January 28, 2014

I guess I need to start out fast on this one. As I knew would happen, I've recently gotten a little feedback on some of my blog posts and because of the kind of feedback it is, I think I should…well, just explain...

My brother snuck up on me in the Public Library yesterday and in the course of our brief conversation said that he knew I was feeling a bit sad. I looked at him, a little puzzled… and he went on to say that he had been reading my blog. He said that he didn’t really want to read it because it was “sad,” but that I was his sister and that he was trying to be supportive, so read it, he did. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and smiled his killer smile.

Then today, I got an extremely heartfelt email from a former college schoolmate and a colleague in the business. It was a long, well written, packed with advice, email. He said he hoped that I wouldn’t be offended.  Honestly, I really appreciated the thought and especially the time he took to write such a lengthy correspondence. He said that he knew I was “sad,” and advised me to be careful about “exposing yourself so openly” while looking for a job. He said he appreciated my frankness in such a personal life account, but cautioned me about linking it to my professional profile and accomplishments.

When I first starting writing the blog, I was looking for some quick feedback, so I asked my long-time friend, Leslie, what she thought. She wrote: “I think it’s a great way to get to know you. It’s real and honest and your priorities and experience rings through loud and clear.”

I had intended it to be just that; an honest, open diary of sorts, describing what it’s like for one person – me - to be a single parent of a small child; a successful, experienced professional, now unemployed and facing real challenges. It was supposed to be personal and real and was intended to share my thoughts and feelings…and hopes...my struggles and my victories.

She went on; “For the kind of job you’re wanting (a real executive job in a position of trust and high compensation), I think every chance that you can show who you really are is a good one. Keep writing. People respond to honesty and clarity of thought. All the stuff you’re doing for your mom – shows that you are still young, strong and very physically able on the inside and the outside. And, that you have a heart of gold. It’s you.”

I have felt sad, at times, since losing my job. I think that’s pretty normal. But I am not sad as a matter of course. I am actually a very resilient and tenacious person. I don’t give up easily. I like to succeed. I like to accomplish things, solve problems, and find creative solutions to every...single…challenge that I am faced with.

So, I think I’ll go on writing openly and honestly, sharing my journey with whoever might like to read what I write, and we’ll see where it will take us.

By the way, the high today was 1 degree above zero.

Everything is looking up!

Leaves cling to a tree in the last days of fall.
Finding beauty in the simplest of things.

January 27, 2014

Baby…It's cold outside!  

- 9 degrees below zero, but actually getting colder. -33 below zero windchill.

Jack Frost on the bedroom window.

Harry woke from his nap Sunday afternoon, came down the stairs and into the living room. He saw me working on my computer. “Are you still finding that job?”  “Yes, sweetie, still.” I answered.

He walked over to the chair I was sitting in, crawled up onto the seat and snuggled in next to me. And in that I’ve just woken from a nap little voice, he said, ”Mommy, “I want to go home.”

Sigh. Big…heavy…sigh.

 “Sweetie, we don’t have a home in Massachusetts anymore. Someone else is living in our home.”

“Who? Who is living in our home?”

 “Well,” hesitating, “I don’t really know who is living there, they are strangers.”

“Why are there strangers living in our home?”

“Well…someone else wanted to live there when we packed up and left, so someone is living there…where we used to live.”

“Where are we going to live now?”

“Well, right now, we are living with Grandma, but it won’t be forever.  We are just living here temporarily, for a little while. We have a temporary home with Grandma. We’ll have our own home again soon enough, Sweetie.”

I had hoped as soon as those words came out of my mouth, that I had sounded convincing.  I wasn’t sure that I had. With the passage of more and more time, it is sometimes harder to believe myself.  I suppose that a few doubts and breaks in confidence are normal in this process, but it doesn’t feel good.  It doesn’t feel good at all.

