Update week: workin' 9-5

My men, last year

For a little bit longer than the past almost-three years, I've had a plan when it came to what I was going to do with myself regarding "work." It goes way back to when I was pregnant with Carter: finish my undergrad, secure a low commitment, easy-to-figure-out-babysitting occupation, have another baby, then figure out just what the deal was in the "real" work world. Would I be working 9-5? Kickin' butt and taking names? I had no idea! It was all a big mystery, but something I was excited to tackle once the time arrived.

Well, three out of the four steps had been taken as of a few months ago, leaving only the whole work thing on the To-Do list. Kota was about six months old when I started to seriously think about my financial contribution to the family/house buying/Cisneros-legitsky cause, and to tell you the truth, I was quite thrilled to begin my very own pencil-skirt-and-heels job search! There were so many options! Did I want to get started in PR? What about banking? Or possibly marketing?!

Little did I know, though, that my fun little search was the beginning of a torturous labyrinth of second-guessing myself and mind-changing. It all became a torrent of


Should I go to work full time, or shouldn't I? If I don't, is that the right thing to do for the kids, or isn't it? Zillions of moms work a whopping 5 days per week, so am I just being a big weirdo for feeling any trepidation about it? Let's say I do go to work, what shall I do in regards to employment? WHAT SHALL I DO?!

I mean, it went on and on . . . for months. For a few days I would be stoked about entering the workforce, ready and willing to drop the babies off at a daycare, completely fine with the whole thing. After about 72 hours of psyching myself up though, I couldn't keep ignoring the fact that I felt like my mind was shouting words into my consciousness like, "JUST DO IT! YOU'RE GOING TO BE FINE! THE KIDS WILL BE FINE! STOP THINKING ABOUT IT AND JUST GO!" just so that way I wouldn't be able to hear the, "okay, woah, are you really going to be okay dropping the babies off for so many hours per day?", more true-to-myself thoughts.

Once I would finally recognize the more tame sentiments, I would think things like, "alright, clearly you are just one of those women who has no grit." It was awful, torturous even! I felt like I had a responsibility to help provide for my family (and the awesome vacations I envisioned for us), but couldn't put my thoughts into actions! I was a talker, not a doer. Chad one time told me that he liked how I was a dreamer - EXACTLY what I didn't want to be! What the heck? Dreamers are folks who look into the distance and say things like, "hmm, I wonder what it had been like if the South had won the Civil War. . . . Hmmm, that would be interesting, wouldn't it? . . ."

NO! When I was a young whippersnapper, I had always envisioned myself as some corporate badass. Now that vision sounds horrendous, as priorities have shifted drastically - EXCEPT FOR THE PART ABOUT ME BEING A BADASS!

Then one day, tired of my wishy-washy ways, I sat down to really figure out what was going on with our lives. I compared and contrasted various day care costs, my possible yearly earnings, how early in the morning I would have to leave to drop the kids off, on which days Chad could pick them up/which day he could take off so that way the kids wouldn't be with a babysitter 100% of the time, along with the emotional stress (yes, I calculated this - I have no idea how, but it was like an actual calculation). When Chad got home from work that night, I showed him what was up and asked him what he thought. After taking a look at the cold hard facts, we decided to forget about me working for The Man. It just wasn't worth it, especially the emotional stress.

From that point on, I stopped freaking out about my status as an unemployed human being, mainly because I felt bad complaining about it. I mean, it wasn't as if I was doing the most important thing on earth or anything: raising our family! I just needed to get a grip and relax - allow my I-need-a-project-at-all-times self chill out. You know, take some time to smell the roses. So that's what I did and out of nowhere, a few opportunities popped up in none other realm than what I love to do: WRITING!

I couldn't believe it! I'm now working with a company called The Parent Tree and another one called Healthy Living Healthy Life. It has been glorious and I can't wait to see what other doors these relationships will open for me.

BUT the BIG KAHUNA of working motherhood has just been put into motion, making my awesome writing gigs more of a "for the love of" type thing! More information on this will come next time in update week! Woohooo!

Update week: Our move!

Okay, so not to be one of those people who says "it's been way too long since I've blogged last" and nobody had any clue that you were gone, but it's been way too long since I've blogged last! Holy moly, it's been AGES. Anyway, some major things have been happening around these parts, so I'm just going to do one, big fat week of updates since the things that have been going on have been pretty significant.

So update #1: our move and living situation! Man, oh man, where do I begin when it comes to the saga of where we have been taking up residence over the past few months . . . To say the least, it's been nuts. Here are the cliff notes:

1. March - April: We were in the last few months of our lease in Irvine, and were looking to buy a condo next. With those intentions, we decided that it would be better to just crash at the in-law's house so as not to jump into another lease. Well, once we hit the pavement and really started looking at what our glorious pre-approval allowed us, we decided to take a step back and reevaluate our options. Now I'm relieved that we didn't try to plow ahead to make it happen because we would have outgrown those places in about 30 seconds.

2. May - mid-September: So yes, the in-law's. Although I feel very blessed to have such gracious people in my life ready and willing to open up their home for our little family, it was quite the trying experience. In hindsight though, living there really put the nail in the coffin when it came to us buying. Since we occupied two rooms in the Cisneros home, it showed us that where ever we lived next, we had to have three bedrooms. It became a non-negotiable. I thought we would be able to manage with a two bedroom place with two kids, but turns out, we couldn't. So that was a positive . . .

3. Beginning of September: Despite the obvious financial awesomeness that living in Yorba Linda provided us, we decided to put the kabosh on the whole thing and move on, mainly because Kota was still in our room and I felt like there was no way I could put the two of them in the same room, what with her waking up every few hours, AND keep my sanity at the same time (picture this: no talking, no TV watching and walking on tip-toes for 8 whole months in your own bedroom! Far too long!). So we decided to take the plunge and start looking outside of the OC for some affordable, spacious inside-and-out properties in good ole' Corona. Yeah, it was going to be weird, but hey! We would have a yard, a minimum of 4 bedrooms and space for us to breathe. It was going to be awesome according to us, not so much according to both sides of our families. Anyway, we went a'lookin' to absolutely no avail. It was horrible. Talk about stress.

4. Mid-September: While I was on a walk wallowing in the misery which had become plain ole' normal at that point, my parent's realtor three-way called me with my mom on the line to talk about a listing he had in Lake Forest (right up the street from my parents' fabulous city of Mission Viejo), and that he could make it happen in one week. ONE WEEK! So I immediately packed the kids in the car at 7:30 pm, drove from Yorba Linda to Lake Forest to meet my mom and Gus, drove back, told Chad about it once he got home from class at 10:00, called Gus at 10:30 and WABAM! We had a new home which met all of our criteria!

5. September 14th: MOVE IN DAY! I swear I heard the choir of angels all day long!

Anyway, I'll tell you what: when you're feeling outrageously low because your peace of mind has been compromised thanks to a lack of sleep and tight living quarters, pray on it and try not to become desperate! Toward the end of our Corona search I was commiserating with my dad about the current state of the four of us, and he told me,
"Honey, I know it's tough, but don't become desperate. When you get into that state of mind, you make rash decisions." 

After hearing those words of wisdom I really did relax, and shortly after I revised my prayer message from "Okay, we REALLY need to figure out our living situation, so could you help a gal out?" to "Wherever you see us, lead me there," it all fell into step. Glorious, I tell you, glorious!