WMW: The Freelance Fairy

I wish I could give credit where credit is due, but I can't remember where I first read about "the Freelance Fairy." It was in some book or blog written by a freelance writer, talking about the unpredictability of income when one works freelance.

It's true—you can't anticipate when new jobs are going to come in, or when exactly the payment for those jobs will arrive. The fabled Freelance Fairy was the sprite who brought in new work or a check in the mail whenever the writer was running low on cash.

When I prepared to leave my full-time job in January, Matt and I were prepared for the changes this new career move would bring for our income and our expenses (boo for higher health insurance rates, yay for using less gas!) But it's been interesting to adjust to the differences between being salaried and being freelance.

The most essential difference is just how directly work = money. On salary, you might have a really busy week that requires long hours, or you might be taking a week's vacation, but your paycheck still comes at the same time and for the same amount. As a freelancer, the more work you do, the more money you make. Period.

So if I wake up at 2 a.m. and can't get back to sleep, the thought, "well, might as well make some money," can legitimately enter my head, and I'll get up and do a couple hours' work, until I feel sleepy again. (I sleep pretty well, even with a four-year-old snuggled so close to me it feels like she's trying to crawl right into my skin, so that doesn't happen often.) One could do that as a salaried employee, but it wouldn't equate to a bigger paycheck, just maybe a lighter to-do list the next day.

I've been fortunate to continue doing a lot for my former employer, and being able to submit hours on a weekly basis, so I can count on having some income each week, as well as some steady work that always needs doing. Bigger projects that pay one flat fee are more the milieu of the Freelance Fairy, and pop up when you least expect them. I have had a constant string of big deadlines from May through, well, today (if I can knock this last bit out tonight!) but very little on the radar for the fall.

I'm excited about this for the moment, since Matt and I have a little getaway planned for the two of us and I'm looking forward to a light August, where I can ease up the pace just a little bit and do some writing. But given that more work = more money now, I have two competing fears going into my "light month": One, that a big, short-deadline job will come my way in the next couple weeks and I'll be tempted to take it even though I've really been needing and looking forward to this deadline-free time. And Two, that it won't. Or rather, that it won't come even after I've enjoyed my little vacation. What if my light fall stays light?

Given how suddenly the Freelance Fairy swoops in, and how she dive-bombed me repeatedly this spring, such that I've been in intense on-deadline mode for essentially three months straight, I feel pretty confident that she'll do some fly-bys in the coming months, but you never know. That's part of the challenge of this new adventure, and I'm loving every minute.

WMW: The Voice Recorder

I decided in college that I was an aural learner—that is, that I learned best from listening. I preferred hearing it in a lecture to reading it from a book. Maybe it was the note-taking I enjoyed most. Anyway, for certain
classes I developed a habit before tests of reading my notes aloud to a tape recorder (remember those things?) then listening to myself read the notes aloud while driving in my car or getting ready in my room.

I got to relive that aural, multitasking fun a couple weeks ago for work. It's an editorial consulting-type gig, for which I listened to about twelve hours of a woman dictating the story of her past few years, and brainstorming the angle and organization she should take in writing her memoir.

I have to say, those twelve hours (of paying work!) were awesome, because I could multitask. I did things I always want to do but don't because I'm usually staring at my computer! I took a long walk. I ate lunch on the back porch. I worked while driving to pick the kids up. I scrubbed the baseboards in our kitchen!

It was great. And now that it's over, and I need to type up a proposal for this lovely would-be memoir-writer (and do all my other computer-based work) I'm kinda bummed. And I keep trying to think of ways to incorporate more of this paid-listening activity into my work. I'm coming up empty, though.

I could edit spoken sermons, rather than written ones...? That's kind of what I do when I give feedback on Matt's sermons... Any ideas?

WMW: Lists and Time-Tracking

A friend recently asked me for tips on getting better organized at work. I don't have a lot of super-fancy tricks or tips—my main thing is just being a compulsive list-maker. I have a master checklist for my work to-dos each week, with sub-checkboxes if there are numerous parts under one main task. For example, editing a book, I might make a sub-list of all the chapters, so that I can mark them off as I go. (That's part organization and part motivation—checking off a to-do is a proven endorphin boost, so the more small tasks you can get on that list, the more frequently you get to check one off! I'm like a productivity junkie.)

One "fancier" tool I did tell my friend about, however, was Yast.com, an online time tracker. It has become absolutely essential to my work life. I heard about it in the fall in a Forbes article listing several "must-try" online organizational tools. I tried a couple of them, but Yast is the only one I've found to be a must-use.

I actually started using it when I was full-time at my old job, just to track how long I was spending on certain tasks each day (a very educational exercise, I must say). And now that I'm a freelancer, billing some jobs by the hour, it is even more important to know how long I spend on each job.

