The BIG Experiment!! Day One by Diane

6:30-7:30 Getting kids ready for school:  Went generally well for a Monday.  Reconsidering the chores assigned to children.

7:30-7:45 Slowed down, Opened car door= pushed them out

7:45-9:00 By some small miracle traffic was slight for a Monday. Had great work out, feel good!

9:00-9:45 I am clean and pretty.  Wonder what will happen when I have to wear something besides jeans and slippers, however.

9:45-11:30 Sit down in home office.  Odd smell in seldom used room.  Resist urge to investigate.  Resist urge to answer emails.  Post blog.  Read blogs.  Resist urge to look at emails.  Work on resume.  Hubby comes by to see what I am up to.  Response: "Working"

11:30  Finally succumb to incessant chiming of emails.  ACK!  Email from hubby (who works in the other room, no less) to check out some $10 socks he wants to buy.  Resist urge to scream.

11:35  Back to work on resume.  Research resume writing tips.

12:00  Hubby comes by to see what I am doing.  Response: "Working"

12:10  Hubby comes by to ask if he can make me a sandwich.  How nice- good husband.

12:15-1:15  Continue to work on resume and research.  Still wondering about that smell...

1:15-2:15  Proud of myself, actually did answer all of my PTA emails and worked on volunteer activities!

2:15-4:30  Was worried about this part of the day.  Fortunately, hubby helped son with homework and I continued to clean around the house, including finding and cleaning source of strange smell.  Got one load of laundry folded while children put their clothes away, and managed to return a phone call and some emails, most of which were volunteer related (so much for sticking to one hour).

4:30-4:40  Forgot to pay a bill due tomorrow.  Thank goodness for online banking.

5:00-6:15  Wonderful hubby prepares meatloaf while I fold laundry and order children to put it away.  Remind children of their chore responsibilities while making potatoes, salad and green beans to go with aforementioned meatloaf.  Play words with friends while cooking.  Pour glass of wine.

6:15-7:30  Clean up while wonderful hubby bathes kids.  Unfortunately the dishwasher is still running, so rinse dishes and pile in sink.  Wonder if I will get to them tonight, or wait until the morning.  Program coffee maker (bonus!) for early start.  Another load of laundry done. Pour second glass of wine

7:30-8:00  Read kids a book, worry that 5 year old will never read because his mommy never reads to him.  Check email and I have an interview on Wednesday!  Wow... then the panic sets in...ah, hell, lets have another glass of wine!   Make to-do list for tomorrow (finish resume!)

8:00- 10:00 Wow, today wasn't so bad.  I'm thinking that this might be do-able.  I still have laundry piled in the hallway, my bed isn't made, and the dishes are still in the sink, but feel I have accomplished more than I expected.  Then again... tomorrow is another day!

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.

There are HOLES in this resume!!

This week we are focusing on resumes, with special attention to the areas that make us want to pull our hair out, crawl back into bed, and consider a career in origami. Our guest blogger for this series is Sue Campbell, 1st-Writer.com, a professional resume writer and career strategist with over 18 years experience helping job seekers of every level achieve their career goals.

How do you cover the "holes" in your resume for the time that you were out of the workforce?

Rather than trying to hide gaps in your résumé, fill them, instead.

If you haven’t been spending any of this time in self-improvement, it’s not too late to add a layer of current activity to your résumé through volunteer work or education.

Actively employed candidates will always be viewed as “more hirable” by hiring managers. And candidates with recent experience will appear more “current.” However, if you’re reentering the workplace after a significant time away, you can give the same impression of being current by showing recent activity in areas deemed relevant or valuable to the types of positions and companies you’re currently targeting.

First, determine what skills, abilities and characteristics (personal and professional) the potential employer is trying to secure in potential candidates. This information is usually obtained via job ads, recruiters or company research.

Next, consider in what ways you’ve actively applied these skills in the recent past. Consider personality characteristics along with applied skills and technical abilities, such as communication, problem-solving, time management and resource allocation skills.

Create a summary section that focuses on that which you bring to the table – TODAY – in relevant skills, abilities and characteristics, and then show the reader your most recent application of these skills – even if this was through a continuing education course (leading with your education) or via non-paid community service – early in your document.

The what, where and when is always going to be important – but what really matters is what you CAN DO, and how what you can do –your efforts and contributions – will benefit a potential employer.

The BIG Experiment!!

We've all been reading about Gwynnie's taxing daily schedule as a working mom, so we have busy schedules on the brain. In preparing the family, and yourself, for returning to work, Kim and I thought that it might be fun(ny) to have a sort-of trial run on how things might operate with mommy going back to work. Going off of the premise that if you're currently looking for work OR if you're starting a home business (as we are), there's a certain amount of time that you'll have to dedicate to the effort, we came up with the following schedule. (When we start working full time, there will be a WHOLE new schedule complete with a Survival Guide for our husbands.) For this whole week though, we are going to follow the schedule below to a T and report on how our kids, husbands, and selves fare as well as any casualties (I'm telling you right now that I don't see laundry pulling through!):

6:30-7:20 am Get up and get the kids ready for school/get mommy ready for the gym

7:30-7:45 am Slow down the car and push the kids out the door at school

8:00-9:00 am Go to the gym/workout - this is essential to plan into your day for your own well-being (so that you aren't sobbing as you try to squeeze into that business suit from pre-baby days)! Do it!!

