Career Strong

I've always had curly hair. My ability to tame it has progressed over the years to the point now where I don't wash it at all. Okay, I wash it but I only wash with conditioner. No shampoo for this girl. We'll get to that a little later. For now I want to show you Emily, the hair saga. Like I said, I've always had curls. At an early age my mom kept it short. I literally had Shirley Temple curls all over my head. I only included this because I find this creepy and funny. Who sits down with the Sears photo people and says "I want an image of my daughter's head floating on the right side of this picture please". As I got older I wanted straight hair. Everyone on TV had straight hair, my best friend had straight hair, heck even my mom had straight hair. So my Mom tried really hard to help with this endeavor.  My mom LOVED bows! In the next few images you'll notice the bow flare. At this point I wanted to play G. I. Joe and run a...

2015, this was my midas touch year, except my touch turned everything into poo. I had my son in February of that year and was completely overwhelmed with 2 children. Between the late night feedings and my daughter figuring out this sibling thing, we struggled. I lost my temper, she cried. It wasn't pretty. At this same time I was also learning how to lead people. I had been managing a team, no that's not a fair description. I had been shoving my goals and work ethic down my team's throat.  As a result, 2 team members were put on performance reviews, another quit and yet another was fired. Only in reflection can I say, I killed the spirit of the team. During this struggle I wore a mask of "I'm fine". Work is fine. My family is fine. Everything is fine. Enter Shaun T Workouts had already become a habit in my life at this point but I had stopped challenging myself. I decided to pick up Insanity Max 30, the scariest workout in the world I could think to ...

Since revitalizing my blog we've talked about what career means to me and you've also gotten to know me through my faults. Now it's time to talk about the strong aspect of my life. My Story In 2012 I was blessed with a beautiful 60lb baby girl. Actually she weighed 7lbs 5oz but there was a small part of me, while pregnant, that thought I was either having twins or the world's largest baby. Once home with a newborn I realized losing this weight was going to be even harder than I thought. My Stella slept in 45 minute stretches and then was up for feedings, changing or just random crying. How was I supposed to get back in shape living like this? I decided at home workouts were my only hope. I started with Jillian Michaels Body Revolution with a friend. We emailed each other daily for accountability. The workouts were only 30 minutes and if another mom could fit in 30 minutes so could I. An amazing friendship grew from the accountability emails but I also saw othe...

I realized it's high time we get to know one another and the best way for you to learn about me is through my failures. I won't list every failure, this isn't War and Peace after all. Blogs are supposed to be sort of short right? I'll do the highlight reel for you, or the low lights, however you want to view this. I was a 26 year-old divorcee.  Yep, I divorced young. I'm happily married now and have been for 7 years this August.  My divorce is something I'm neither proud nor ashamed of.  I learned so much about myself during this period of poor decision making. (my poor decisions, not his) I got married because that's what you're "supposed to do" when you graduate from college. If you don't you will die alone. Okay, no one said that to me but that's what I told myself. My parents got married right out of college and are still married so that's the way the world works......or so I thought. This was the first lesson for me o...

I will be the first to admit that I was bored on maternity leave, both times. I remember creating a breast milk inventory that showed me days on hand, and how to practice FIFO (first in first out) so as to use the milk in the proper order. Yes people that's called being bored to death! I love my children. Having children is one of the BEST things I ever did. But it's not the ONLY thing I've ever done or will do. Having children is supposed to be about teaching a new generation how to be kind and decent contributors to society, right?  I feel my teaching is best done through work. What I do and Why I do it I've worn many hats in my career but the hat that seems to fit the best (I like to think of it as a comfy toboggan) is mentoring others. Not just mentoring but igniting a flame of positive change that grows into a habit and is birthed into teaching others to do the same.  Kind of like the movie The Ring without a video tape and no one dies. (Okay maybe nothing ...