You add your projects, grouped under higher categories if you desire, and give a color code to each one. I pixelated the names of my projects above, but you can see the two main categories, "UMPH Work" (my long-time employer for which I still do a good bit of work) and "Other Paid Work." Below that, I also have a "Personal" category for things like blogging, VBS-planning, etc.

To start the time on a certain project, you just click the blue arrow, and it starts running with that project's color on the timeline at the top and showing you the time next to the orange square on the line. On the above screen cap, for example, I'd been working for 24 minutes on my "orange" job. At the end of the line, you can see the day's total for that job (2 hrs, 20 min) and the week's total (6 hours, 40 min).

It's nice to know, at the end of the day or week, how long you've worked and on what. Yast tracks your time by the day and the week, and you can view reports of any time period (SO useful when turning in a time sheet or invoice!)

Whether you're tracking paid work by the client or project, or just want to know how long you're spending each day on various parts of your job or various other activities like email and blogging, I really recommend this tool.

WMW: Home Office

I got my new Thirty-One organizer hung up, so I thought it might be about time to share my lovely little home office, where most of my WAHMing takes place. (Does that make this a Working Mom Wednesday or Show and Tell? Both, I guess!)

One of the neat things about our house is the little room off of our master bedroom with glass French doors. It makes a great office and craft room, and would make a great nursery as well, if you wanted to keep a baby close for the first year or two. From the time we moved in, it housed an old desk that was my grandfather's. It had been used in a war office during WWII, and he bought it cheap after the war. It's a typewriter desk, with a platform that raises and lowers to hide the typewriter away inside when you're not using it. (My uncle has the typewriter from it.)

So between the desk, Matt's green banker's lamp, my plant and framed degrees, my office has a nice, homey feel. My new organizer helps me get papers, folders, and my ubiquitous legal pads off the floor (since the desk doesn't have a lot of spare surface space). I hung a legal pad over the calendar strap, stuck my file folders in the clear pocket, book catalogs in another pocket, and put some pictures on display. I wrote a favorite quote on the wipe-off board, a line from a Dixie Chicks' song: "If there's ever an answer, it's more love." I really feel like that's a good rule of thumb when you are stuck in any way. (What to do? Well, what's the more loving response?)

The printer just sits on an afghan-covered box, and Matt's old CD tower is getting more use than it has in years, just supporting the stack of review copies I put on top of it. And for a window treatment, I used a string of Tibetan prayer flags our brother and sister-in-law brought us from Mt. Everest.

Then there's my amazing craft area, which my in-laws created for me as a birthday present last year. I previously just had a rolling kitchen cart, but they got a cabinet to sit a yard or so from the cart and a tabletop to lay across them both, more than tripling my work space. My mother-in-law made the skirt that velcros around the table, hiding the storage cart and cabinet underneath. (The space between is the secret spot I stash gifts as I buy them throughout the year.) On Friday afternoons, when I finish work for the week, I close down the computer and move just two feet to my left to do some scrapbooking before the brood comes home!

The side of the room I'm not showing you has all my gift-wrapping supplies, several cheap bookcases full of books and random stuff. In every home we have, there is a room that never fully gets unpacked, where boxes sit for years. In this house, the office was it, though I cleaned most of that up and out when I went freelance and it became my main office, but the bookcases still have a lot of college memorabilia and other stuff we've had since our single days.

Where do you stash all your old junk? Where do you do your work, crafts, or other computering?

WMW: Leaning In

Have you been hearing all the buzz about Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead? This new book by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has been getting a lot of press and apparently sold 140,000 in its first week.

I haven't read it, but I'm following the media discussion with great interest. Sandberg's premise seems to be that women need to stop trying so hard to be "nice" in the workplace and stop worrying about the common double-standard by which an assertive man is considered a strong, confident leader, but an assertive woman is considered a bitch. Then again, a lot of her advice, apparently, advocates walking a fine line: be assertive, while being "eternally pleasant." (There go my chances :0)

Lauren Hansen of TheWeek.com gives this helpful synopsis (followed by a good run down of the most well-reasoned arguments flying around about the book):

Sandberg posits that due to forces both internal and external, women make small decisions throughout their career that impede their progress. Whether it's planning ahead for a family, feeling obligated to think of others before themselves, or shying away from their triumphs, women's degenerative choices over time have resulted in the gender as a whole earning only 77 cents for every dollar men make, and holding only "a meager twenty-one" of the Fortune 500 CEO positions.

A lot of the criticism of Sandberg's book seems to be that it is "elitist," seeming to take for granted opportunities and luxuries that have enabled her to get to the top. I've read some insightful responses, including one from a Latina perspective, and one about how Sandberg has a very 1970s approach to gender differences.

