We are adding new ways for you to participate here at Work It, Mom! all the time!

Tomorrow, I am starting a weekly feature here called What Are You Reading? And I am going to talk about what I read (um, mostly schlock), and see if I can get recommendations from all of you. Then we can compile a list of great books here that we can all share!

Are any of you interested in joining a book club? I am going to start a group that is a very general book club Most Excellent Work It, Mom! book club, and hopefully, with enough interest and participation, we can break this down along genres: fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, sci-fi/fantasy.

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On another note (but it relates in that it has to do with us, as working moms, taking care of ourselves), I am also starting an exercise/diet group called I Can Be Fitter, Dammit! (Oh, who am I kidding– I want to be thinner!) I think of it as a potential support group for me, LOL. I can’t be the only one who is finding losing weight to be a serious challenge, and who can’t work in exercise every day! But I have started making small changes, and I am starting to see results. I think we can help each other by sharing what works, what doesn’t, and by confessing when we mess up (oops, did I really go to Taco Bell at 1:00 a.m. the other day with my husband after karaoke? Um, yes, yes, I did), and getting back in the saddle.

So, I hope you’ll come and check out (and join!) these groups and take a little “you” time in the bargain!

But lots of other women did! Including our own CEO Nataly and The Working Closet’s Susan Wagner (and I can’t wait to hear about their trips!) If you felt like you missed out by not being there, here are some terrific places to read about other women’s experiences there, so you can peek in the window with me, face pressed against the glass.

First, Susan Mernit has several posts– so many that I just decided to link generally to her blog, and you can start reading down. Fortunately, her posts are also short and well-linked, and have pictures! Great stuff and loads of information here in brilliant, colorful bursts!

Mom 2 Amara went and discusses here why television journalists don’t blog and other topics raised at BlogHer this year.
Women in Media and News were there and asked Elizabeth Edwards about media policy reform. Click on the link to find out what Ms. Edwards said.

Cynthia DamourTru notes that there were 800 attendees this year, and recounts the two year history of BlogHer. Two years, people. Wow.

True Confessions answers the question from the Book Session of whether or not you need an agent, and so much more about getting a book deal from your blog.

And finally, my favorite: Plain Jane Mom used twitter to cover the conference sessions she attended live. It was much more immediate than live blogging. I loved it. I felt like I was there. Thank you again, Erika. Her blog coverage of the event is here.

Did you go to BlogHer? Did you work it? Don’t forget to enter our contest! (We already have an entry about an interesting autograph request asked of Amy Sedaris…) If you didn’t go to BlogHer, how did you keep up with it from where you were?

I have been traveling a lot, as I noted in an earlier post this week. Despite this travel, which was ostensibly a “vacation,” I managed to complete one of the most challenging projects of my career to date. I still have a little work to do this weekend on a tangential project, but last night I was able to send it off to the client with a feeling of accomplishment. The relief has not yet kicked in.

So, how do you get work done when you are traveling? I do it all the time. Here are some tips:

1) Make sure your laptop has a well-charged battery. This means remembering to plug it in overnight in the hotel just so the battery has a full charge in the morning, and also to make sure that your battery is in good enough condition to warrant use without a plug. Test this before you go.

1.5) Never, never NEVER put a water bottle in your laptop bag if you are going to have both with you on an airplane. Even if you don’t open the water bottle. Your water bottle will explode all over your laptop. IF that happens, do NOT turn your laptop on or plug it in to see if it’s dead: the electrical current passing through the water will fry it. If your laptop gets wet, open it and do everything you can to drain the water, turn it upside down for at least 24 hours, and go chew your nails to a stump somewhere else. Away from your laptop.

2) Don’t think you need to be in a wi-fi location to work. In fact, I got some of my best work done this week because I was working in places that had no internet connection: The library at Notre Dame University, a chartered bus to Chicago, a commuter train from Chicago.