In attempting to feel better, I’ve been on a small self-improvement campaign.  I had been coloring my own grays…yes, coloring the grays, lots of them. I am no where vain enough NOT to admit that. I remember that my Grandmother (my mother’s mother) didn’t have a single gray hair on her head until she was about 75 years old, and then just at the temples! Although I do favor my mother’s side, I think that I can safely say that I have experienced a bit more stress in my life than she in hers. And my belief, of course, is that stress can induce the grays. As a special treat, I decided to go to my mother’s hair stylist to get my hair professionally colored. I used to do it all the time in Boston. Of course that was when I had an income. Whatever it is about going to a salon, no matter how superficial, you always feel better walking out than you did walking in. And I did. Feel better.

Goodbye grays!

Salon cape and Bogs.

Then…I went on the two-week detox diet, featured on daytime television’s Dr. Oz. I started every day with a hot cup of water with the juice of ½ a lemon squeezed into it. All you can eat of low glycemic vegetables, and vegetable broth, no coffee (or other caffeine, just organic green tea), 6 oz. of protein daily, no dairy (except one cup of plain Greek yogurt), no refined sugars and virtually no carbohydrates. The detox part worked, and I lost 10 pounds. I felt more balanced throughout the day without the highs and lows that all those simple sugars and carbs can create.

It’s important to take care of yourself, I know that, but the only thing that will really make me feel better, in every way, is to be employed again…gainfully employed so that I can provide for my son and so that we can get our lives back into our own little routine…uniquely ours and ours alone…and in our own home.

January 27, 2014.  Again.

A “polar vortex.”  That’s what the weather professionals say we are experiencing. All I know is that it is very, very cold. Not just in real temperatures, but in wind chill (the temperature it "feels like" outside based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin) numbers.

A friend (and former colleague) just sent a message via Instagram: “You picked the wrong winter to be in Wisconsin.” Yes, well…I didn’t exactly choose to be in Wisconsin, but in Wisconsin, I am.

I had gone back home after doing my daily diligence of reviewing emails, alerts, correspondence and network group posts and after searching job sites for new positions.  I had posted the brief earlier post and thought I might spend the afternoon either going through old boxes upstairs in my mother’s house (continuing the process of purging the “extras”) or visit my sister across the street to finish a little sewing project that I had started. I was feeling a bit defeated…down…and even a little sad.

I had initially gone home to try to connect with that friend (who as I remembered is also a Headhunter.) I had called and left a message and then she had called and left a message with another number and well…you know how that goes.  I needed to use the landline at mom’s to have a normal conversation, knowing that if I tried to use my cell, I’d spend the whole conversation repeating, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me, now?”

I dialed the number and waited and after just two rings, she answered. It was nice to hear her voice, an old friend after all. She said that she couldn’t talk long, she had some deadlines to meet, and after a few quick “back and forth” greetings, she went right to the point.  “The truth is, neither my firm or I can really help you.” (It’s not that she didn’t want to help, she really did. It is, however, that she works with CEO-types who pull in millions of dollars in salary, and although I was doing quite well for myself, my salary wasn’t anywhere near a million dollars!)

She did offer some advice: Recruiters are working with LinkedIn profiles. “It’s like a new standard, everyone is doing it in the business.” She explained. “Make sure you know what position you are seeking, and then load your profile with key words associated with that position, that will get you seen in searches.” She added, “Search others’ profiles that are in comparable professions and see what they’ve written. Search associations that might lead to contacts or recruiters and reach out to them. Keep calling and keep looking. Use LinkedIn.

Then she said something that was kind, really, and while I already can’t remember the exact words she used, it translated to “Keep the faith.” And as my voice started to crackle and as the tears welled in my eyes, I could barely get the words out, “I’m trying, but after 7 months, it’s hard.” She added, “You are a very talented woman. Keep it up and I promise you, there is something for you out there.” And then…we said our goodbyes.

I know she’s right. I am talented. I am going to find something. I will find something. And today, all I needed was a few words of encouragement from a good person, a friend, to get me back on track.

So, after a lunch of mixed greens with Albacore tuna, sun-dried tomatoes, avocado and sunflower seeds topped with a light lemon juice and olive oil dressing, a cup of organic green tea and a couple of those wonderful Pepperidge Farm dark chocolate cookies sprinkled with peppermint crumbles, I was on my way to my 4Runner, to make the six-mile drive back to the Public Library and the Internet! Back to work…to find work.

