Taking Your Work Home

Telecommuting is a growing benefit that many companies are using to hire great employees and keep those that would have once had to leave the office to move or stay home. This video is a great example of a company that is ahead of the game.



Even better, set me up with one of these babies! I love the idea but am not sure if my two year old wouldn't view this as a part of his outdoor playset. Check out the latest in the 10 second commute. Office Pods

My Time

Hubby is upstairs doing the laundry (yes I know He ROCKS!), Alex is supposed to be in bed but I just heard him running around, and where am I...downstairs catching up on American Idol from last week enjoying a brief half hour of me time. The older I get, the more I feel less like the person I think I am. Cryptic huh? There are so many pulls on my time now between being Mommy, Housekeeper, Working Girl, and Wife. This half hour is my time to enjoy some of the things that make me the person I remember in my head but rarely get to see.

Blogging is something that has really let me decompress and unwind, think through thoughts that would sometimes get lost in daily shuffle, and most of all connect with other people who are like-minded. The past year we have dealt with Eric going gluten free, the trials and tribulations of Alex's second year, typical growing pains in our marriage, worries as the economy continued to spiral down, and most stressful of all, we purchased a new home but were unable to sell our old one. We are now landlords to great tenants but the worry never really goes away. Through all of this I have been able to come here and let myself vent, and de-stress. However regardless of how stressful things get there is comfort in knowing others have been there and gone through similar circumstances before.


There are some wonderful groups out there who help connect people with amazing blogs. 5 Minutes for Mom brings a smile to my face with their Ultimate Blog Party (how can I resist a party, even a virtual one :)). Click on the picture and see if you find something new and fun, and don't forget to sign up for some of their awesome prizes at the same time!

My Crazy Life

OK so maybe others lives are like mine but something tells me that most of you didn't have a crazy two year old sitting on your shoulders this morning stroking your face with his feet. Every time I screamed about the total gross factor in having anyone's feet that close to my face he laughed like a tiny narcissist and kept on. I finally booted him to the floor, let him veg on Handy Manny while I finished my yummy first cup of coffee and finished my latest Jen Lancaster book. Now I'm printing my gardening plan (thank you bhg.com for FABULOUS pre-made plans) and it's off to the community gardening center to plant this year's organic veggie garden.

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Keep your voice down, or don't get mad when I laugh at what you say

The technical age is taking over the world. With people talking, texting, and emailing all the day long, sometimes it's important to cut the cord and get away from it all. I try to do that every few weeks getting together with a good friend for coffee. We both bring our computers and spend a few hours working and chatting. Yesterday we tried a new coffee shop here in Austin called Summermoon Wood Fired Coffee (wow what an amazingly yummy drink I had :)). It was definitely outside of my suburban bubble, being on the south side of downtown. The area was charming, the coffee shop great if you don't count the 10 degree temperature swing that happened every 5 minutes as the AC kicked on and off.

About half way through our working coffee a group of ladies came in and took over the table immediatly behind me. Over the next half hour I was distracted from my work when I heard bits of their conversation that went something like this.
"Well, yes she was convicted of murdering her husband, but she only got probation"

My head snapped up and saw my friend looking at me with the same "did you hear that" expression. But it's none of my business so back to work.

"Yeah the poor thing handled having to wear shackles pretty well"

Hmmm this conversation might be more interesting than the training I'm updating...

"Oh I felt so sorry for her when she had to quit her job to go to jail"

Ok seriously? At this point I'm cracking up and wishing I had made a trip to the bathroom before two cups of coffee and my chatty neighbors.

