Stream of Consciousness Sunday - Mom Power

Here I am staying true to my commitment & it's week 2 of Stream of Consciousness Sunday.  I knew this weekend would be a little more stressful than normal.  My hubby is out of town on a golf trip - left on Thursday, which makes me Single Momma for a few days.  

Every time he leaves for business or pleasure I almost immediately know that at the end of it I will be stressed & drained - not at all recuperated from the weekend off, but it's what I signed up for when I decided to marry my hubby.  I knew what I was getting myself into once we had kids.

Anyway, I escaped a bit early from work on Friday, excited to have a couple hours of me time to get things done before picking up my son. I ran a couple errands, including the grocery store & when I got home I headed downstairs to the basement to put the overflow in the big chest freezer downstairs.

As I opened the door, I heard a hissing sound & knew immediately my night would be screwed.  A water pipe had sprung a tiny leak & was shooting out sharply in the direction of our furnace.  "Crap, Crap! Why did this have to happen when hubby is out of town, Crap." Those were my thoughts.  

I called my hubby, and got his voicemail - twice, so I called one of his friends who was on the trip.  He tracked down my hubby, driving to the hole were he was golfing.  Long story short, there was nothing he could do except talk me towards the right valve to shut off the water & it would be up to me to get it fixed or be without water until he returned 3 days later. I wrapped duck tape around the pipe to direct the flow of water toward the drain until I figured out what to do next.

I called two plumbers out of the yellow pages & got estimates - both of which were basically highway robbery. It was after 5:00pm on a Friday, so I'd pay $200 to get them there & then time & a half for labor plus materials. I texted my hubby the prices & then thought I have another idea.

I remembered that the contractor who did the job finishing off our basement did not normally go on the trip that my hubby was on. I drove to daycare to pick up my Munchkin.  I then called him & he said, "No, don't use those emergency plumber guys! They are just out to fleece people. I'll be there within a couple of hours to fix it." And so he did.

I felt empowered that I thought on my feet & handled the situation without freaking out about circumstances I could not control. I tweeted about my little victory with a twitter friend who conquered her own dragon that same evening.

No doubt my five minutes are up, but it feels great to know that when it counts you are the Mom that stepped up to the plate & handled the situation. Yes, that's right - I have Mom Power, and I bet you do too. ;  )

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.

§         Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.

§         Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.

§         Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.

§         Link up your post at all.things.fadra

§         Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy: Stream of Consciousness Sunday - Motherhood in the Forties

Back To Blogging Day 2: "Flip The Script" - A Must Read Post

It's day two of Blog Frog's Back to Blogging exercises. We were tasked with choosing a post which we wish more people had read, explaining why it was so important to us.

The post I chose was called Striving to be the best and thriving though change:

(A sappy title - I know. I should have thought of something much more enticing for sure - perhaps like "Flip The Script.")

~~~~~

Last Sunday was Oscar night.  I don't normally spend 3+ hours glued to the tube awaiting the results or critiquing the gowns & this year was no exception. I do, however like to know who won the major award categories. There were a number of things that made watching those final categories enticing, including Sandra Bullock's and Gabourey Sidibe Best Actress nominations for The Blind Side & Precious respectively.

Sandra received a Worst Actress Razzie Award for her role in “All About Steve” literally a day before winning the Best Actress award for her work on The Blind Side. I loved watching her Barbara Walters interview prior to the awards & then her acceptance speech upon winning her Oscar.  She has such incredibly believable wit, candor, humor & warmth in her thoughts & words. She makes you want to understand, trust & love who she really is inside - beneath all the layers that we've seen on & off the screen. We want to believe her when she speaks of her husband Jesse James "having her back" and what that means to her. Even Nate Berkus described her the other day on Twitter as "funny, open, warm and sweet."

Gabourey has been quoted in the past as saying "People look at me and don't expect much. I expect a lot." She went into the auditions for the role with a lot to gain & nothing to lose. She didn't let the fact that this role was her very first stop her from giving an extraordinary performance, even a career defining one. It was her once in a lifetime opportunity & she wasn't letting it pass her up. She is truly grounded & focused on her goals, with her self esteem intact.  

"I will not let anybody's opinion destroy me." - Gabourey Sidebe

She should have a long & very bright future ahead of her, as long as she continues to keep it all in perspective.

Striving to be the best, and thriving through change was my idea for this post. What I love about Sandra's win, is that she stepped out of her usual box & ventured into the uncertainty of a serious role.  It was a change, not something she was unfamiliar with because of the influence of her parents, but untested waters for her none-the-less. She found a way to not only survive the change, but she thrived on it.

Not every situation we encounter will have that element of familiarity, but we still need to embrace the uncertainties. When you stop and listen to the issues you'll always discover what within yourself of significance & value can be brought to the table. Only then will you to be able to rise to the occasion, make substantial progress & lead that vision for change. Let every opportunity to contribute to a "win" for promoting & leading through change, be like your own mini Oscar performance.