3) If you plan to be away from your computer during the day, and therefore away from your work, get up early. I got significant work done on my project this week by getting up and working for three hours before we had anything planned. That way, I was able to appease my conscience that was screaming for me to work constantly, and also my husband, who wanted to enjoy Chicago.

4) Don’t accept new work right before you go. I was working on a deadline that couldn’t be budged. Even though I had been working on it daily for the two weeks leading up to my travel, I still was not finished. I had no other choice than to bring the work– or cancel my trip. But I certainly wouldn’t have taken on a new project right before I left, or accepted one while I was on my trip.

5) Enjoy your breaks. Even with a deadline looming, I was able to fully enjoy my time away from my computer. I ate samosas at the Taste of Chicago, went to the gift shop at the Art Institute, and walked until I had blisters. As a result, when I sat down to work, I was completely focused. I didn’t waste time, I didn’t surf the net aimlessly, and I didn’t sneak time in on blogs for pleasure. I worked. And because I was in a new environment, I didn’t need the other distractions the web usually provides for me. The change in location was exciting and fun and relaxed me, so I was actually able to work very efficiently.

Nobody likes to take work on their vacation. Nobody. But I am self-employed, and the projects I work on have deadlines that are out of my and my clients’ control. I have to get them done. So, I try to make the best of it and take the constant juggle with me.

Surely, I am not the only one. Do you have any traveling work stories?

I am not, by the title, just referring to women who work in home-based businesses. I think being a working woman is a lonely business anyway. When I worked in a more corporate environment (meaning I had the big fancy office with the window), I was friendly with the women in my office, but only up to a point. We had the occasional lunches together, we knew each other’s children’s names. But we certainly weren’t what you called “friends.” And I certainly didn’t feel that I could trust them enough to tell them about anything I found unsatisfactory at work

I have friends in real life, thank goodness, but I still think that being a working woman is a lonely business. My time with my friends is limited, and unfortunately, my friends don’t necessarily understand what I do (or want to hear about it if they do). This is a dilemma, because when I go out to Tuesday night karaoke, it makes conversations somewhat awkward. I am still thinking full throttle about what strategies I am engaging to attract new clients, about my current deadlines, about the professional conference proposal I am putting together, and I don’t know how to talk about any of these things over a beer in a noisy bar. So, we naturally end up talking about the kids, and when they ask me what I’ve been up to, invariably, I say, “Same old, same old.”

The people that I seek advice from are usually people I have never met in person. They live inside my computer. Those are the people who understand what I do, and also who are as interested in strategizing as I am. These are the people I tell when a new manuscript has been accepted for publication, when I discover that a grant has been funded, or when I am concerned because nobody has contacted me with a new project for a few days.

Who are your friends? Who do you talk to about what you do? Do you have people you trust in the workplace? Or do you talk to your family? Do your friends understand what you do?

Are you lonely too?

I love to joke with people about my boss:

My boss is a real bitch.

My boss makes me work overtime.

I asked my boss for some vacation time, and she said no.

Boy, when I was talking to my Human Resources person about my kid being sick, she was so sympathetic! It was like she had just been through it too!

You can imagine my shock when I found out my husband was sleeping with my boss!

However, even though I joke, I am acutely aware that as a self-employed person, I wear all of these hats alone. And in order to be fair to my clients, my boss, and my employee, I have to divide myself into all of these people ruthlessly. My boss pays me once a month. She doesn’t care whether she has extra money in the business coffers when I am running low. And I do not ask her for advances.

My employee expects to be paid, regardless of whether my clients have paid the company for services yet or not. And she does not understand, nor should she be expected to, that academic departments, who provide the bulk of payments for our services, work slowly. She still has to pay for health insurance, a car loan, a mortgage, and her three children, as she reminds me every time she balances her checkbook.

