What I want to be when I grow up?

The ladies at Crazy Hip Blog Mamas have a collaboration blog going about childhood dreams and it made me do a low in the gut internal chuckle and had to participate.

In 6th grade I was going to be an author. I attended a young writer's workshop at the local university. With the help of my wonderful 6th grade teacher I even wrote, illustrated, laminated and bond a book for my parents for Christmas. Then I hit 7th grade and my english teacher slaughtered everything I wrote because my grammar sucked. I still want to publish a book someday. I just want to shout out to all english teachers - go easy, don't squash dreams of creative writers with technicalities like grammar. That is what editors are for! At my second job in the real world it was at a city newspaper (but I wasn't a writer) and someone there told me that "Those who can't write, edit."

In 8th grade we were required to take a computer class. It was at that point that I vowed to NEVER have a job where I sat at a computer all day!

Around 9th grade I was going to be a Marine Biologist and actually even got certified in Scuba Diving. Then, I found out you have to take a lot of science classes. To this day I love everything water, ocean, fish, shells, boats, etc. As an adult I was in Cape Cod on vacation and watching a marine biologist pull out and tag a huge horseshoe crab. I will never forget standing there kicking myself for never pursuing that career choice.

In 10th grade my bio in a high school musical program said I could see myself barefoot and pregnant living in Maine in 15 years.

At one point I even considered becoming a pilot, but that went nowhere. Too expensive to even make it a hobby!

So what did I end up doing? I got a journalism/advertising degree and worked as a web designer and consultant for many years. I sat my rump in front of a computer all day! And still do . . . I became barefoot and pregnant but in a different state!

Work/Life "Integration"

I was reading this morning at breakfast and learned a new way of thinking about the work/life balance. Kerrii Anderson (no, I didn't misspell her first name) of Wendy's International was featured in the article "Burger Battle" (August/September issue of Pink Magazine).

She says she prefers the word "integration" because "balance" means perfect. Seperating your career and personal life in perfect symmentry is just not reality.

So basically we need to find ways to integrate each into the other and sometimes that means we still need to sacrifice our time with our kids to meet a deadline or leave the office early to make that big recital.

It is forever going to be something we all struggle with.