Don't Blink by Kim

Here we are 3 weeks after my last post and I'm not entirely sure what's happened. Di's been absolutely swamped with the projects that she's been working on. Her previous post vividly describes the challenges that she's been facing, as well as the validation that comes from being someone outside of wife/mom. And me? Well, I've been co-chairing the Spring Book Fair: "Carnival - Your ticket to read!" dontcha know. Book Fair essentially sends me down the rabbit hole for a solid 2 weeks and makes me long for the days where it was socially acceptable to start drinking at lunch (breakfast) and continue through the dinner hour. But we managed to get together for lunch last Friday and it was a rapid fire exchange as we crammed 3 weeks of news, laughter and commiseration into an hour and a half - it was AWESOME!

In my last post, I was weighing a couple possible job/career possibilities and needing to pick a direction. After several conversations with Honey, we decided to add an Operations Program Manager (that's me!) to The Sublime Group. Basically, we're going to tag team at companies that are looking to streamline, troubleshoot, and improve the relationship between Procurement and Operations. On paper it will allow us to:

1. Provide a client with a more fully integrated solution to Production issues since both are crucial to process improvement and overall success. (Look at me using the "Business speak" already...it's like I never left)

2. Provide me with the opportunity to put on my Career Hat (thus ending the existential / identity crisis that I've been having since quitting work).

3. Provide a way to manage at home so that Shorty's life isn't greatly affected by the change (thus alleviating some of the guilt I feel about getting back to work. Some.).

As I sit here, gloriously optimistic, I see a way to have my cake and eat it too. Time will tell, but irregardless, it's a step closer towards the balance of life that I've been looking for.

The BIG Experiment!! Diane's Final Day!!

6:30-7:30  Wake up.  Let Wonderful Hubby know that it's time to get up.  Start coffee, wake kids.  Go take shower and get ready for 7:30 meeting at the school.  Upset to be missing another day of working out.  Decide to wear stretchy comfy jersey wrap dress.  Decide that dresses are the best!  Wonderful Hubby has gotten kids all ready to go to school.

7:30-8:15  Stop car and take kids into school.  Get stopped by principal in lobby who has questions about "very important stuff". Late to meeting.

8:15-2:30  Head to office.  Worried that I will not add value and sit there mute in the corner.  Meeting with client #1 goes very well.  Actually had valuable input!  Am amazed by my AMAZING friend and her abilities.  Office is fun and I like it.  Invited to join in meeting with client #2.  Call Mr. Wonderful to see if he can pick up the kids and a playdate after school.

2:30-3:00  Head home.  Drive like crazy person because I am running late.  Find that everyone has arrived home from school safely.  Kids are playing but have not had a snack.  Hubby is on iPhone.  Everyone survived.

3:30-4:00  Make appointment with vet for dog.  Feed snack to kids.  Loving the pre-packaged snack foods today.  Put kids on Wii.  Sit down to computer.  Check emails, blog about my day, which I have all forgotten by now.

4:30-6:00  Finally take dog to the vet.  Explanation for that terrible smell earlier in the week.  Feel really guilty that it has taken me this long to get the dog to the vet.  Wonderful Hubby takes kids to friends' house for dinner.

6:00-10:00  Drop off dog at home.  Feed dog.  Alone in my messy home.  Consider staying home all by myself, sigh...Grab all of the things that Wonderful Hubby has forgotten and head over to friends' house for dinner.  Enjoy house full of wonderful friends and a terrific dinner.  Extremely exhausted.  Head home with kids to go directly to bed.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200.  So tired I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

All in all the day was great.  Wonder how things would shake out if Wonderful Hubby wasn't there to pick up the kids, but figure we'll have to take each day one at a time.

The BIG Experiment!! Day 1 by Kim

6:30-7:30 Hit snooze until 6:40 but fortunately Shorty is a better morning person than her mom - so smooth sailing for a Monday morning.

7:30-7:45 Slowed down and she remembered to tuck and roll!

7:45-9:00 Didn't make the workout as I was obsessing about the huge amount of crap that I had to do. Hubby gets all chatty while I'm typing but after a few grunted responses asks if I want to be left alone.

9:00-9:45 Still wearing the pj, yoga pant, hoodie combo that I pulled on when I got out of bed. Soooo pretty. But have whittled down my to-do list enough that I'm able to see the rest of my week being ok which feels like a decent trade off.

9:45-11:30 Have gotten SO much done! Only played words with friends twice and danced with the cat once...not too shabby!

11:30 Made some lunch and walked past all the dishes still in the sink where they were left by unnamed family members. Maybe they will put themselves into the dishwasher...