But first, the chores.  The birds are in a feeding frenzy and have been all morning.  Animals are most keenly in tune with the weather and they certainly need to get to the food during the sunshine and daylight hours of said “polar vortex.” So, I assessed the feeders and went off to the garage to get the needed seed. One of the metal cans that mom stores the feed in was near empty, so I had to mix the feed before filling the various feeders. This particular mix consists of one large bag of the Fruit and Nut Blend, about a ½ bag of shelled sunflower seeds and ½ bag of cracked corn, mixed together with a claw garden tool.  Once I had the blend looking reasonably like Mom’s version, I filled the old gallon water jugs to take to the feeders; one jug of the mix, one jug of “waste-free, black oil, sunflower seeds” and one jug of some kind of thistle seed for the smaller feeder and the smaller birds. By this time, though, my fingertips had gone numb (lost feeling) and really began to hurt. (Fingers, toes, ear lobes, or the tip of the nose are the areas most susceptible to frostbite. Your body works hard to keep internal organs and your head warm, and sometimes extremities get left behind.)

A happy Chickadee.

The new seeded treat.

Just a reminder that it’s -10 degrees below zero, with a wind-chill of -33 below.  According to the National Weather Service Windchill Chart, at those numbers, I could have a serious case of frostbite in just 10 minutes! I had certainly been mixing seed, with ungloved hands, for that long. The “polar vortex” is nothing to fool around with and today’s lesson…a stark reminder. 

Brrrrrrrr.

January 26, 2014

Six inches of new snow on the ground this morning. 

Old snowmen. New snow.

Twenty five below zero expected on Monday with wind chills reaching almost 50 below. 

No wonder everyone talks about the weather all the time. That...and the meat sale at the local grocery!

Miller Country store.

(NOTE: For the perfectionist that lives within me and for the budding blogger that I am…a transitional paragraph was missing in Friday’s post, deleted inexplicably. It’s probably only going to matter to me, but because it does…matter to me, I added it, updated and republished.)

With the goal of Harry knowing a little bit about a lot of things as the working model, I do what I can to teach Harry when he’s not in school. In addition to manners and kindness and morals and just plain common sense, we do more basic things too. We do puzzles, LOTS of puzzles. Big, beautiful colorful underwater and outer space puzzles. We have alphabet and number cards (with wonderful illustrations by Eric Carle – the beloved and innovative children’s illustrator) and we play. Imaginative play. Harry has a marvelous imagination. He loves to build lost cities, towers and tunnels with blocks. (Actually tunnel was one of Harry’s first words – he was born in Boston after all.) He has a wooden railway that he LOVES. It has hundreds of pieces of track that allow for hundreds of variations of railways: ovals and circles, crisscrosses and straight. And of course, books.  Hundreds of amazingly illustrated books.  I’ve loved choosing his books, always particular about not only the story (whether there’s a lesson to be learned), but the quality of the illustration as well. It has been said that picture books are an introduction to literature for the very young reader. They can take us on adventures, teach us new things and certainly make us laugh and cry too. Harry never gets through a page, even the books we’ve read 50 times, without asking questions. Questions about a small detail in the illustration or questioning why this or why that? I love his quest for knowledge.

Santa brought more track at Christmas. 

And at Grandma’s, construction paper is king!  We’ve made a whole paper train complete with an engine, coal car, boxcar, flat bed car and caboose. We’ve made fish, a request when he came home from school talking about a fishing game they had played.  We cut shapes. We paste. We color. And we stick stickers.  Harry has just recently discovered the fun of stickers. He does, though, for some reason, like to stick them all in the same spot in the middle of the paper. We are also working on a farm-themed Valentine’s Day card for Grandma!

Fish.

The paper train.

Don't "balk" Valentine, Be Mine.

Harry is working on the alphabet with Miss Margie.  He’s known the alphabet for a long time, but now approaching each letter in more detail, the sound it makes, how it looks, what words begin with what letters. Each week is a new letter.  This week it’s “h” and Harry couldn’t wait to tell me that “h” says ha…ha…ha…Harry!!

Self portrait.

Polar bear. Creativity runs in the family.

