I started working for my current company fresh out of college — a rarity in my profession, so much so that the Dean of the school used to tell prospective parents about my new job, turning it into a selling point for students. At the time, I told people it was all luck and secretly chalked it up to equal parts hard work and good timing, but the truth is that I really owe my well-established career to my advisor.

I wasn’t going to apply for the job, you see. I was too young, too inexperienced, I thought. They’d never take a chance on me.

But really, my advisor pointed out, I  wasn’t taking a chance on them.
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So, I thought as I woke up to another pitch-black New England morning that gradually lightened to a dingy gray. This is what they mean by the dead of winter.

The lack of sunlight affects my motivation, my mood, and my energy levels. I’m on mega doses of several vitamins now — a “let’s see if this helps” effort stemming from that cancer concern from late last year — which helps a bit but, even so, it’s hard to get going, some days.

Like today, for instance

So, what do you do when your to-do list is a mile long and your energy seems to be tapped out after you’ve exerted yourself getting dressed in the morning? I mean after  I’ve — I mean you’ve — knocked back those three cups a coffee?
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I read Sunday’s Washington Post article, in which Brigid Schulte talks to experts and tries to figure out where her time goes, while I was at the office, waiting for a story to be submitted. According to sociologist John Robinson, that was leisure time, even though I was at my desk. “Women have time,” he told Schulte. “Women have at least 30 hours of leisure every week. In fact, women have more leisure now than they did in the 1960s, even though more women are working outside the home.”

I guess it all depends on how you define “leisure.” Robinson says the time I spend alone in my car is leisure time. I say that focusing on the road and trying to beat the daycare clock is not leisurly at all. He’d classify the time I spent gathering background information for this and other articles as leisure; I call it “part of my job.” Also: It’s worth noting that, per Robinson’s calculations, of the 28 hours of so-called leisure time he cobbled together from notes about Schulte’s day-to-day juggle, 18 of them were spent with kids in tow (even the two hours she spent in her broken-down car with her daughter, waiting for a tow truck — leisure).

You know how we’re always talking about how it’s quality time, not quanity of time, that’s important? It seems to me that Robinson is measuring exactly the opposite: Quanity, not quality.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says that the economy is on the mend, but it sure doesn’t feel that way to most of us. No wonder: A recent report by The Conference Board found that only 45 percent of US employees say they’re satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987 (when they first started conducting the survey). The dissatisfaction stretched across all ages and income brackets surveyed, the report says.

Right now, honestly, I’m not thinking about job satisfaction as much as I’m just grateful to still have one. But there are plenty of days when I marvel at how the work I do seems to be essential and insignificant at the same time. And an article in this week’s BusinessWeek points out one reason why: many companies are cutting costs by keeping a permanently temporary workforce.
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I don’t want to look at the pictures, but I can’t stop looking at the pictures.

When the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, I didn’t really think too hard about it, even though Haiti is my father’s homeland. But at that moment, it was just the news, and I’m surrounded by the news at the office, so it passed through my mental filter and I went about my day. My aunt was in Miami, I thought a few hours later. Everyone I love is safe.

Except… not.
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My youngest kids saw the sword near the Christmas tree and looked at it in awe. Finally, my 3-year-old piped up: “Mama? Did you used to be a pirate?”

No, but for about nine years I was a fencer, and I’ve always missed the sport. Every couple of years I’d look up the number for the local fencing club, but I never got around to calling. It seemed impossible to carve out that time for myself. It seemed irresponsible to spend money on the membership fee. How could I go off, at bedtime no less, and do something each week that didn’t involve or benefit the rest of the family? It seemed so… selfish.

My husband didn’t see it that way, but I am a bit… how do you say… um… stubborn. Like a mule. While I clung to my excuses, he dug up my old foil and put it near the tree; while the kids tore through wrapping paper and ribbons, he told me that practice started up right after New Year, and he had signed me up already.

Last week, for the first time in 15 years, I fenced again. And it felt wonderful.
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I spent most of the day yesterday sewing a Snuggie for my 3-year-old son. You know, a Snuggie — those fleece blankets with sleeves, “as seen on TV.” My step kids’ mom, who is a wizard with a sewing machine, had custom-made them for our big kids and for my 5-year-old daughter, and my youngest child was left out. He wanted one, too. He looked at his older siblings, wide-eyed, and turned to me.

I can’t sew. I can mend things — hem a pair of pants, re-attach a button, take in a waistband, darn a sock — but I can’t actually sew something from scratch. At least, I was sure I couldn’t.

My little guy, though, was certain that I could. “My mama will make me one,” he told his older sister, all confidence and barely-out-of-toddlerhood innocence. “Is my snuggie ready yet, Mama?”

So I go to work.
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