We're not in Kansas Anymore, Toto.

Friday wine goodness: bundle up, sucker.

Given that last weekend was officially the beginning of Spring, the Kansas weather leading up to it was really freaking beautiful, and oh how we rejoiced in the 80 degree weather on St. Patrick's Day by drinking Margaritas in the culdesac with the neighbors.  Spring Break wrapped up and we've had one entire week of school. But much like the banks cannot be closed for two business days in a row, our school district apparently cannot allow two full weeks of school being in session every day, and next week my kindergartner only has school on Monday and is out for the rest of the week, and my third grader is out Thursday and Friday. They claim this is for "parent/teacher conferences" which is funny, because most of the parents have their conference appointments scheduled in the evening, but whatever. Thanks for making me have to scramble for daycare so I can work a full week twice within 30 days, Blue Valley ISD. 

Anyway, I think I started off talking about how awesome the weather was. Well, that's now a memory, too, as today we have freezing temperatures and a winter storm warning and may get 5-8 inches of snow on Saturday, the first day of soccer games.  Which we probably won't have. And which I wasn't going to be able to attend anyway, because I'll be downtown with my youth group kids at an all day community service project, raking leaves and picking up trash and brush, now with 200% more snow and bone-chilling wind. Awesome.  Unlike soccer games, this event will not be canceled, but they may try and come up with some things for us to do indoors, like mopping floors and wiping baseboards. In case you didn't know, this is EXACTLY the kind of community service teenagers love to waste their time doing.

If you've been watching me on Twitter you know that I lost all of my calendar items and contacts on my Treo on Wednesday night, during a process most people call "syncing" but which apparently for me became "deleting" instead.  I finally got a Palm customer service rep on live chat, who walked me through changing a random setting that was preventing me from reinstalling my backup from the laptop, so now I at least have everything that was in my last backup, that's the good news. The bad news is I am that typical person that never takes the time to do the backup and the last one was in January.

To celebrate getting back at least most of my contacts and about half of my calendar items, the boys and I went over to my friend's house for dinner and socializing, where socializing means the boys played the Wii and us two mommies drank two entire bottles of wine.  This wine, to be exact, which is really good and under $10 a bottle.  Yes, I know, two bottles of wine for a Thursday night is perhaps a bit much, but when the topic of conversation turns toward friends who committed suicide and husbands who were murdered, you really do need to open that second bottle.

So this morning, I'm dragging a bit. Right now I'm sitting on the bed with both the laptop and the dog's head keeping me warm, watching the weather channel talk about tornadoes in Florida and flooding in Fargo and the winter storm warning here in Kansas and trying not to think of all this as the coming of the apocalypse.  Because now is not a good time for the apocalypse to come. I'm out of wine.

*edited to add: Ah, yes, they did indeed cancel the service project. We will go service the community on another, hopefully more weather stable, day in April.

Pssst..Look, over there! Shiny!

I'm on day 5 of this stupid cold, no end in sight.  Although my husband went to Wal-Mart last night and got me some Afrin, so that I could maybe breathe all night without snoring and keeping him up (because he NEVER snores and wakes me, nooo..) So I did indeed sleep like a rock star last night. And this morning felt slightly better, at least better enough to rise and get the kids out the door without making the bus driver wait for them, and clean up the kitchen and start some laundry. Did I mention the smushed Powerbar in my back jeans pocket?  No? Okay, really quick - because it's not that interesting. Monday morning on my way out the door to the first day of my new job, I happened to notice an unwrapped and half eaten Powerbar sitting on the counter, and thought - hey - I can eat that for lunch!  So I folded the open edge closed and slipped it into my back pocket of my jeans, because I had my hands full of other stuff to take to the car. But then I forgot about it. And rode all the way down to work with the butt warmer on.  And then I went to a meeting, and then it was lunch time and Hey! I have a..oh, wait.

So the right back pocket of my brand new jeans is glued together with strawberry creme Powerbar. Awesome.

Anyway, I actually had a point to this post, which is check out the Being Savvy Kansas City blog tomorrow, where I'm having a give away for hand painted ornaments from my friends at 9mileschoolhouse if you comment your favorite Christmas ornament memory.  So forget about the Powerbar, and think shiny, happy Christmas ornament thoughts. Much better.

G'on, git.

The post at the end of the universe.

Oh my God, y'all, was that a bad week, or what?  I mean, SERIOUSLY. The market - criminy! I've stopped watching. Which is fine, since I have so many other things to hold my attention, like my kindergartner getting In School Suspension, brilliant and passionate girl friends losing their corporate jobs, and my friend the New Christine had surgery on her foot, because that's what every mom with two active kids and husband who owns his own business needs is to be OFF HER FEET and ON PAIN MEDS for a week, right before Thanksgiving. AND THEN my other friend The Old Christine's kitten died, and they have no idea why he even got sick. I mean, they're KILLING KITTENZ OMG. Enough. Uncle. Whatever we have to say, just please, make it stop. (Seriously though, send her some comment love. And maybe throw a cocktail at her on Facebook if you know her. She could use it.)

On the upside, hey, gas got a whole lot cheaper. So there's that.