11:35 Chuckle at Diane's husbands' quest for $10 socks and marvel at her restraint. Thank Hubby for picking up prescription and feel slightly bad that I didn't wait to have lunch with him.

11:45 Back to work. Edited seminar materials, posted the resume blog entry, paid bills, and did some more research.

1:15 Decide that today I'm going to "volunteer" to shower and the "passion" that I'm going to focus on is making myself generally presentable. Feeling like a scrub, albeit an extremely productive scrub.

So my following of the schedule this morning wasn't too great, seeing as I didn't get the workout or the shower in - but tomorrow is another day! And I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this afternoon...

2:20 Got Shorty picked up and ran to Walgreens. Now she's putting her clothes away while I peck away on this and then it'll be time for homework. Fractions today - it's a little disconcerting when you're apprehensive about 2nd grade homework but she still believes I know everything. Do you remember fractions...I don't!

2:30 - 4:30 Shorty does homework and I putter around in the house, nothing especially constructive. Hubby loads the dishwasher and starts it. :)

5:30 Realize that I bought flounder instead of ANY other type of fish plus it's been a couple of days so it's a bit sketchy. Hubby cooks flounder and squash while I make a chimichurri sauce to disguise flounder. Comes out of oven - blech, not eating it!

6:30 Make spaghetti. Laugh about disgusting flounder as a family.

8:00 Shorty to bed and Hubby and I watch House.

9:30 BED!!!

10:30 To sleep.

The thing that made the most impact on me today is that if I block out the time to work and have the discipline to stick to that schedule, I get so much more accomplished and feel better about myself (and things in general) at the end of the day. I was disappointed that I didn't get a work out in but have to really work at making that a non-negotiable priority, hence I'm walking with a friend at 6:30AM tomorrow. I also will remember that I don't like sketchy flounder.

Snow Days

As many of you know, the East Coast is stuck in a huge "weather" situation.  Being in Atlanta, this is extremely difficult, as we are not used to snow and ice, and the whole city sort of shuts down.  We have now been stuck home for 3 days, school cancelled, meetings postponed, appointments re-scheduled.  While the kids and I have had a great time playing in the snow, sledding, and snuggling next to the fire, I am ready for them to go back to school!  I have things to do!!

So, tell me, what do you do, when you can't do your absolute best?  When the inclement weather makes you miss a deadline, or keeps you out of the office?  Do you just apologize and move on?  I spoke with one of my friends, a working mom, who has also been stuck at home, missing work, playing in the snow with her kids and not getting anything done.  She hasn't been into the office all week, but neither has anyone else.  This, she says, helps her to reconcile the guilty feelings.  She is also one of the only people I know who does not have a work issued laptop computer.  (wonder if she'll get one after this snow-storm?!)

But, what happens when you're the only one who is missing the deadlines, meetings, and work, due to a sick child or other child-related responsibility?  In a discussion that I recently had with several of my married, working mommy friends, they said that this responsibility usually falls to them, and NOT their spouses.  Their husbands just say, "Sorry, I have to work".  Hmmm... definitely something to think about, and probably something to discuss with the husband before going back to work....

Thoughts for the interview...

Pat yourself on the back for going on an interview, Kim! Maybe it was an exercise in humility, but it certainly was good practice! Your wonderful husband and daughter are right, you have accomplished so much. Often, I feel that we SAHs don't give ourself enough credit for what we have accomplished... I got my kids out the door this morning without screaming at them, for one. Hey, it's no small feat in my world!

So, what else have we accomplished?

Let's take a look at all that volunteering:

Kim worked the book fair, for example. Here's the spin:

1. You successfully managed a team of 20 individuals.

2. You had a budget responsibility for 20% of the "company"'s gross profit.

3. You managed to increase your own department's budget by 10% from last year - even in these challenging economic times!

4. You assisted your company in reaching 106% of its annual revenue by the second quarter, even better!

5. What about how your team built a strategic marketing campaign to reach its target audience? Your team, under your leadership, no less, utilized new marketing and advertising techniques (ie: social media, print and e-newsletter ads, etc.)

6. What else? Did you come in under-budget? I'm sure you did!

If we begin to look at our non-income generating activities as if they were an actual job, which they are, then we come to realize just how much we have done, how much we have learned, and even if the PTA book fair isn't a Fortune 500 company, that activity has added to our "work" experience, and it needn't be forgotten!

Losing Confidence (and finding it again)

So I know that I promised a follow up story about THE INTERVIEW, but it's just too humiliating to recount...suffice it to say that the formidable, confident, well-spoken woman who had managed huge projects and earned millions of dollars for my respective employers totally deserted me. In her place was a sweating, stumbling, inarticulate mess and as I watched myself in a sort of out of body experience I wondered "what happened?"