It’s becoming his routine now. Early in the morning - every morning - as we are backing out of the driveway on the way to school, Harry repeats: “Mommy, I want to go home.” Sometimes he says “to Massachusetts.” Sometimes “to Boston.” He wants to go to our home…what he has known as our home together.  Explaining to a 4-year-old that we have no home to go to is more than difficult. To do it in succinct phrases that he can digest and understand is not easily done.

I just quietly explain that before we can live in a new home, I have to find a new job and that I am trying to do just that. I hope soon that I’ll have a different answer for him. Things are moving at a snail’s pace. It is excruciating.

In early February, I’ll be getting on a plane and traveling to Columbia, Missouri to participate as a jury member, judging the news division of the Pictures of the Year International Photography competition. The judging begins on February 5 and continues for three weeks. It’s a prestigious honor for me, the competition one of the more coveted recognitions in the industry. It will be a grueling 5 solid days of judging for my panel, beginning at 8 o’clock in the morning and winding down around 6 p.m. The panel of judges is described on the official website as “18 of the most prestigious professionals.” My fairly beaten down ego needed that.

It should be really interesting to experience the competition in its current iteration, as I actually coordinated the competition as a student. This will be the 71^st annual competition, mine the 36^th annual? (I think it was the 36th…geez…I don't honestly remember. I guess I'll need to look that up. I do remember that it was SO incredibly important to me at the time.  I was the first female to coordinate the competition and the first to have the slide show presentation - all the slides dropping into the projector at the precise, correct moment, synched with the Russian composition, Pictures at an Exhibition - go off without a hitch!) 

It was a very different competition then. Photographs were entered in color and black and white prints, mounted on 11 x 14 mounting board and sent in portfolio cases. As you might imagine, everything is now submitted electronically in digital files. The categories expanded from newspapers and magazines to online publications, video and multimedia. It should be fun to be back on campus. No doubt it has changed a great deal. I think the traditional picture in front of the columns (those that still stand in the middle of the quad, the only remaining structure after the Academic Hall- the first building built on campus - caught fire, January 9, 1892, destroying the entire building) will have to be made and posted on Instagram, not shot on film and printed days later like the last time I was there. Wow, how things have changed! I sound like such a dinosaur.

Sorting and categorizing the entrants.

Portfolio cases stacked in the background for returning the entries. 

I’ve been trying to ignore the most difficult part of the trip…leaving Harry.  Harry and I have not been apart for more than a few hours most of his life. We are very close…bonded in a very special way.  Grandma will be his caretaker for the week. I think she’s more than a little nervous about it, as am I.  Not worried about her caring for him, but worried about being without him (although getting my 40 plus pound child into his car seat, and buckling those 5-point safety buckles over his layers of winter clothes is a struggle for me on a good day.) He is my joy, my light and my life. I know it sounds silly, but separation anxiety is real. Separating from something that is so much a part of who you are, how you spend your day, what occupies your thoughts. It will be…difficult. He will be in school during the day, his routine remaining fairly much the same, except without me. I’m worried, but I think I said that already.

I’m going to call every night, just to hear his voice, and Harry, mine. I can’t really manage a Face Time call or SKYPE.  No one in the family has an iPhone (except for me) or a computer, and the Internet lives at the Public Library. Mom says it will be good for him…and for me. I think it will be awful.

Us.

I ran into a friend from my high school days at Wal-Mart the other day.  He asked how things were going? This was our second meeting, the first a little awkward for me. I was walking out of Wal-Mart and a man in a FedEx uniform said my name as I passed him.  I was startled a bit, having tried to be fairly low key in our time here. I didn’t recognize him at first, but once he said his name, it all came flowing back to me. We talked, caught up briefly and I explained my presence here. The second time, he was in line behind me. When we chatted, I told him that I would be taking a trip in February and I was worried about leaving Harry.  He said, “He’s four now isn’t he?” He emphasized the number as if that was the magical age of independence. “Yes, but…” I struggled to explain.  “You mothers! He’s always going be your baby, right?” he laughed. My baby? Yes…he was right. He will always be my baby.

Me and my baby.