28 August 2014

Pick Two

I remember an old saying from my college days: Sleep, party, study: pick two. Of course I did all three, but I would say partying was pretty light for me. And only existed on weekends.

I have realized that in other parts of my life it's sorta like picking 2 out of 3.

Planning your dinner? cheap, fast, healthy: pick two (no, going to Subway is not considered 'cheap' in my realm). Finding a place to live? cost, location, safety: pick two.

Now that I'm trying to figure out the balance of being a working (outside the home) mom, I have a new dilemma: see/take care of your family, take care of yourself, take care of your house: pick two?


Of course I would love to do all three, but I know the difficulty of that. I was raised by two working parents, and they did a great job of taking care of us. However, we had a cleaning lady for the house part  (it still was pretty messy on those off-weeks), and I really don't think either of my parents did a great job of taking care of themselves. My dad now goes to the gym every morning bright and early, but it was long overdue and he has more health issues to overcome now.

I know I will put my family first, but I feel like I need to choose the second piece. It wasn't that hard to decide, but it may be harder to execute. I will put my health above having a clean house. Let me repeat: my health is more important than a clean house.

When you really think about it, someone else can come clean my house (if we have the money or I beg my MIL or whatever), but nobody else can run 3 miles for me. This will involve more sacrifices on my part, either getting up to get to the gym when it opens at 5am or staying up later to work out after Cora is in bed. Working out was easy when I was a full-time SAHM because it was part of our routine. Every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday at 9am, like clockwork. Hopefully I can get into some sort of groove with a schedule and not burn myself out.

Have you ever had to pick two?

Sidenote: I just found out there is a word for this, and it is called a trilemma. Mind = blown.

14 August 2014

Re-Joining the Rat Race

For a long time, the little blurb about me on the right sidebar of this page claimed I was an "escapee of cubicle life, faking my way through domesticity."

The latter part is still mostly true, but I am officially un-escaping office life! I just accepted an offer for a full-time, Monday-through-Friday, during waking hours, honest-to-goodness-put-your-big-girl-pants-back-on JAY OH BEE. Nay, a career. My official title (for the curious): Brokerage Assistant.

After B left his job back in May with sights set on grad school, we mutually decided I should start looking for work. I was hoping to get a few temp gigs here and there, maybe some part-time work, who really knew. Well, nothing of that sort was panning out. Don't get me wrong, I still love the idea of part-time work, but it was all selling myself short, and I knew it. This one position kicked up on monster.com, and it almost seemed tailor-made for my experience and education. Luckily, the company saw that as well. After 2 rounds of interviews (I somehow dazzled them with my winning personality in that 2nd one!), I got an offer the next day.

And I'm excited! I'm energized by the company, and I know it will be tough. But being a SAHM is tough, and I'm not sure if I really ever quite got the hang of it. The truth is, I never fully desired to be a SAHM, but instead fell into it after we moved here to Fort Wayne. So here I am, just shy of 2 years later, joining the ranks of the WOTHMs (work-outside-the-home-moms). Sure, I was raised by one, but that doesn't mean I'm not scared to death of it. It's all about finding balance, and I'm not sure I ever even achieved that when staying home.

For those of you who worrying about the 'gap' from staying at home, fear not. At least in this town, it was never frowned upon. I usually didn't bring up the fact I have a child in interviews (they can't discriminate based on it, so they usually don't ask), but I think it was often inferred. My previous experience, even from 5 years ago, did most of the talking for me, and I just led them back to that.

I have no idea where this path is going to take me, but I'm fired up and ready to start the journey. Here's to new beginnings!

05 August 2014

Ultimate!!

Do I have any other ultimate frisbee players out there in blog-land? It's actually something that B and I sorta "clicked" over when we initially met. Little did I know that he basically played a whole different sport than I did. He played for a club team at Notre Dame (name: Papal Rage)--they went to tournaments most weekends, called plays, had practices. I learned the sport from barefoot hippies on the Myers Quad at Georgia. We had an intramural league, and it was mostly just running around in circles trying to catch the disc.  When I lived in Jacksonville, I found a group to play with that was definitely of the barefoot-hippie ilk.  I just thought that was how the game was played . . . until I moved to Norfolk.
B's team: Gang Green
B had a group in Norfolk that played the version of the sport he knew.  It was definitely a learning curve for me. Basically, there was a lot more strategy to it, based on forcing the opposing team to go a certain direction when you're on defense. My knee started messing up during all that, so I ended up just watching B play when we were out there. He found a group to play a few pick-up games with in Pensacola, and they were more my speed. However, I was 9 months pregnant at the time, so no playtime for me.
B is the one on the left about to catch the disc
Now that he is unemployed about to start grad school here in Fort Wayne, I convinced him to join a summer league that I found online. They play once a week, and his season just ended yesterday. I brought Cora out there a few times to run around and watch Daddy do his thing. She liked to cheer, "Go Daddy! Go green!"

Watching B play was a lot of fun for me, too. I realized how much I miss it, and hey, maybe I'll join next year's summer league?

I love my sigh at the end of this. I was really into the game!
(This is my first time using Blogger's video uploader, so I hope the quality is good enough so you can figure out what's going on.)


p.s. If you don't know anything about the sport of ultimate, it's basically like soccer without the dribbling. Here's the wikipedia link, if you're so intrigued.