For starters, last year I (1) unpacked the house (we moved in 4 days before school started), (2) applied and was approved for our families Permanent Residency Visa here in Australia (that job alone took hours and hours of paperwork (finger printing, certifying documents for a family of five, getting police checks from other countries etc... ) It sounds small, but I kind of hold it in the same level of regard as graduating from Uni with a masters degree :-) (3) traveled... to the USA for a wedding, then hurt my knee and did physio for 2 months, then traveled up to Darwin-broom with the family, celebrated my 10 year wedding anniversary with Stan at the Whit-Sundays. Then I realized this would be it for the rest of life so I need to do something and move on with life!
Part of moving on was (1) getting my body back. I started training for a Marathon, did the 10 day juice cleans (yummy), started lifting weights again (P90X anyone?), revamped my diet to eliminate most refined foods and significantly cut out my refined sugar intake. Started drinking water...and only water. I stopped getting RLS (restless leg syndrome, stopped having to take iron pills for RLS (which is think is from all the iron I get from all the spinach I started eating??). I no longer experience migraines, and I am just overall happier!
Last week I weighed in at 114 lbs. I no longer fit into my size 4 (USA) or size 8 (AUS) clothes...which is actually a problem because I hate shopping. I wish someone could just give me a bag of clothes and then let me pay them for it. I am down to size 2 (USA) or a size 6 (AUS) clothes and I feel great! For those worried (let me remind you that I am only 5'3" and petite so this is totally with in my BMI) and I eat more now than I ever ate in Uni, its just different food. Mostly fruits and vegetables, and mostly raw ones at that.
After I got my body back I wanted to organize other parts of my life. I organized the house and then started exploring all my options for what I could do with the rest of my life (I applied for a second masters degree in Psychology- got rejected), applied for a couple jobs both paid and volunteer (got rejected from some of those too...even the volunteer ones (gasp!) I made a list of everything I didn't like about myself and wrote down solutions (with actionable items to implement). For example I now have braces back on my teeth (on the inside- you can't see them). I get them off in a year, but I wanted to fix my smile (should have worn my retainer after I got my braces off 15 years ago right?). That is just one example, but I am DOING things! Not just thinking about doing them!
Tangent: One big perk to having kids young is that I never expected to be entering the workforce with many of my peers. A LOT of people used up their 20's to travel, get through uni, party, get married & then divorced, change careers a couple of times and then buckled down in their late 20's early 30's to get their first "real job"... not everyone... but enough people!
On the up-side, I have already earned my masters degree, born three kids (who are all out of the house now), published (which I did from home, while nursing babies), and my friends who are married now are having to step out of their careers to have kids; for them to come back in their 40's seems much more daunting than stepping into the work force at 30 (if they choose to go back to the work force sooner then they have to look at day-care options, which I never wanted to do with my kids) so I am grateful (I feel like someone gave me an extra life line of 10 years all because I was productive in my 20's).
Ok so moving onto "my job." I started working 3 weeks ago at a consulting firm called "First Executive" in the Melbourne CBD. Their area of expertise is in Human Resources (HR). I head up the research division which we do for (1) clients who have a question about their businesses or (2) broader research questions which compare Australian markets to American or European markets. I love it. I use both qualitative and quantitative research methods and am ever so grateful that I finished my Masters Degree when I did (finished it while birthing two children) because it enabled me to qualify for this job.
A week into my job with the HR consulting firm, Stan had a client over for dinner. He asked what I did and I told him. The next day at work he asked Stan if I wanted to help out for a couple of months doing contract work at Telstra (Australia's largest telecommunications company). They needed help coding qualitative data and then help implementing my suggestions for change (to make the coding more accurate) with computer programming. I never thought I would be a computer programmer, but now I am learning how to export XML codes and implement the changes. Cool hu? I spend several hours a week getting trained by software companies in America. It is all very exciting and I feel very empowered.
The biggest hurdle for me to face with going back to work was what to do with my kids and will the house stay in balance? I am lucky, I drop off the kids at school (8:30 am) work and then pick them up at 3:00/3:30 pm when they get out. I can work from home for either company whenever I want. I am home with the kids while they are out of school for school holidays (both employers are super flexible). I never thought the workforce would be so flexible! I still take the kids to all their lessons and do homework with them and get them into bed at night. Then I clock back on and do work from home. Stan usually gets home after 10:00 pm so this helps me stay awake to see him and talk to him. With regard to the contract work, some of the work-stream I oversee were suggestions Stan made, so he is able to better explain his vision and I am better able to implement it.
From a domestic angle, Stan has stepped in and cooks all the food for the week (and pre-packages all the kids lunches) on Sunday afternoons. I hired house cleaners (trust me they are so much better at cleaning than I ever was), and my main job is laundry for the family (which I love to do- because we have a clothes line!) The house has seemed to stay in balance so far.
It sounds funny but, the best part about working is that I am too busy to worry about girl things. I don't have time to over-analyse, gossip, feel jealous or sit around at mothers groups talking about what my kid put down the toilet. I don't have time to nurse a wound and if someone does something that I don't agree with (thanks to time constraints) I am a lot more emotionally honest. On the flip side, when people are emotionally honest with me- I can take it, because I don't have time to sit at home and mull it over. It is awesome! Seriously, men should have let women in the work force a long time ago with perks like these :-)
The second best part about working is the pay check. Every time I get paid I kind of smile because "I EARNED THAT" it was hard work, and someone paid me for it and I am proud of it. I can't wait to see what else life brings because so far every couple of years I look back on my life and think "I never thought THAT would happen"...and it did...and it has been good; it has actually been great!
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