I recently decided that I was going to consider every single career opportunity that came my way. Even the ones that I knew I couldn’t manage would get a closer look, just in case it turned out that there was some way for me to glean some good out of it.

I don’t know if it’s a case of The Law of Attraction or what, but now that my eyes are open, the opportunities are everywhere.
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I usually gripe about not having the wherewithal to exercise, to sleep, to make time for myself. Turns out I’m not alone.

According to a recent survey by the American Psychological Association, 75 percent of adults reported experiencing “moderate to high levels of stress” in the past month, and 42 percent said that their stress levels have increased in the past year. And more and more people don’t feel like they have the energy to deal with it.
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When I was looking to buy my first car, nearly 15 years ago, I was just a year out of college and thought I knew everything. I especially thought I was on firm footing when it came to cars, since I had just spent two years editing automotive stories in upstate New York. I did my research, took several test drives, knew what I wanted, knew how much the car — a sleek Nissan Altima — had cost the local dealer, knew how much it should cost me.

Even though I’m a feminist by default, on some level I must also have known that it would be a struggle to be taken seriously, because I brought a male friend along with me. He did not know anything about cars, aside from the fact that you put gas in and they go. He had never bought a car before, and wasn’t interested in buying one. He agreed to come with me mostly because he had nothing else to do that day.

I’m sure you can guess what happened.
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Earlier this year, I dove back in to the Mommy Dating Pool via a playdate with my youngest daughter’s best friend and her mom. It’s been really good, but lately we’ve decided to see other people. A lot of other people. And all at the same time.

Our daughters have entered the age of birthday parties. And, ye Gods, it is busy.
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My husband regularly works long hours and even pulls all-nighters in order to clear his plate at the office. I used to, too — before a pay cut made me take a second look at how much my time was worth.

Sure, hard work always pays off, as the saying goes. It just seems like sometimes it pays a lot less than it used to. When the work piles up and I can’t get it done during the work day, instead of automatically bringing it home with me I find myself calculating the dwindling dollars and cents of my hourly wage and deciding that I’m more than willing to do it on company time, for pay, but not at home, for free.
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Now that Halloween is over, I want to get rid of the metric ton of candy sitting in my house. I could bring it in to the office, but if I can’t resist the siren’s song of the fun-size Snickers bar in my pantry, how can I turn my back on it when it’s sitting there, in plain sight, next to my desk? Besides, I left the candy at home this morning by accident, and my coworkers have already filled our corner of the office with tiny bars of every candy ever invented. To bring in more would be overkill.

But not if I’ve magically transformed them into something else first.
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I noticed recently that when there’s something on my to-do list that I really want to avoid, I start searching for something else — anything else — to do instead. Sometimes that means I end up baking banana bread at 2 in the morning. Sometimes I discover an awesome new blog. Sometimes I end up surfing my favorite time-wasters on the web. But most of the time, that search for a distraction brings me right back to my to-do list, and I end up knocking tons of little line items off and being productive in spite of myself.
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Let’s face it: Whether you get the flu shot or not, and whether you’re worried about H1N1 (a.k.a. Swine Flu) or not, chances are you and your kids are going to be facing some flu-like symptoms this season.

Why? Well, even if you’ve gotten the vaccine, it can take as long as two weeks for your body to produce enough antibodies to protect you, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And the flu shot only protects against flu — if you catch one of the many, many non-influenza viruses out there, you can exhibit miserable flu-like symptoms but not actually have the flu.

This isn’t a post about whether or not to get the flu shot. (Want to discuss that anyway? You’re in luck — this one is!). But if you’re looking for a drug-free way to ease the misery at home, regardless of the state of your immunizations, check out these options:
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I was working from home, playing “beat the clock” with my to-do list, doggedly trying to get as much done as possible before I had to pick my youngest kids up from school and take them to karate. With my connection to my office up in one window, a layout program up in another, iTunes loaded in the background, and Firefox humming with five or six tabs open at the same time, my shiny, blessed laptop suddenly displayed the whirling rainbow circle — the Mac equivalent of a PC’s hourglass. And it would not go away.
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We often talk about how technology has made parenting more difficult: 10-year-olds who demand their own $300 cell phones, teens and huge text-messaging charges, sexting, Facebook and online privacy issues, cyberbullying… the list goes on and on.

What you don’t hear or read as much about is how technology has helped those of us who have to parent from a distance.
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