For the past two weeks I’ve been getting up at 5:30am, four days a week, to get to the gym before my daughter is up and our day gets off to its hectic pace.

As many of you consider how nuts this is, let me explain why I decided to do it:

A while back I started to exercise regularly and realized it was really good for me, for all the obvious reasons. I feel better, I have more energy, I get rid of some stress, and as I get older, I’m doing stuff to help my body be stronger. For the past two years I’ve been working a lot from home, which allowed me to sneak out for a workout during lunch or another free hour in my day, and get back to work in a snap, without having to take a shower before getting on a conference call. (Boy, was I glad to read that I’ve not been the only one doing conference calls in my sweaty gym clothes!)

But this is all about to end as I start a new gig (in addition, of course, to continuing to nurture and run Work It, Mom!) that’s a full-time job in an office. Working out during lunch isn’t a very practical possibility because a good workout followed by a shower and getting dressed routine takes more time than I can find during the workday. I absolutely hate going to the gym at night and that’s when my husband goes, so that’s not a possibility either. Which leaves early mornings and gets me back to my new 5:30 am wake-up routine.
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In four weeks my best friend from college is getting married. We were as close as can be when we were in undergrad and even though our lives went in different directions after graduation and we’ve not stayed in close touch, she is a special person in my life. So when she told me about the engagement, I was thrilled, and when we got the wedding invite, I knew we’d go no matter where in the world the wedding would be.

Except, here’s the thing, the wedding is in Mexico. And Mexico is at the epicenter of the recent Swine Flu epidemic, which is spreading quickly, including here in the US.
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I’ve written often on this blog about flexibility and work. As a working mom, it’s an endless struggle to juggle my career and my family and I’ve only been able to do it because of having some flexibility with my work schedules. Depending on where I’ve worked, I’ve either been able to work from home some of the time or leave earlier than normal on some days and continue to work after my daughter is asleep. (I’ve never worked part-time and while sometimes I think that may be the ultimate way to “balance” work and family, I’ve heard from enough women about their part-time work experiences that would suggest this arrangement is far from ideal.)

The current economic recession is scary on many levels but one aspect about it that’s stressing me out is its potential effect on flexibility at work.
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Yesterday was the Take Your Kids to Work Day. Did you know that? I ask because well, I completely forgot. In fact, I feel like there used to be a lot more talk and news coverage of this day than now, but perhaps it’s because the news is consumed with endless bad economic news.

I’ve brought my daughter to visit most places I’ve worked, but only for a very short time — I’d never considered actually bringing her to work with me for the day.
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Last weekend we went to New York to hang out with our very good friends. Our daughters “met” when they were just a few months old (by “met” I mean that we, the moms, started talking to each other in the park because I was amazed how quietly her baby slept and she was amazed at how loud mine screamed in the stroller) and are great friends. It was a fun weekend of lots of food, wine, and talk, talk, talk, including lots of talk about whether or not we will have more kids.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you might be surprised that I am even mentioning this idea — my post about why it’s such a crime to have an only child is *still* the most popular post. I’m an only child and a happy one, and for a while now my husband and I were pretty certain that our kiddo will be our only.

So here we come to visit our friends in New York, who also just have one child, and the conversation quickly turns to whether we or they will have more.
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Our family — probably like most families out there — lives according to a quick-paced, hectic schedule. We do try to find some time to just relax and hang out together on the weekends, but during the week it’s all go, go, go! And while I know we’d all like to do it, we haven’t figured out a way to all eat dinner together on weeknights.

This has been bugging me a lot. I love the idea of all of us hitting the pause button on our crazy schedules and catching up while eating together. I’ve also seen some research suggesting that eating dinner together as a family has a positive impact on kids as they grow up. This makes total sense to me. But alas, our schedules just don’t work out, yet, to have a family dinner during the week.

So about a week ago I decided that we we were going to make breakfast our special family meal for the day. (This was inspired, in part, by my own resolution to eat a full, healthy, warm breakfast every day — but more on that in a different post.) The family breakfast “rules” are fairly simple:
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I spend a good portion of my professional life online — even though it overwhelms me and is a serious productivity killer, I love email as a way to communicate and get stuff done. (I used to think it was weird that I’ve never met many of the people with whom I regularly interact online, but now I’m used to it.)

I also do a lot of networking online, connecting with people through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, asking for introductions, introducing myself after reading something they wrote, etc. This makes my universe of contacts much broader — thank you Internet — and that’s a very good thing because I think networking is essential to career success in pretty much any field. (Not to mention you can’t really get a job without networking.)

While I am no networking pro and am certain that I’ve made my share of mistakes, I’ve developed some online networking pet peeves I thought I’d share. You know, in case you were about to commit one of them (not that I am suggesting that you would, really).

I don’t have all day to read your email. Why would you send a five paragraph email to someone you’re connecting with for the first time? It’s a waste of time for you and it’s a waste of time for the recipient, if they actually take the time to read it. Which, I have to confess, they won’t, unless there is a very compelling reason to do it. If you’re sending an email introduction to someone for the first time, be brief, write the purpose of your email in the first sentence or two and after you’ve finished it, read it and ask yourself this question: If I am the recipient of this email, do I know what the person sending it wants me to do?
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The last full-time nanny we had for our daughter when we lived in New York City was amazing. Not only was she great with our daughter but she became our friend as well — I’m not a cryer and I cried my eyes out when we had to move and let her go. The current part-time sitter we have is also great. Not as amazing — not sure anyone will be — but our daughter loves her, they have a good time together, and she teaches her all sorts of old songs which then sound really funny coming out of the mouth of a four year-old.

There’s just one thing that’s always bugged me about both of these babysitters: They love to chat once I get home from work. And I mean really, really chat, not just quickly catch up about the day or give me some updates about our daughter.
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I loved the show Alias. My husband and I actually started to watch it on DVD after it was over and we called it our nightly addiction.

The show is filled with plenty of this-can’t-be-real moments, but one thing that kept sticking out to me was the way Sydney Bristow (as played by Jennifer Garner), the CIA double-agent, manages to compartmentalize her work stress and leave it out of her personal life. (And it’s stress with a capital “S”, which often involves almost being killed several times in an episode while preventing the world from total collapse). At one point during the show she actually tells someone that it’s the only way she has figured out how to function — to compartmentalize her work, her double-agent work, and her personal life and keep them as separate as possible. (Which, of course, she doesn’t do completely, after she starts dating her CIA handler.)

I completely suck at this skill — I am horrible at compartmentalizing. I bring work stress home and  if something is stressing me out I have a hard time putting it on the back burner.
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Usually when I pick my daughter from school she’s happy to see me, but she lingers with her friends as I nudge her to get dressed and go. But today, for some reason, she saw me coming down the hall and ran to me, hugged me, and climbed on me like she hasn’t done since she was a toddler.

…

Last Friday my husband’s parents were coming over for dinner. I generally have a no-Friday-entertaining rule because by the end of the work week I am completely exhausted, but we made the plans to have them over anyway.
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