The conversation around Lean In has also brought more attention to the question of whether women who "opt out" of the workplace to stay home are doing so because they really want to or because—for whatever reason—it is hard for women to succeed in business. Or as Lisa Belkin, author of a well known article from ten years ago called "The Opt-Out Revolution," says, now rethinking her 2003 assertion: "most women who leave the workforce are more pushed than pulled."

I read all this with great interest, having recently halfway-opted-out myself to become a freelance editor and writer. I'm still working quite a bit, but with a lot more flexibility than before. And I'm loving it. I keep saying it's the "best decision I ever made." I control my own schedule, work on a wider variety of projects, and enjoy the satisfaction that comes from gaining new clients. I am more available to my kids and (when we have them) foster kids, making breakfast in the mornings and having dinner started when they get home, not to mention sick and snow days. Our marriage is stronger and happier, presumably because I am more relaxed and we have more time for just the two of us, having lunch on his day off, working in a coffeeshop together on his sermon writing days, etc. And—a plus for an introverted pastor's wife—I am less resentful and drained by all the time we spend at church because I have had plenty of "alone time" while I'm working.

My decision to leave my old job was motivated by a desire for more flexibility and work/home balance, but my new situation is so fulfilling, it's sure hard to think of it as a Plan B. So, according to Belkin, was I "pulled" home by the desire to better care for my family, or was I "pushed" by the corporate environment?

Belkin says,  

"Had their workplaces been ones that adapted to a world in which workers no longer have other halves (read: wives) focusing on home so that they can focus on the job, and where technology could be used to free employees from their desks physically rather than tethering them metaphorically, and where the "ideal worker" was understood to have priorities outside of the office — in other words, if they'd had a third path — they might well have taken it."

I'd probably call the path I'm taking a "third path," but I know that's not possible for everyone. I wonder if people are really making a false dichotomy between "leaning in" and "opting out." When I first heard about Lean In, I thought, "That's a book I would have eaten up a year ago," but I figured it no longer applied to me. I stopped climbing the corporate ladder when I opted to work from home, right? My husband quickly disagreed. "Being your own boss sure sounds like leaning in to me. And you've got the corner office—overlooking the neighborhood pool, no less!"

I'd like to say "leaning in" can mean actively pursuing a career life that works for you, whatever that means; but it's not my term to redefine. All I know is that the combination of push and pull that leads a woman to make a change does not necessarily have to derail her professional success and fulfillment.

WMW: Constant Accessibility

I heard this stat the other day: that 7 in 10 working adults have a smartphone, resulting in an increase in work bleeding over into personal time. It's not just the smartphone's fault, of course. Personal computers meant you could do things at home that maybe once were reserved for the office. Laptops meant you could use the same computer at work and home and tote it with you wherever you go. The Internet and Cloud-based apps mean you can work on a project across a bunch of devices—work computer, home computer, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.

It used to be hard work to work anywhere. You'd have to think ahead to lug paperwork home at the end of the day, or at least save stuff on a flash drive to tote it home electronically. Now, it's not only easy to work 24/7, the work follows you and it becomes expected because everyone knows you could
theoretically work 24/7.

How could you not know about the client crisis that erupted at 9 am on Saturday morning? You were at your kid's soccer game? Well, you had your phone on you, didn't you?

Hey, did you get the email I sent ten minutes ago? Why haven't you responded? I thought maybe your firewall blocked it, so I sent it to your other address too.

Perhaps worse than the external expectation of constant accessibility is the pressure and temptation you put yourself through. Say you do look at your phone during that soccer game and become aware of the brand new work-related crisis. Then you're tempted to fire back emails to address the issue when you should be connecting with your family and supporting your child.

When I was first able to check my work email from my home computer, it was mainly for extenuating circumstances (business trips, sick days, etc.) I remember when cell phones were just for emergencies too! When I first got my work email on my phone a couple years ago, I thought it was pretty cool. I could check on things before getting to work, or before going to bed. I could respond to an email at 9 p.m. and impress whoever sent it with my industriousness.

Now that I work on a contract basis, paid by hour or by project, I don't feel the same pressure to be constantly available. I took that email account off my phone, and I rarely go into my home office when Matt and the kids are home, and I don't use the kitchen computer for work. I expected it to be harder to segment my life, working from home, but in a way it is easier to draw those lines.

What about you? Are you accessible 24/7? Do you expect others to be?

WMW: Parenting is a Marathon

Have you ever listened to the end of the popular NPR show, "Car Talk" with Click & Clack, the Tappett brothers? They're funny, and in the credits at the end of their show, they include some humorous names. For example, their law firm is supposedly "Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe."

