• I am thankful I didn’t have to go out in the cold most of the day since I worked from home.
• I am thankful for the opportunity to do some professional writing every week even though I frequently wrestle with writer’s block/self-censorship.
• I am thankful for the abundant food supply I have in the house. (I think I enjoyed too much of it today!)
• I am thankful I know a good handyman who can fix anything from stuck drawers to clogged gutters to leaky roofs. He’ll be coming over tomorrow to fix the gutters that broke during our recent snowstorm.
• I am thankful for good friends, old and new. I intend to get together with several of them in a few weeks.
• I am thankful the weekend is almost here!

(Think positive, think positive ….)

Successfully Managing the Work/Life Juggling Act

If you have a family, managing work and life can be challenging — and often unpredictable.

Consider the following tips to help you successfully manage the work/life juggling act:

• Make time for fun and relaxation. When you add more leisure to your life, you’ll become a healthier and more effective employee and parent.

• Build and use support systems. People with strong support systems tend to be healthier, happier and better able to tolerate stress.

• Forget perfection. While it’s admirable to put your best efforts into your work and parenting responsibilities, it’s simply impossible to be perfect at everything you do.

• Take care of yourself. It’s easy to focus on your responsibilities to your partner, children and employer and forget about taking care of yourself.

• Be happy. Studies show that happy individuals are successful across different areas, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health.

I’m not exactly sure how one can will oneself to “be happy” — does this newsletter mean “try to think positive”? But otherwise, these tips seem pretty sound.

Hmm, wonder what else I’ll find as I continue decluttering the house ….

I am fortunate to have access to really good health care in my area. This afternoon, for example, I took A.J. to the dentist to have sealants put on his permanent molars. These sealants are basically bits of plastic injected into the pits and cracks of his teeth so bacteria can’t grow in them and cause cavities. They used to be an expensive luxury, but nowadays they are becoming routine.

A.J.’s dentist is a pediatric dentist, not a standard one. Her office not only has all sorts of toys and children’s books in the waiting room, but it does its best to make the appointments comfortable and almost fun for the kids. For example, the children get to wear sunglasses to shield their eyes when being examined under high-powered lights. The toothpaste the staff uses during cleanings comes in flavors like cotton candy, grape, watermelon and bubble gum, and so do the dental floss and fluoride treatments. Kids without cavities win little prizes like tops, plastic bracelets, rubber balls, and the sorts of things in vending machines they always seem to love.

How I wish A.J.’s dentist took grownups as patients!

Telecommuting not only saves me time (my daily one-way commute is over an hour), but it also saves me money because I don’t have to pay the cost of parking and the round-trip subway fare. It is also good for the environment because I don’t have to burn gas driving to and from the subway station. It’s a win-win situation, in my opinion!

I have heard people scoff at the idea of telecommuting, asking how one can measure employees’ productivity. To these people I say, “How does one normally measure productivity?” It is not how many hours I am sitting in my cubicle that makes me productive; it is how many projects I complete within a given time period. If you look at all the things I process every day — articles, podcasts, photo galleries, videos, Web pages, solutions to technical problems, etc. — you know I’m working. I am a professional; I don’t need someone standing over my desk to ensure that I am doing my job. If I were goofing off, you would know it because the number of things I process would drop.

I’m thankful that some people — if not all — understand this.

On this first “Thankful Thursday,” I have many, many things that are going well in my life. I have a great family and fantastic friends. Everyone in my immediate family is in good health; my parents, who are in their 70s, are on a trip spanning East Asia and Latin America right now. I have a job I know how to do well that pays me a lot of money and provides great health insurance, gobs of vacation time and sick leave, and intellectual stimulation. Four days a week I work in a sunny corner of the office building that, due to its location, gives me a measure of privacy despite being a cubicle. On Thursdays I get to work from the comfort of my home.

Today, specifically, I am thankful that my sister-in-law has volunteered to host our family for Thanksgiving, thus providing us with a great meal without my having to clean the house or cook anything! (I am bringing homemade chocolate chip-banana bread, though.)

Thanksgiving Dinner 2009: white meat turkey, broccoli salad, green beans, corn pudding, carrot salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, dark meat turkey, ham, deviled eggs

Last weekend was enjoyable. Attended a birthday party for the daughter of a friend on Saturday and got to socialize with some of my college friends. It was nice talking to people who appreciate my personality quirks rather than judging me for them and who understand the challenges of balancing work, family and personal obligations. Saturday I also had dinner with several family members and friends who are part of a football pool. It was very nice to see them; we don’t get together nearly often enough. On Sunday, my husband and his stepfather went boating while my mother-in-law, A.J. and I went to an arts-and-crafts store. We had a grand time going through the bead section — even A.J. picked out several things he liked. One of these days I really should take a beading class …. I think I do fine stringing together artistic combinations of beads, but I don’t know how to finish things off yet.

While I have been figuring out how to do beadwork, my husband has been working on model rockets. He had a frustrating time with some spray paint last week because he couldn’t really control it. So, on Sunday I also bought him some enamel paint and some detail brushes. Things are starting to come together! We’ll be visiting some friends in Charlottesville next weekend. Not sure if the rockets will be ready to launch by then, but it is interesting to see the progress he is making.

Right now I am multitasking. In addition to writing this blog entry, I have been cooking tomorrow night’s dinner (oven barbequed chicken) and doing laundry. I also need to do some writing and editing, but I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow night.  It’s late.

Tomorrow we have two social activities planned — a birthday party for a friend’s daughter, and our annual dinner with the rest of the football pool (the “Shedd’s Spread League,” so named because we glued an empty margarine tub to the top of a block of wood as a trophy).  It will be very nice to get together with friends and family.

I think I need to start cleaning my living room, though!