The boss who is a mother and the employee who is a mother are often at odds as well. Take yesterday for example. As the boss, I was fully aware of deadlines and responsibilities, and I wanted my employee to make a certain amount of progress before the working day was done. As the employee, I wanted flex time: I wanted to take a break in the afternoon to take my kids to the pool and to attend my son’s baseball game, in return for working very late hours last night. My boss should have known better: By 12:25 a.m., I was exhausted and vowed to be a better, more focused employee in the morning.

It’s a balancing act every single day. Will I be a better boss today or a better employee? Will family responsiblities win out, or deadlines? Today, I will get more done on my deadlines simply by virtue of the fact that my son doesn’t have a baseball game. I usually go to karaoke on Tuesday nights with my husband, but he is out of town, and I have work to do. Every day, weighing and measuring, taking accounts. One person could go crazy with trying to manage it all, wear so many hats alone.

So, how do I keep from going crazy? It all boils down to one thing: My kids. It sounds cheesey and hokey, but actually it is a lot more simple and practical. I think for most people it all comes down to the children: I work to provide for my children. Some days, it is more important to meet the deadline that will feed them. However, I am not just a drone who feeds the children and ignores them the rest of the time. Some days it is more important to remember why I became my own boss in the first place. It is more important to set less urgent work aside so I can thrill in my children. If I remember each day what the most important thing is– my children– then I manage to get the balance right. That is the trick. Simple, right? Underneath the bills, the dishes, and the deadlines, the kids are buried there somewhere. You just have to dig through all the other stuff to find them.

I got my Blackberry PDA/phone almost a year and a half ago. I can no longer remember whether I knew before I walked into the store that I wanted one, or whether I was simply in the store to get a new phone for either me or my husband. But either way, I walked out with a Blackberry and my husband got my old phone.

My husband has no interest in having a Blackberry. He doesn’t need to be as connected to his email and the Internet as I do. I am self-employed and home-based, so I like staying connected to clients via email. But it’s not that simple. I don’t think my clients necessarily expect to have 24-hour access to me. It is that I like to have 24-hour access to THEM.

I get scolded by friends a lot in social situations for whipping out my Blackberry and checking email, or worse: instant messaging. It’s like a compulsion, a nervous habit. Something to do with my hands. However, it makes me feel, at times, like my life occurs 90% inside my computer (or my little hand-held soul). It’s a tough balancing act. I could leave my Blackberry at home, but then I wouldn’t have a cell phone. I have three children and a husband, so not having a phone with me in this digital age is a major inconvenience, not to mention a major impracticality. The only times I don’t have it nearby are when I am sleeping, showering, or running.

In recent weeks, my beloved Blackberry has been showing signs of weariness, signs of illness, overuse, old age. People tell me they cannot hear me when I am on the phone with them. I have to pop out the battery more and more when the phone freezes up as I am trying to end a call. The new battery is refusing to hold a charge for as long as it should after a day of relative inactivity. Yesterday, I spent two hours online with a technical support representative downloading new sofware, when I know that I am probably going to have to replace my phone. This has led me to do some soul-searching and to ask myself: Do I really need a Blackberry? Does anybody really need to be so connected? Who would it hurt if I didn’t have one? Do I really need to check email during long car trips or in airports? Does anybody besides me really care?

I think having my Blackberry makes me less engaged my in my life. I have been known to check email during movies, at dinners with friends, during baseball games (both professional and little league), while my husband was having hernia surgery, while I am at the pool with my kids, at karaoke, everywhere. It’s rude, it’s compulsive, and I am starting to think that it is more intrusive than it is necessary. One of the ways I know that this is an addiction is that then I start to justify it, tell myself that it’s not hurting anyone. I tell lie to myself that it’s quiet and inobtrusive. And I start to feel a little panicky to think of not having it. I take my purse to the bathroom so I can check it. I am worse than a teenage girl sneaking cigarettes in the bathroom. What would I do every other second without it?

Have you quit your Blackberry? Was it okay? Will I be okay if I quit mine? What is your addiction? What piece of technology or adjunctive to our business can you not live without? And what would you do?