Also, I have a new full time JOB.  And I'm very excited.

So, I am going to be the Interim Youth Director at my church.  Interim because they still need to keep searching for more of a Youth Pastor, rather than director, and I don't exactly have that training.  I do have some rather decent organizational and planning skillz, Yo, and right now they need that worse than they need spiritual guidance.  And, I just happened to be needing a job with flexible hours in a family friendly environment.  Problem solved! Everybody wins!

I start next Sunday, officially.  In the meantime, I've been cleaning up my new office (read, purging and recycling entire boxes of old fund-raising materials, for example...) and generally getting ready to jump in feet first to work with some really neat kids and some really committed parents who are getting a tad overwhelmed with their volunteer jobs.  A feeling I am quite in touch with.  Now I get to get paid, for what was a volunteer job, (of a slightly different variation) and I am stoked.

I haven't yet worked out a lot of the details of what this means for me long term.  First, it means that my dream of building a consulting practice focused on organizational management and human resources for small advertising agencies is going to be put on hold.  But that's okay, actually, because right now with the economy where it is, I don't need to be spending 4-6 months trying to get profitable building a new business for myself.  This allows me to switch gears, still do something I'm passionate about, but be able to say I'll go back to building a consultancy later. 

And if it sounds like I'm still trying to convince myself of all that, I'm not. But I did need an outlet to put it into words and sentences, so thanks for being my audience.

I'm still obviously going to be blogging daily over at The Being Savvy Kansas City blog, and I'm still going to be blogging here, too - I'm not giving up on my internet social media interactions (although if you checked my Google Reader right now you would totally call me a lying bitch because Oh Hai, I have 102 unread blog posts. Damn Nablopomo people).  Although I may have to change the overall tone of voice here - You know, things like "lying bitch" the F bombs and such are maaaybe not aok for someone with a job in a church. But I'm still a working mom with two rambunctious and a giant mischievous poodle, so life ain't exactly changed all that much, has it?

Unemployment: Day 1

So, now that I am no longer working full time, I'm making an effort to prioritize and manage my days so that I can be effect at this Consulting (so that I can spend more time with the kids) thing.  And today, on my very first day of officially Not Earning A Steady Paycheck, I made myself do the same thing I did every day, each Monday previous. I herded the kids onto the bus, and then jumped in the shower, dressed, blow-dried my hair, and put on some makeup.  And then I sat down to check email and do a little writing.

If you must know, this kind of discipline does not come naturally to me. It's probably a good thing that the weather is so nice this week - I mean, seriously, it was a very uncustomary 77 degrees today.  If it were  chilly it might have been easier for me to choose to snuggle back under the covers with the poodle and the kid's Halloween candy.

But, I didn't. And then after I checked email and did some banking and made some calls, I ran errands. All my errands, done before 11:15, instead of over my lunch hour when every other working parent is running errands and tying up bank drive thru lanes and return lines at Wal*Mart.  Awesome.

Then I headed downtown to participate as a panelist at the Kansas City Advertising Club's Career Day event.  This is where college students from local schools who are interested in advertising come down to listen to ideas on getting their career started in this business from various advertising pundits.  Being a recruiter, and an advertising person, I had volunteered to speak.  I am a decent public speaker, if I have some sort of an idea of what I'm speaking on. Trick here was, I didn't.  Late Friday night the woman organizing the event emailed me to say, Okay, I put you on the Public Relations panel, is that okay?

Folks, I am not in Public Relations. I know what PR people do, and I know what their resumes need to say in order to qualify them for PR positions, and yes, I have and can write a press release if needed. But I am not a PR person.  So I did what every red-blooded, networking-hungry consultant would do: I said "Sure, no problem!"

So I got down there this afternoon, met the others on my panel, who thankfully, were indeed PR people, explained that I'm really just here to be a warm body to help out, I'll just answer the questions from the moderator that have to do with resumes or careers in PR as opposed to actually talking about one DOES, as a PR person.  Except, guess what?

The Moderator was just there to introduce us. She was not there to throw out questions for us to take turns answering.  It was pretty much, Okay kids! Here's Jenny! Listen to what she has to say!

And, cue the crickets.

Okay, not that bad. I started talking. I'm sure I looked nervous, but hopefully not as much as I felt.  I talked about how we are our own worst enemies when it comes to PR - the one thing we advertising industry people often forget is that our own public image, as individuals looking for career growth, is the most important thing. First impressions, best foot forward, Blah Blah Blah, I'm pretty sure I used lots of annoying phrases and metaphors.  I even told them, LOOK, I'm not telling you anything new here, I'm just saying, everything you've ever heard is true, this stuff matters if you want to get a career in marketing, advertising, or PR.

And I must have done okay, because after the other two women spoke, most of the open questions were directed to me. 

It felt pretty good, despite feeling totally unprepared for what to discuss besides a very generic topic.  It reminded me that I do kind of like public speaking, especially in small seminar type groups like this, and also what I really like is sharing my knowledge and lessons with a younger generation that wants to hear it. 

Just promise you'll stop me when I start with "Back in MY day..."