No one glared at me (or I didn't notice while I was busy cracking up), but this reminded me of other funny situations where strangers overhear and interject on semi-private conversations. In high school I got a call from a friend who had recently been to the post office. She was having a conversation while waiting in line (a 45 minute endeavor on a good day) and a little old man behind her tapped her on the shoulder. She asked the person on the phone to hold on and turned to the old man who was a foot shorter than her. He smiled and told her "I wanted you to know that I can hear your conversation so you don't say anything too personal." Amused, she smiled, told him Thank You and went back to her conversation. Tap, tap, tap. Not nearly as amused the second time she turned back to the old man. "I'm not sure you understood me. I can hear everything your discussing." My friend said "Okay, thank you" and again tried to finish her conversation. Tap, tap, tap. At this point my friend is no longer amused, pretty impatient and starting to see red. She turned to the old man and said "The sooner you let me finish this conversation, the sooner you won't have to listen anymore. OK?" The old man smiled, pointed at the open counter spot and said "Your turn." Since then I make it a point to check the post office line for little old men before answering my cell phone in line.

Acceptance

Another site I frequent prompted all of us today to post about Children with Disabilities. March is Disabilities Awareness Month and it's a great time to reflect on both an important issue and a parenting challenge that is down the road for us.

Alex is still at that wonderfully innocent age where he doesn't notice any differences. All the kids in his class are his "brothers and sisters". He doesn't see cosmetic differences, ethnic differences or anything else. However as much as I would like to believe that day will never come I know there will come a time when the differences between himself and his peers raise questions for him. When that time comes I hope we can sit Alex down and not only tell him about all the differences that make everyone so special, but more importantly teach him the grace he'll need to truly accept others his whole life. Children are blessings but they come with responsibilities. I accept that my toddler has meltdowns, I understand that he has to have everything his way, I embrace his chaotic, temperamental personality, but I refuse to raise a self-obsessed boy who has too little regard for others. Yep I abosultely refuse...now to implement! :)

This month take a few moments and visit CVS and their site CVS Caremark All Kids Can to learn about the programs and work they are doing to help make this a better world for children with disabilities.

New Sites to Check Out

I love anything new. Especially things that are designed to make my life easier and/or more organized. Forget the fact that these things typically end up taking me a while to figure out, cause my schedule to be thrown out the door and de-rail my previously organized day. All that aside I really enjoy finding these tools and tricks to making life easier.

A few really neat websites have crossed my desk lately and I wanted to share them. First is Lazy Moms. This site is true to my heart and focuses on tips and tricks to get the daily grind of chores, cooking, cleaning, etc out of the way so you can have more time for the stuff you enjoy. I popped over to check out today's Ten Minute Tip and it was all about taking time to pamper yourself. Who doesn't want a reason to take a bubble bath and relax because the shortcuts they suggest give you the time to do it!

Another cool find this week was Good Food Near You. This site has a search feature to locate fast food and family style restaurants near you and it automatically suggests the best food choice at each one. I was fairly impressed, reading along, and then had to laugh at loud that the food suggestion for Mr. Gatti's in my zip code suggested that my best choice was to stick to mushrooms. Followed closely by tomatoes, celery and cucumbers. Obviously it requires some reading between the lines but overall the site and the application for blackberry seem to be quite useful. If nothing else it will make it easy to get a healthy choice (darn in :)) if my car happens to lead me into a fast food restaurant.

Check these out and let me know what you think! Leave a comment with any other sites that make your life easier or more organized!

Sunday already?

So yesterday things were so slow while I was working at the home and garden show that I boasted about there being many more posts to come. Hopefully no one sat around hitting refresh in vain! :) Things got so slow I got up and wandered the show visiting with other vendors. My faves at this show are the Vita Mix guy who showed me neat new things to try with my Vita mix and the wierd ionic foot spa people. More to come on these later!

Today is moving a bit faster, but boy am I ready to go home and have a weekend. Too bad I have to wait through another week to do that!

I've been pretty worried about Alex lately. He's a smart kid (what parent doesn't say this :)), and seems to be picking up on a lot of the chaos going on at his school, my work schedule and dealing with the after-effects of a fairly traumatic surgery. We've been in and out of doctor's offices for a while and I keep asking myself if I'm over-reacting and creating problems where there shouldn't be any, but my poor little guy just seems different. As soon as I can pinpoint exactly what changed I'll feel better but right now everything is so nebulous that half the time I think I'm imagining things.

Ok off to get some work done and see what I can manage for lunch...then it's off to the airport and jetting home to Austin! YEAH.