Posts Tagged ‘Working Mom’

By Betsy, Editor, Funky Mama Bird (@funkymamabird)

As a mom who works full time from home, I need to stay organized. Not only do I need to know where everything is so I can find it, I need a way to keep things out of tiny, grabbing hands.

Like most moms, I’m on a budget so anything I purchase for the house has to come out of another area’s spending money, which makes me very, very choosy about just what I buy. I do my research, hunt down the best deal and if I see something I think will work, I buy two.

I know a lot of you either work from home, or aspire to do so, and are in the same situation as I am: You need an office organization system that works, doesn’t take up too much room and doesn’t cost the entire earth.

Here are my recommendations:

Claris Four Drawer Duo Cabinets

These very lightweight and inexpensive storage units from Claris are extremely well made. They snap together right at home, taking about five minutes to put each one together, ten if you have a helper who keeps running away with the drawer fronts.

The drawers are deep enough to hold pens, mailing envelopes, CDs or DVD, markers and crafting supplies. The drawers themselves pull out smoothly and the whole system is modular; make it as big or small as you need it to be.

9-Section Daisy Drawer Organizer

If any of you are crafters, or work with small pieces you need this organizer. Very sturdy, well built and able to fit inside most large plastic tubs, the Daisy Drawer Organizer holds a lot of crafting supplies. I can keep finished jewelry, loose beads, wire and all my accessories in here organized and able to be seen at a glance.

The organizers stack neatly on top of one another; I keep mine out on a table, but you can pack them away easily as well.

Cascading File Letter Tote

Those of us that work from home and have our own businesses also have a paper trail a mile long. That’s where the cascading file letter tote comes in handy. Hang it from a wall, and it’s becomes an easy storage solution for all your loose papers and receipts. Use a dry erase marker to fill in the built-in calendar, and when it’s time to haul the whole thing to the tax-man, just fold it up and go.

Perfect for bringing with you to business meetings, or just leaving on the wall out of reach of sticky, grabby fingers.

Do you have a home office organization system that works for you? Let us know about it in the comments!

By Working Mommy, Contributor, Lessons Learned (@lessonslrndblog)

Not many people know this, but I am a wedding planner by trade. Before you get all giddy – no, it is NOT like the Jennifer Lopez movie. I mean, some big clients do act like that – renting statues and live trees and such – but the majority just don’t have the expendable money. (*Just a side note…I love the ones with expendable money, though!  They usually give me the most leeway when selecting over-the-top decor!)

Moving on…as a wedding planner, I have had the pleasure the privilege the opportunity to wear multiple hats for one event. These hats include – but are not limited to – minister, caterer, bar tender, psychologist, family therapist, pre-marital counselor, lion (mother/mother-in-law) tamer, seamstress, photographer, chicken wrangler (babysitter), florist and, most recently, security.

In my 10+ years of experience I have learned that not every event is the same, and THAT is what makes each one unique and interesting.

So, after all of my trials and tribulations, I can honestly say that I finally have the ability to pass on some knowledge when it comes to self-planning an event. The example I am going to use is my daughter’s recent first birthday.

The most important part of this shin-dig, besides the food, was the guest list. I opted for an e-vite because they are just so dang useful! I mean, you save money on postage, can email it to anyone you want, and update as often as you need to with information for your guests. It is a FREE one-stop-shop for smaller gatherings.

When it comes to menu planning, make sure you serve things that are either easy for you to make (like a family recipe you could whip up in your sleep), able to be made and brought by someone attending, or can be bought for relatively little money.

The menu for The Babe’s party was:

* Cheese and Crackers (this is super easy to do)
* Fruit Balls (again, super easy and can be prepped days ahead of time)
* Beef Kabobs (with peppers and onions – marinated in garlic and teriyaki sauce)
* Potato Salad
* Deviled Eggs (ridiculously easy)
* Broccoli Salad (a la my mama)
* Egg Rolls (another famous offering by my mama…luckily she makes HUGE batches and freezes them)
* Birthday Cupcakes (The Man even helped me decorate them the night before…YUM)
* Birthday Cake (it was my first time decorating…LOVE how it turned out)

For a party of 30 people, everything cost about $150 total, which really isn’t bad considering all the food we had available. No one went hungry and we had left-overs for days – always a plus!!!

Add some great friends and you will have one of the BEST parties ever!!! I mean, this face doesn’t lie…yet!!

Megan, Guest Writer, Twinsomnia

When my husband and I first found out we were going to have twins, we were so overcome by the excitement of it all that our brains stopped working.

That lasted for a few weeks.

After that, we emerged from twin shock and started to think logistics.  The first point being – how in the heck were we going to afford all of these kids?  And by kids, I mean the still-gestating twins and their already-existing 12 month old big sister.

When it comes to producing offspring, you can’t say we’re not overachievers.

At the time, my husband was running his own home remodeling business, and I was working a 9 to 5 (more like 8-7) gig as a junior associate at a big law firm.  We were doing just fine financially, so I had no worries that we’d be able to swing a couple of extra kids, no problemo.  But then I got out my calculator and multiplied the cost of Ashley’s weekly daycare by 3.  And then I proceeded to freak.

Good grief, the cost of 3 infants in daycare is astronomical!  If only my egg had known before spontaneously dividing into two separate babies, I’m sure it would have acted more responsibly.

But what was done was done.  So, I started researching alternatives.  We flirted with a home daycare for awhile, but frankly that wasn’t much cheaper.  We researched nannies, but just found the whole process overwhelming.  And then it hit us.

