Once again, we’re in the thick of cold and flu season. And, once again, millions of parents are eying their sick days and wondering if they can really take any of them, even though they know they should stay out of the office when they’re sick.

Eighty percent of common infections can be spread through the air, water, food, and via contact with contaminated surfaces, Peter Sheldon, vice president of the commercial cleaning company Coverall, told me.  And the places where people are most likely to pick up germs aren’t as obvious as you might think.
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Now that my main office is inside my house, I spend more time on Facebook than I used to when I was commuting to work 40 miles away. It’s become my water cooler in a lot of ways, the place I go to catch up with coworkers, vet story ideas, and chat about the latest news.

But Facebook seems to change in some tiny way or another every few weeks. Between trying to navigate a new timeline to figuring out whether you follow your friends and their status feeds, it’s easy to forget to check your privacy settings. And Facebook counts on that, to some extent.
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We’re all feeling the effects of a lackluster economic right now, so you can imagine how much tighter the budget belt must feel for people who didn’t have much to begin with. It’s become more difficult for charities to help others, too — which means that now is the perfect time to do a little bit more. Even though times are tight, there are plenty of ways to give — and to let your dollar do more than you thought it could. Here are fiveoptions:
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According to the American Research Group, more than a third of consumers have already finished their holiday shopping. Not started — finished.

I am not one of them.

I try to shop here and there throughout the year, stocking my gift closet with bargains, but inevitably a day or two before the holiday I discover that I need a stocking stuffer for a teenager (no easy feat, if you’re trying to stick to a small budget) or that I’ve given away as a birthday present something I’d stashed away for my own kids. I don’t wait until the 11th hour in order to save more money — though, given that stores are dropping prices in order to entice shoppers in this dismal economy, it’s been a bit of a win for me this year. I wait until the 11th hour because, even though it’s on the same day every year, Christmas always sneaks up on me before I’m ready.

If you’re a last-minute shopper, too — for whatever reason — here are four ideas that can help. Think of them as fake-cleaning tips, but for shopping.
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When it comes to big holidays, most people could use a survival guide—not for getting through the big day itself, necessarily, but for dealing with all of the hoopla that goes along with it.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (Friends! Family! Nothing to wrap and give except leftovers!), but if you work a paid job in addition to (unpaid) parenthood, that annual Thursday holiday can really do a number on your sanity.

What’s a working mom to do? Here, let me be your Thanksgiving sherpa:
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I almost always start the day with a cup or two (or three) of coffee. Cream, no sugar. Most of the time, I pour a cup, take a couple of sips, and leave it somewhere while I’m making kids’ breakfasts or packing lunches or trying to persuade my almost 5-year-old son to wear actual clothing to school. By the time I find it again, it’s lukewarm, but I quaff it anyway. Can’t let all that valuable caffeine go to waste now, can I?

According to a new study, coffee can do more than boost our level of alertness. Women who drink caffeinated coffee on a regular basis have a 20 percent lower risk of depression than non-java drinkers, The New York Times reported recently.
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Last month, Manhattan district court judge Loretta Preska threw out a class-action lawsuit by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Bloomberg L.P., the financial and media services company founded by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The defendants insisted that the company ,had routinely discriminated against pregnant women and employees who were returning from maternity leave by reducing their pay and their work responsibilities. But the judge disagreed.

Though there was proof of “several isolated instances of individual discrimination,” she noted, there wasn’t enough evidence to show that the discrimination was “Bloomberg’s standard operating procedure.”

“The law does not mandate ‘work-life balance’,” she wrote. “In a company like Bloomberg, which explicitly makes all-out dedication its expectation, making a decision that preferences family over work comes with consequences.”

I want to say she’s wrong, but she’s absolutely right. The law does not mandate work-life balance, and employers are well within their rights to demand what they want from their employees.
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Earlier this week, the internet was on fire about a T-shirt sold by JC Penny that read: “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.”

Opinions were divided about the shirt, which was marketed to girls age 7 to 16 and which the retailer pulled off of its website early Wednesday. Was the shirt demeaning or degrading? Or do parents just need to get a sense of humor and lighten up?
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After packing snacks and lunches every day all summer (and after years of packing camp-friendly gluten-free lunches for my step kids) you’d think I have this school lunch thing down. But even a veteran lunch-packer—indeed, especially a veteran one—can get stuck in a rut. And the beginning of the school year is a bad time to be languishing in rutsville.

It would probably be easier if I didn’t try to work around my kids’ food foibles (my youngest daughter doesn’t like sandwiches, for the most part, and if I pack an insulated container of soup or stew for her or for my pre-schooler, it’s guaranteed to come home uneaten). And I do kind of sort of long for the days when peanut butter and jelly was allowed at school. But here are 10 options that work for my family—and I’d love it if you could take a minute to share some of your ideas in the comments!
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Most of the time, I work from my home office, a little yellow room filled with a cluttered desk and stacks of books and product samples. But this week, I was in New York City, where most of my team is based. I had a series of meetings to attend and people to meet, and most of my usual workload to finish.

It made for a long and hectic day, but what really struck me wasn’t just the 400-plus-mile round-trip commute or the working printers or the free coffee. It wasn’t just the face-to-face conversations with the actual people I work with, to whom I talk at least twice a day, every day, even when I’m in my home office. It wasn’t just the make-up and nail polish I put on or the fact that I was wearing a suit instead of looking like the insomniac workaholic that I am.

The oddest thing was the way that I packed up my computer, gathered up my stuff, and left the office at the end of the day.
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