Writing from Right Here

Although I'd love to say I'm an avid reader of The Economist...because I really like it and think that publication covers the world better than any other I've read and I love the perspective from outside the U.S....we subscribe to Newsweek. Someday, when we both retire and have lots of time to sit around and read, I'd love for this to change. By then print journalism will probably be a thing of the past. But I digress...

In its expectedly goofy way, the Newsweek "Special Inauguration Issue" arrived in our mailbox today. Of course, there was no actual information about the inauguration itself, but that doesn't mean it isn't full of interesting little tidbits. One article in particular caught my attention. It's called Welcome to Elsewhere, written by Dalton Conley. It's about the life/work balance thing and it put things in such a way that I finally understood why I hate working and trying to raise children at the same time.

The subtitle of the article pretty much sums it up. "For a new breed of professional, life is a blend of work and leisure, where you're never in the right place." Conley argues that the busy-working-parent lifestyle makes professionals feel that they should always be "elsewhere". They should be at the office, they should be at home, they should be at some network-building party...

I'm one of those people who likes to be doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I like to do everything I'm supposed to do. When you're always feeling like you should be elsewhere, you have to make a choice as to which elsewhere you'll inhabit at any moment in time. So you can never do everything you feel like you should be doing.

I've long understood that that was the life of a working parent...a lot of prioritizing, choices and compromises. I suck at choices. Always guilt-laden about the road not taken. And organizing anything complex where one thing relies on the success of another (like working relying on hiring a reliable babysitter) just about gives me hives.

I was such a stress case when I was working more...even though I've never really worked much more than 20 hours/week since having kids. I was so concerned about seeming "professional" while working from home that my kids got really short shrift from me. In the end, I felt like a bad mom and a poor employee. Oh yeah. I was a lousy wife and housekeeper too. I need to be able to focus on doing just one thing and doing it well. I think perhaps this economic crisis is doing me a big favor by reducing my paying workload. Now I just need to figure out that housekeeper part...

Out takes

Thanksgiving may have just ended, but that means that we participated in two of our sorta-favorite traditions today. First, as soon as Daddy and I could muster the energy to make our munchkins look not only presentable, but camera-ready, we had our 5th annual taking of the holiday photos.

This, of course, is required in order to craft the perfect photo card to send all our friends. Last year, I think this whole process took about 3 days. This year, we shortened the process by making it far less democratic. Daddy took most of the pictures. I chose the best ones while Daddy rewarded the kids for surviving the photo shoot by taking them for a ride on the light rail. They didn't go anywhere. Just up a few stops and back again.

I picked the best out of our more than 300 photos and spent hours trying to come up with the right mixture to create the perfect holiday greeting. This one is of a swamp monster, dressed in cute Christmas duds, posing with a sweet and demure little Mam.









And here, we have the dreaded two-headed kid monster.










Yes. I am aware that this is probably far more thought that I should be putting into such things. I'll no doubt feel the need to include an actual letter with these masterpieces as well. And yes, that would be more than one masterpiece. I couldn't choose just one. Choosing two designs allowed me to use 7 of the 36 photos deemed worthy of a card.

I won't ruin the fun for those of you on our Christmas card list by posting the beautiful shots of the kids, but here are some far more entertaining ones that didn't make the cut. And hey, if you've never gotten a card from us, but you want to...let me know! I think I ordered enough for most of the planet to get one.





Oh, and our second tradition is to go to the town's annual Festival of Lights parade...but I'll save that for the next post...

Christmas is clearly just around the corner.