Maybe I should quit my job and stay home with the kids.

And then it hit us again.  Me quitting my job would be the most financially foolish thing we had ever done.  Even more so than that time we dropped a couple hundred dollars on a Roomba.

I didn’t want to believe it.  But you can’t argue with the facts.  I was a lawyer. I had job security.  I carried the health insurance.  I had student loan debt from law school that needed to be paid off.

And, I made more money.  And, if we were really trying to do what was best for the kids, we needed to think of our financial future.  And, even though we tried to dodge it, it hit us square on the nose this time.  Maybe my husband should give up his business and stay home with the kids instead.

I can’t say that the thought of it didn’t hurt.  Even with all the facts laid out nicely before me, a huge part of me was silently shouting “But I’m the moooooooooooom!  I’m supposed to stay home!  I want to stay home!”  But life doesn’t always work out the exact way we pictured it to be.

And for that, I’m grateful.  Because in these non-stereotypical roles my husband and I have taken on, we’ve challenged ourselves and grown more as individuals, as a couple and as a family than we ever would have if we’d gone down a more comfortably familiar path.  And at the end of the day, we’re pretty lucky that one of us is able to stay home with the kids at all, even if it can’t be me.

Plus, my husband rocks the stay-at-home-dad thing.  He might not always think so, but I do.  And I’m pretty sure our three kids agree with me

By Beth, Contributor, Funky Mama Bird

It’s 3pm, the teething baby is wrapped around my leg, simultaneously bouncing up and down and licking my knee. A cat is trying to get into my lap while the other one hurls on the floor behind me. Before I can turn around, a chat box opens on my computer and an irritated editor pops up wondering where that piece on faucet repair is.

Life as a WAHM is complete chaos and I completely love it.

A typical day starts with supervising breakfast while I do research at the kitchen table. This translates to typing with one hand, while the other hand blocks food that is about to be thrown on the floor. I have made an art form of watching my computer screen while simultaneously watching my son out of the corner of my eye. He waits until he doesn’t think I’m looking to try to pitch a piece of waffle and like a hockey goalie, I block and return.

I do two things at once pretty much all day. I’m composing a marketing email in my head while I push cars on the rug making beeping sounds. I make a game of vacuuming the house; first I chase Gunne Bear with the vacuum, then he chases me. Then we both go chase the cats so they don’t feel left out.

The only breaks I get are when I rock my son before nap and bedtime. When my husband says to me, “What would you like to do tonight?” like he does every night after dinner, I can only stare at him in exhaustion. Somehow, I hear him and yet it’s like Mr. Potato Head came to life and started making sounds; something doesn’t add up.

The thing is, I chose this life and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I think that every Mom, every family finds their own balance. Whether Dad stays home and Mom works, both parents work out of the home or at the home, every family does what they have to, to make it work for them.

I often feel like the Speed Racer theme song plays in the background as I race through my day, but I honestly don’t think I could be any happier. At the end of the day, my son is cared for and happy, my home is clean and I’ve satisfied my editors enough that I can feel the satisfaction of a job well done. At the end of the day, going to bed at night I feel so lucky to have achieved this kind of balance for myself. I lead a charmed life; I make it that way and I know it.

By Mama M

Hear me roar!

I am nurse…

Hear me yell…

“Push, push, push!!!”

 

I’m gonna level you here…all my life I wanted to be a stay at home mom (still do, in fact), just raise babies and love ‘em up ’til they can bring me home some grandbabies.

But, sometimes…life just doesn’t turn out quite the way you plan. An unplanned pregnancy at 18, baby at 19…and that experience changed my life forever (well, duh!!)!

Photo Courtesy: ChicagoParent.com

I decided to become a nurse after the birth of my son…the nurses I had, made my experience so incredibly positive, that they impacted my life forever. 

And, I wanted to do that for people!

Not to mention…I can not resist the smell of a newborn.

That helped make my decision, too!

I must say…that I have the greatest job in the entire world. To help “Sweet Young Mothers” bring their babes into the world is one heckuva fabulous thing to be able to do.

I love being a nurse. I love the miracle of birth, the awe and amazement in new parents’ eyes, and then…there’s that whole “newborn smell” thing. It’s amazing.

And every. single. baby. has it. 

I will say, though, that being a labor nurse is intense stuff. When we care for a mother and her unborn baby, we are caring for two lives.

We are watching “fetal heart tones”, seeing their reaction to contractions. Supporting mother’s in what is most certainly the most physically painful experience they are likely to have.

And, there are the tragedies. The stillbirths, the “not compatible with life” anomalies, the unexpected findings that come at birth. I will say, that as incredibly difficult as those times are…to be there to support hurting, grieving parents, is rewarding in it’s own way.

I love my job.

I never cease to be amazed, when I’m bathing a new baby, that just a few short hours ago, this tiny little creature was entirely dependent on his mama…and now…here he is, eating, breathing, crying, burrowing his way deeper and deeper into the hearts of his parents.

I’m not sure I’ve said it before…but I love my job. And…have I mentioned, before, that I love my job?

I do. 

And, as much as I’d love to stay home with my kiddos…I love doing what I do when I’m at work!

What is your favorite part about your job?

 

Mama M. is a thirtysomething mother of 5, wife to Mr. Wonderful, and part-time labor and delivery nurse. While her family is her passion, she’s quite certain her “moonlighting” gig as an L&D nurse has got to be the best career there is! You can find her over at her blog, My Little Life.