9:00-9:45 am Home from the gym to shower (conditioning hair while stretching muscles a la Mrs. Rock-star's wife and movie star mom)

9:45-1:15 pm WORK: work on blog, work on networking, work on resume! 3 1/2 hours - DO NOT MULTI-TASK! - no house cleaning, laundry, errand running - only working!)

1:15-2:15 pm Volunteer activities and being involved at school (or whatever you are passionate about)

2:15-5:15 pm Kids are home from school: help with homework, fix healthy snacks (or throw goldfish at them), have playdates, extra-curricular activities, etc. Try to engage the kids... try not to play words with friends... resist urge to allow children to watch hours of TV.

5:30-6:00 pm Fix dinner (see our "For Meals on the Fly" on the sidebar or just have the local fishmonger deliver as GOOP suggests)

6:00-6:30 pm Eat dinner together as a family (pour first glass of wine)

6:30-7:30 pm Clean up and get the kids ready for bed (pour second glass of wine while children are bathing)

7:30-8:00 pm Check emails (make sure there aren't any important messages) and make To-Do list for following day

8:00-10:00 pm Grown-up time. Whether it's Couple-time, Friend-time, or Me-time - make sure to schedule at least one night of each this week!

10:00 pm Bedtime

Notice that we haven't built in specific time slots for house clean-up, laundry, errands, grocery shopping, dishwasher emptying...yep, we're curious to see how that's going to shake out too - husbands, maybe?

Anyone else out there ready to take the challenge with us??!!

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....

"Step away from the cabinets, Ma'am!" by Kim

Diane's post brought back the agony that I went through when I had to redo my resume this past summer - by the time that it was all said and done I think that the whole thing took me well over a month. My previous resume was LONG gone on the hard drive of a long gone computer; fortunately the resume that landed me the life-changing job in Asia had been written by Sue Campbell, a wonderful resume writer who is infinitely more organized than I. I asked her to email me a copy and *poof*, there it was in my inbox. I opened it, looked at it, closed it and went to clean out my bathroom cabinets. :)

A couple of days (weeks) went by and I opened it again and started the process of adding the past 3 years of experience. But even with a model right in front of me (of my own resume no less), I couldn't spend more than 10 minutes without getting frustrated and walking away from it. Finally, with input from Husband, family, and friends I had enough *stuff* to fill out the questionnaire that Sue had sent me and quickly dropped it back in her lap to make me sound fabulous!

All told it took me about a month to get to that point - it's silly as I sit here thinking about it now but the paralyzation was vividly, painfully real at the time and now it's time to update it again, sigh. Writing this blog and getting to talk with all sorts of other women facing similar challenges has been incredibly cathartic for me - it's great to know I'm not alone, I mean I'm sorry for them and all but....you know what I mean.

We'll be talking with Sue this week to get some input and practical advice for rewriting, recreating, or just freshening up your resume. In the meantime, if you want to start some forward momentum or can't stand the idea of cleaning out those bathroom cabinets again, here are a couple ideas to get you moving:

1. Start small - just a rough list of all of your personal qualities (both good and "challenging") that you can think of. Don't forget to incorporate the items from your career in MomWorld that Diane identified in "Thoughts for the Interview". Now...ask husbands, friends, family members - only people who will be honest but not brutal. Live with your list for a couple of days - add to it but don't take anything off, we tend to edit ourselves way too much. It's your opportunity to brag, do it!

2. At the same time, especially if you're starting from scratch, start working on a VERY simple timeline of your career - dates, places, titles. It seems excessively easy but after a couple of years at home, I'm lucky if I can recall what I had for dinner last Tuesday, much less where I was and what I was doing in 1998.

3. Once you've identified the places/times that you worked, start sketching out the details of the jobs and responsibilities that you held while there. Again, this is the very simple 65,000 foot view of things, the bare bones.

Our expert, Sue Campbell of 1st-Writer, will give us some pointers on how to get from here to there later in the week, so we can start to pull all of this together.

We're going to do this together in baby steps, so....get off your ass, leave those cabinets alone, and get started!

New Years Resolution #1 - write resume!

Well, it's a brand new year! The holidays have passed and we moms can get cracking on that job search! A week ago, I spoke to a friend of mine about my past career-life. I told her about what I did and how I did it and then she asked if I would be interested in doing some consulting work for her company. Sure! I thought, just what I need! Then, the other shoe dropped... she asked me for my resume... YIKES! Resume? What resume??

Procrastination, my current bff...

For many of you already out there and ahead of me on the job search, resume writing was a daunting task. But, when you have had at least 3 different computers over the last 8 years and haven't bothered to save your resume file, let alone update your resume every year or so, the task is down-right overwhelming! It is one of the things easily shoved in the back of a drawer somewhere, with the thought that you'll eventually get back to it... I'd rather clean out my bathroom cabinets than work on my resume! I have now been avoiding my friend, with a paying job for ME, for a week!!

Why on earth is this such a difficult thing to do?! Maybe it is because it is so hard for most women to brag about themselves? Maybe it is because it takes focused thought that most of us don't have time for (but need to make time for)? Maybe it is because all of my pre-child memories leaked out of my brain during the birthing process??

Sure you can hire a resume writer, or download a resume template, but you still have to THINK about what to put on your resume. And what happens when you can't remember what it is that you used to do, or for whom you used to work??

I'm looking for tips??? Anyone??? Please comment with any helpful suggestions!

Well, at least I have a very neatly organized bathroom!