A few years of being out of my industry had left me unable to converse about it and more importantly I'd lost the confidence, once an intrinsic part of my personality, that enabled me to sell myself, my talent, and even to spin my challenges into benefits for a prospective employer. And the farther I bumbled along through the interview, the worse it got and the further my confidence sank.

That experience was a massive blow to my belief in my ability to get back into my industry, or really into the work place at all. It stayed with me for quite a while and as a result I tabled my job search.

Sitting here and being able to look at it with the perspective of a bit of distance, I can say that I haven't lost that woman or her abilities - all that I lost was the self-confidence that propelled me in all the endeavors that I have ever decided to undertake.

I can't pinpoint when I regained that confidence again. It could have been reviewing my resume and realizing all that I had accomplished or reminding myself that although I haven't been in the office I've accomplished a hell of a lot at home and in my life during this time. It was in no small measure to the cheerleading of my husband - he's never doubted me, nor has my daughter. It's probably all of that and some stuff I can't even name - but regardless, it's back and it's been tempered with a little humility now.

I can't tell anyone else how to regain that drive, sparkle, cockiness, and complete confidence in her abilities but I would suggest that it hasn't gone away - it's just hiding, waiting for you to remember that this time away from the workplace has only made you better, stronger, more able to multitask and be empathetic. Diane's post perfectly describes the qualities that SAH moms have gained in our time away from the workplace - but they do not define us, they simply are additions to the fierce women that we were before.

All that being said, when you are ready to get back into the fray and start interviewing, a little preparation goes a LONG way in reducing the sweat factor! I found the below link today - it provides real interview questions and responses from a HUGE array of industries - it's too varied to be useful for rote memorization and boilerplate Q&A but it'll remind you of the lingo, the tightrope walk and the language of your industry or industries that you might want to explore.

http://www.consultingcase101.com

I'm now able to remember who I was but more importantly I can celebrate who I am.

How did I get here from there and where the heck do I go now??

My story is a little different in that I was a single, working mom for 6 1/2 years. My last job posting had my daughter and I living in Bangkok, Thailand where I was working as a program manager for an aerospace company. Then I met and married the man who is now my husband, and we moved back to the US - Atlanta, GA specifically - to start a new life as a family.

It seemed to make the most sense for me to take at least a year off to get us all situated and adjusted to our new lives....I was finally getting the chance to be the stay at home (SAH) mom that I had always envied! This would be awesome!!!!!

Talk about an identity crisis - it took me a full year (and many emotional breakdowns) just to learn how to be that woman and to be ok with it - and I was still chafing to get back to work.

Then the summer came and we had so much fun! For the first time EVER, there were no day camps, babysitters, or nannies, I just rolled with it and instead of feeling overwhelmed and guilty all summer - we had a blast! My husband is a consultant and was able to take time for us to take mini-vacations and hang out, Belle and I went to the pool often, had play dates, made new friends and strengthened existing friendships, and most importantly tightened our bond as a family. Maybe I was cut out for the SAH mom thing after all.....

The first clue really should have been the PTA book fair - I was one of three co-chairs and when we started I was very mellow about it all - have fun and make money for the school, what could be better? Somewhere during it all, it became a PROJECT like the many that I had managed during my career and the driven, overachieving Kim came out of stasis. I will say to my credit that I was able to step back and know when I should let one of my (wonderful) co-chairs talk to a vendor or volunteer who wasn't doing what they promised since it's (apparently) not politic to take volunteers to task. The Book Fair was a huge hit and we did have a lot of fun but the stage was set....

As I mentioned, my husband is a consultant. He picked up a short term gig as a Program Manager for an airline and it was a huge project (and incidentally what I did in my previous professional life)...inside I was salivating and green with envy. I pumped him for details, offered (unsolicited and unnecessary) suggestions, and was generally a pain in the ass. As I was emphatically demanding more information one evening, so irrationally mad that I was in tears, it occurred to me that I was trying to live vicariously through him - a definite A-HA and AH-SHIT moment.

So the writing is on the wall - I have to get back to work! But I've also finally found the joy in being a SAH mom and I'm not willing to give that up entirely - how do I find the balance? That's I've been noodling on for the past 6 weeks or so since my epiphany and what I was thinking about on the morning that Diane and I were walking and talking.

Where do I go from here and how do I get there? There's no roadmap for what I want to accomplish. And what is it exactly that I want to accomplish?

Diane summed it up perfectly...I want to ROCK!

And I suspect that we aren't the only ones.