 ~~~~~

I wrote this back in March of this year, before my universe fell back into a routine of semi-normalcy. Unfortunately for Sandra B. her life was turned totally upside soon after this post was written & I claim no responsibility for her turn of bad luck! 

Today was a tough day at the office - the kind that has you second guessing your purpose & why fate has dealt you the hand your playing with. Every day we have to chose whether we will make it a positive and productive day, or whether we will let the negative "crap" get the better of us. 

The ideas behind this post really kept me focused & on track to welcome some positive events into my life.  The reality is those days will come & go and you have to push through them in order to get to the better days that will definitely come your way.  As hard as it can be at times it, life calls for you to alter your mindset in anticipation of the gifts that you are due.

I wish it was a post that reached more people because it's a part of life that affects us all at one time or another.  We all need to remember that it's within our power every time to "Flip The Script".

Thoughts racing in my head

I'm smack in the middle of reading "Linchpin Are You Indispensable?" by Seth Godin.  It's the kind of book that you instantly identify with & want to keep reading, however finding chunks of uninterrupted time in my life are rare, so I'm reading & digesting it in bits & pieces.

Seth has the gift of being able to coin new terms. He reintroduces old concepts in new ways so that you visualize them in entirely new contexts.  He really paints a new vision for his audience - it's almost like art. One of those terms is "the resistance" which more often than not prevents us from staying on course and seeing our goals through to the end. There are also those endless personal to-do lists that we all continually add to, but never seem to fully complete.

"Whichever way the wind of resistance is coming from, that's the way to head - directly into the resistance. And the closer you get to achieving the breakthrough your genius has in mind, the stronger the wind will blow and the harder the resistance will fight to stop you." - Seth Godin

There have been so many thoughts and ideas racing in my head as I've been reading this book.  It makes you really take a look at how you have been approaching your life & more specifically, your work life & career.  Most people have this vision of the things they strive to accomplish, but perhaps are not as deliberate when considering the process or the journey. Things just happen & most people are unaware of the specifics of what got them from point A to point B. Most of us have done the things asked of us & have been rewarded for doing so. Or so we thought.

"Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our situation, and to hope for a better tomorrow." - Seth Godin

Reading this book, however has made me reevaluate my journey from here on out. Maintaining optimism in my thoughts will be a key to making that happen. It's also related to the "awakening" I mentioned in my last post which is part of my personal recession definition. Nothing in my career life right now seems to be moving quickly towards certainty or closure.  This past year has seemed so much more like a roller coaster ride - one I'm not behind the controls of.  Along with that feeling of having had my fate fall in someone else's hands, a fear of sorts, comes an almost primal need to make a transfer of power, to free up the resistance and to keep driving towards accomplishing my goals even if it means swimming in uncharted waters. It's an effort to develop & share my own works of art with the world in whatever form they may be.

"Where do you put the fear." "The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds." - Seth Godin

We all have episodes in our lives when initial fear has held us back & the ideas presented in this book really challenges us to push past where the fear wants to take us in lieu of something greater, something much more fulfilling. While I will share more nuggets of truth from this book in future posts, hopefully for now I have given you a little taste of what this book is about, so that you'll want to pick it up & read it for yourselves.