Until my family moved to America, when I was in 8th grade, I wore the same old school uniform every single year. Soviet-time school uniforms were horrible — brown or black dress, made partly from wool, which was itchy and hot and annoying, a black or white apron (the latter for special occasions, like Lenin’s birthday), and a red Pioneer tie (once you were in fourth grade or older). Everyone looked the same, with a few exceptions — someone’s tie was more wrinkled than others’, one girl might be wearing white tights while another one, black ones.

(I tried to find a better image, but this one is a pretty good representation of how pathetic we looked.)

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I was going to write a post about Sara Palin and her choice to go ahead with the VP nomination while knowing that it would mean exposing her daughter’s unplanned pregnancy to millions of people, but I am taking a Sara Palin break. Actually, a political break. Between the Olympics and now the convention coverage, I’ve gotten no sleep between work and staying an informed citizen, and my mind needs a chill out session. (Besides, I need to get over some of the less-than-working-mom-encouraging comments on my first Sara Palin blog this week. If you were wondering, I don’t have thick skin.)

So instead I am going to tell you about my vacation last week. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite things about reading blogs is reading the comments; I often find them more interesting than the post itself. So as I was attempting to re-enter the real world from my mini-vacation (more on this later, because I know you’re dying to find out if I actually took a vacation on my vacation, yes you do!) and reading through the many blog posts about the selection Sara Palin as the VP on the Republican ticket I naturally jumped to the comments.

She is a controversial choice so the comments were colorful. I should have expected it but one theme caught me off guard: People questioning Sarah Pailin’s family values because she is a mother of five who is not spending more time taking care of her children. Read the rest of this entry »

One day when I have a bit of extra cash lying around I am going to commission a study about all the things women are doing right at work. For now, we have yet another bit of research to suggest that we’re sometimes our own enemies when it comes to breaking the glass ceiling.

The study, which has now been published in a book called The Psychology of Sales Reluctance, was conducted by Shannon Goodson, a behavioral scientist who compared 11,000 professional women with 16,000 professional men from 34 countries. Goodson found that women are significantly less likely than men to tout their achievements and contributions at work and believe that self-promotion is “socially unacceptable”, “unlady-like” and “morally suspect”. Read the rest of this entry »

As of today, my daughter is away with my parents for 10 whole days, splashing at the beach, watching too many cartoons and eating endless “mommy doesn’t let me eat this at home” treats. Heaven for her and, dare I say this, a bit of heaven for me and my husband.

You see, I have tons of working mom guilt. I’ve tried to battle it, fight it, ignore it, rationalize it, but it’s sill there, especially when my work takes me away from my daughter overnight, say on business trips (I know I am not alone in this). When my parents took her for two weeks last year, I felt incredibly guilty, the entire time. And as we were getting ready for her trip to the beach this year, I kept waiting for the guilt to kick in.

But it didn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to be happier be thankful for things you have in your life more often.

That is the basic message in Thanks!, a book by Robert Emmons, a professor at UC-Davis who studies the field of positive psychology. I browsed through the book the other day at Barnes & Noble, after reading something about it in a magazine (if you are thinking I am going to be a good blogger and link to the article, you’re wrong — it was in some doctor’s waiting room and I couldn’t even tell you the title.)

This seems like a very simple concept but I know I don’t practice it enough. When I do, it works. Read the rest of this entry »

I make fun of my husband because on some days it takes him longer to do his hair than it takes me to work in some gel into mine. My morning get-ready routine is optimized to be as efficient as possible and in total takes about 15 minutes, including shower, makeup, hair and getting dressed. If I could make it shorter, I would — I see it as a chore that takes up valuable time.

It turns out that I am not alone in that. Read the rest of this entry »

I never hide the fact that I love to work and I am extremely passionate about what I am doing right now. But you know, work is work, and sometimes it’s tough to get through my long workday. So over time I’ve found a few ways to make my workdays a bit more pleasant and thought I’d share them here:

1. Start each day by doing something that energizes you. In an ideal world, I’d work out in the morning, before work. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a new study out of Cambridge University, 62 percent of Americans say yes, up from 49% who thought so in 1994. In Britain, 54% of women and 58% of men believe that when a mom works it has a negative impact on family life.

My initial reaction was to get upset, naturally, that so many people feel this way. I then thought about our family life and started to get upset thinking that crap, this is probably true. Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago I got a strange message on our home phone about some huge balance I owe for my Sprint phone. I ignored it because well, I don’t have a Sprint phone. You’d think hearing something like this would raise a red flag but no, I just assumed they had the wrong person.

Then a week ago they called back. “They” is a billing company that works with Sprint to collect payment from people who are overdue on their bills. After I nicely explained to the lady on the phone that I don’t have a Sprint phone she asked me what my social security number was. I told her and she said yes, that’s the social security number that was used to buy this phone and monthly calling plan. It had my name on it, my phone number, and an address in a totally different part of the country. Now the red flag was raised. Read the rest of this entry »