Jennifer

February 2, 2016

What is this “work-life balance” that you speak of?

I’ve long since felt uneasy about this whole idea of work-life balance. I’m not quite sure what it means. Does it mean that work and life don’t bleed together? Does it mean we do work at work, and home at home, and never the two shall meet? Does it mean we think of only one or the other, but not both simultaneously? I’m really starting to believe that there isn’t balance, there just is. There isn’t a work me and a home me, there is...

January 24, 2016

A little more…just in case

We are having some friends over for dinner. “I’ll keep it simple,” I said. “Just soup and sandwiches.” So onto Pinterest I go to find a few new recipes. “We should have variety,” I think. “I’ll make a few different kinds of soup and get different kinds of deli meats and cheese, so people can make what they want.” This turned into a trip to Costco. And Target. And Giant Eagle. And Kroger. I’m making chili. And Cream of Chicken...

January 20, 2016

We are all each others’ therapists

I got a haircut today. I sat in the same chair I have sat in every 4-6 weeks for the past four years. Sometimes a cut and color. Sometimes just a cut. But always the same reassuring conversation. “How are you? How is your family? How was your holiday? Any vacation plans?” My stylist knows me quite well by now. She knows my kids by name; she knows my job; she knows my hobbies and my interests. She can tell...

January 17, 2016

Post-Conference Mom

As professionals, we attend conferences. Businessmen, salespeople, educators; attorneys, therapists, and home-based business folks; they all go to conferences. And so do trauma surgeons. Turns out, we aren’t as dumb as we look: one national trauma organization has it’s conference each year in January in a warm locale, usually Florida or Texas, and another major group meets out West at a ski resort. These conferences are equal parts learning, networking, and, I’ll admit it, playing! Travel from Ohio to…well, anywhere…can...

January 13, 2016

The Exact Opposite

Scott and I went away for a quick couples ski weekend and we left the kids in the care of Scott’s mom. We returned on Monday night to find that all four children remained alive and well. The house was exceptionally clean (thank you, Mawmaw!). The children had been fed and read to and loved all weekend. We started to unpack and rapidly assimilated back into our “parent roles”. We dumped out the kids’ backpacks to make sense of the homework we needed...

January 8, 2016

Seriously, God, that’s about enough, ok?

It’s been a long day. Actually, a long week. A co-worker’s husband is ill. An acquaintance has chronic and debilitating pain. A friend tells me his wife’s cancer is back, and it’s bad. Another friend tells me there is pain and brokenness in her marriage. I’ve had my share of personal unsettledness over the last year. Some career burnout. Feeling numb and disengaged both at work and at home. I’ve done plenty of self-reflection and self-help. But after a point, that just...

January 5, 2016

Post Call Mom: Four

Four miles pre-call. Four hours rounding in the ICU. Four exhausted but VERY hard working residents. Four AMAZING NPs. Four surgeons in-house. Four traumas in quick succession. Twenty-four admissions. Four hours of sleep. Four cups of coffee. Four miles post-call. Four telemarketer calls. (No, I am not Sanjay. I don’t know who Sanjay is. I am not Sanjay’s wife/girlfriend/sister/mother/cousin. Yes, I know you are Sallie Mae. You sound very legitimate ma’am. As you did the first time you called me…four...

January 3, 2016

Top 3

In our family, we have a little tradition we simply call “Top 3”. This is a game we play, usually at dinner time, when I call out, “Tell me your ‘Top 3’ of….” vacation, Christmas, the weekend, whatever the most recent time or event is. I torture them with my little game on vacations and holidays. I secretly love the little groans and eye rolls I get when I yell out “Top 3”!! Bwah, hah, hah…. Last summer, when we...

January 1, 2016

Did today feel any different?

Yesterday, we all posted/blogged/tagged/tweeted and otherwise shouted out our excitement and hopes for 2016. “It’s gonna be a great year!” “Turning over a new leaf!” “The best year ever!” So here we are. January 1. Does it feel any different? Not really. Whatever magic we thought would happen overnight to make our lives instantly turn into some Pinterest worthy Norman Rockwell ideal, didn’t come through. The house remains messy. The kids remain loud. I remain tired. And you know, I...

December 29, 2015

Let’s laugh together…

Let’s laugh together. Let’s feed our kids leftovers for dinner. Again. Let’s be easy on ourselves. Yet take really, REALLY good care of ourselves. Let’s burn the cookies, forget about the laundry ’til it mildews and we have to run the washer again, and let’s leave the Christmas decorations up ’til February. Let’s share our worlds, our minds, our hearts. We are not alone. Let’s admit we are anxious, imperfect, scared. I experienced numbness. Then brokenness and healing. And now a...