers in laundromats and that diaper services are more expensive than disposables.)

A woman showed up at a local shelter last month and told the shelter director that she had been limiting her baby's food and liquid intake so he wouldn't use as many diapers.

She was limiting his food and water intake because she didn't have diapers.

And I have $100 I don't know what to do with.

I can't donate $100 every month, but on the months I can, I'll be donating to Help a Mother Out, a local organization that donates diapers to women's shelters.

For the mom it's a random act of charity. For the child... a random act of kindness. It's a solution I can live with.


Do you have a random act of kindness to share? Spread the word and inspire others on the Yahoo! Ripples of Kindness site. 

Please note. I promised $50 to two commentors on the last post. I still haven't awarded that money. I'll pick two people at random tomorrow night, so if you want a chance to get $50 for a random act of kindness - or yes, charity of your own - go forth and comment.

My word is guide

One late evening, huddled in my sister's TV room, my sisters and I took advantage of the fact that the guys were out helping a neighbor look for a lost dog to turn on Eat Pray Love.

Not having read the book or even done much more than watch the previews, I didn't really have too many expectations. The story was a bit eh, the food scenes were mouthwatering, and the whole was somewhat entertaining. Nevertheless I walked away with a couple thoughts that kept working at me.

The first was, what's my word?

You know, the one word you'd use to represent you.

Vanessa had a surprisingly quick answer, but me, I drew a blank.

My first answer, "writer," was stripped from me with the injunction that the word couldn't be what you do. It had to represent who you are. I tried to argue that for me they are one and the same, but stony stares shut me up.

So I noodled. I thought. I pondered. And I finally came up with "Guide."

I am a guide. It's who I am. I guide my friends. I guide my husband. I guide my girls. And at times I even find myself guiding my coworkers.

And the thing is, I love being that person. I love being able to help people find their path.

Yesterday I attended a mother's group talk that was led by a Life/Career Coach. I listened to her talk and realized that what I do for free, she does for a living. And that I could do it too.

That realization was quickly followed by utter frustration, because seriously, just how many careers can one person undertake in one lifetime? I'm a novelist/writer. I'm a social media marketer. Both of those things are already quite time consuming. Where would I possibly fit a third full time career? Between the hours of 3 and 5 am? I don't think that would quite work.

I shoved the notion out of my head, but it kept creeping back in. I'm a guide. It's who I am. Why can't it also be what I do?

But I'm also passionate about social media and about writing. I'm passionate about the entrepreneurs I interview for my monthly column. I'm passionate about my novel. I don't want to give all that up, to walk away from all the work I've put into those fields.

After much more thought I think I've found a way I could combine it all. It sounds so right in my head and it makes so much sense on paper. I could train as a Life/Career Coach and apply what I learn to my social media world. I could coach others along their social media careers. I could also coach budding entrepreneurs, helping them get past the first painful hurdles.

I've always struggled with my decision to stay involved in social media. Unlike many I don't have a concrete career goal in that field. But this? This feels like it could be the reason I've been doing this for so long. And it could be a way for me to keep doing what I love while still being true to who I am.

Lost in code

I had such plans for the blog post I was going to write tonight.

Deep. Insightful. Moving.

I have it in note form in my notebook. All I had to do was type it up and post it. Then I had a couple emails to send and I was going to be done for the night.

Instead I decided to tinker with the html code for my blog. So I could embed that nifty little Facebook Like widget you see down there at the bottom of this post. Way down there. Because there's something wonky with the code and I can't figure out how to get the weird spacing fixed.

Not that I didn't try. I did. Which is why it's now bedtime - I'm trying, I'm really, really trying to go to bed earlier because that 6am wake-up call is brutal - and I still have not opened my notebook, looked at the post, or polished it up to the point where it would bring you to tears.

Yeah. I got lost in code.

I have officially out-geeked even myself. My high-school self has just seen into the future and is shuddering.

I just think it's pretty cool.

Which I guess is out-geeking even the geek above there.

Seriously. Bed time. Right?

Do me a favor. Like the post. Or the one below if you think this one is as ridiculous as I think it might be. Just humor me, I just wasted an entire evening on this.

My mom, she is weird. Also, it is cold in Chicago.

A friend just sent me better code. For the widget. But I am strong. And my bed is calling. So I shall tinker more tomorrow. That's how dedicated I am to my new bedtime. Aren't you proud?

A New Year Moment (With meme!)

I have a backlog of posts to write, but instead of jumping right in and picking up where I left off, I'm going to stop for a moment and savor the newness of the year.

I was always that girl who rolled her eyes when people tried to recap a whole year. It always seemed so... trite. How do you sum up a whole 365 days in just a few sentences. Each month, week, day, should be allowed to stand alone without being tainted by the surrounding moments.

This year as the clock wound it's way down to the end of 2010, I found myself a little nostalgic and a lot introspective. In the spur of the moment I wrote down some questions to torture inspire my New Years Eve guests. I'm still loath to recap a year, but it doesn't hurt to take a look back so we can learn from what we've lived. How else can we grow?

I thought I'd post my questions - and my own answers - here, to share with you and to ask you to answer too. show them that I really didn't mean to be evil. Honest. I'm putting in a Mr. Linky so you can come link back to your post! You don't have to answer all the questions. Feel free to pick and choose!

Can you sum up your personal 2010 in just one word? 
Duh. Starbucks.


Best thing you ate in 2010?
Biscuits and gravy at Type A Mom Conference in Asheville this fall. Mmm. I want more!

What do you feel you wasted time on last year?
Too much griping over stupid things I could easily change with a shift in attitude and focus. Enough already!

One regret from the past year?
Wasting time on silly things instead of working more on my book. This year I'm more focused and determined than ever.


What do you wish you'd spent more time doing in 2010?
Talking to my kids. Really, seriously, talking to them. No distractions. They're really funny and have fascinating insights. I need to make more time to just be with them.

What's one thing from 2010 you hope not to relive ever again?
Stomach flu the night before taking a plane cross country at the same time as the 5yo. Blegh. Giving that flu to everyone we went to visit sucked pretty badly too.

What one accomplishment from 2010 are you proud of?
I finished my book. I finished two rounds of edits. And then I sent it to a select group of people to read and didn't crumble under their critiques. Yay me.

What one dream do you hope to realize in 2011?
I'm going to finish the next round of edits of that book, then I'm going to sell it. Or at least get an agent whose job will be to sell it for me.

What one extravagance do you want to experience in 2011?
I wouldn't say no to a trip to Hawaii, but I really just want to go home for a week or two. Walk around the streets of Paris. Kiss and hug my friends. Meet their kids. Breathe the Paris air and show my kids where mommy grew up. That would be priceless.

So? You in? Copy the questions and answer in your own blog or in the comments. I'd love to know more about you and your year.