They also mention the leader of their working mothers' support group, "Erasmus B. Dragon."

Some days, my ass is draggin', so I can definitely identify.

Today's post is relevant to all parents, really, but given the pressure working moms often put on themselves to "do it all," I thought I'd share this gem of wisdom, which I can't even take credit for, as it is something my husband is reminding me all the time:

Parenting is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Matt reminds me this whenever I feel guilty for taking time for myself, or when I hesitate to ask for help, or when I get really anxious over some issue that doesn't have to be solved in a day. Going "all out" at every single moment will only wear us out—and the "finish line" is 18, 21, 35, 50 years away!

We have to pace ourselves. Take the long view. And that means if you need to let hubby take the kids to gymnastics so you can have some solo scrapbooking time (as I did last night), or let the playroom stay messy for a few days, so be it. If your "ass is draggin'," you're not going to be the best mom, wife, or employee you can be.

There's no prize for doing it all. The real reward is enjoying the journey, and the best news is that we get to run the race together.

WMW: Phone v. Email

As I was making my recent job transition and rewriting the automatic signature for my work email, the thought crossed my mind to include a phone number. I'd always listed one because it was an office number and a pretty standard signature to include mailing address, email, and phone number (and, once upon a time not so long ago, fax).

But when faced with the options of including either my cell number or home landline number (which I don't have memorized and is mainly used by my mother and telemarketers), I really didn't want to put either. And then I realized that there's no one implying I should, and that if I didn't, I could be FREE!

You see, I hate the phone. For family and close friends, fine. But for unsolicited business conversation? No way. The thought of leaving my old office with no forwarding telephone number, and thus, no random strangers with bizarre questions (like "where does the guy who wrote that third letter to the editor you printed live?") calling me was too good to pass up.

I'm just not big on small talk and don't like getting trapped by people who want to tell you their life story. Plus, I don't like being put on the spot to give an answer. Chances are, the answer is "I'll need to look into that and get back to you," anyway. "Could I get your email address?"

I like to be able to think about my response, check my facts, articulate things well. It's why I'm a writer and editor and not a speaker or political pundit. It's a classic introvert quality. And in this day and age, when the written word is as close and quick as a phone call, I think email is a considerate way to let people respond at their convenience (which is why I only call a business contact if they are way past deadline and not responding to emails over a week-long period. Somebody's about to get one of those tomorrow. . . dum dum DUM!) It feels like just about anything that needs discussing can be done via email, with no garbled words, dropped calls, or misunderstandings resulting from the lack of a written copy of the conversation. And most things are done via email, making those pesky phone calls all the more out of place in an efficient workplace. (Some companies are even encouraging IM for intra-office discussions, rather than the phone or email.)

So during my first week working from home, I enjoyed my blessed solitude, emailing with potential writers for an upcoming issue of Circuit Rider, content that if the phone rang, it would probably be Matt, my mom, or a telemarketer (or DCS!) and not a random stranger putting me on the spot or talking my ear off.

It was maybe my second day using my phone-numberless email signature that I got the reply, "I think I can meet that deadline. Could you call me to discuss things further?" 

Sigh. Alas, I can't escape the phone altogether, but I can try.

What about you? Do you prefer email or phone? Or texting? Or maybe IM? Personally, IM gives me flashbacks to my freshman year of college, but maybe it's your thing! 

WMW: Productive Pumping at Work

Did you know that offices of 50 or more are required to provide a private, non-bathroom space for lactating mothers?

I pumped for both my girls from the time I went back from maternity leave until their first birthdays, so for a total of about nineteen months or 380 workdays, I pumped at work. I'd estimate that's upwards of 850 pumping sessions. At 20 minutes per session, that's about 7 1/2 workweeks'-worth of time spent in the pumping room. If I hadn't learned how to be professionally productive during that time, I would have essentially stolen another maternity leave, spread out over two years!

And, if I hadn't learned how to be lactationally productive during that time, I would have been wasting everybody's time and a lot of trouble.

So here are some tips (some I learned personally, some from friends) about being all-around productive while pumping at work.

3 Tips for Being Professionally Productive

1. Find a good space. If you work alone or have an office with a door on it, you're in luck. You just need to find some desk space with room for your pump in addition to your work, that is close to an outlet. If you have to use a conference room or designated pumping room, you might not have access to a computer, but if there's space to work, you can find other tasks to do while pumping (see item 2). This was the case for me, but both times I had a comfortable space with plenty of table room for my pump, supplies, and work.
2. Save certain tasks for pumping time. With our dependence on computers these days, there are fewer and fewer work tasks that can be done without them. The iPad helped a little this second time around, but I still needed to plan and save tasks that didn't require my big machine for pumping time. For me, this was things like proofing hard copies of books and magazines, doing research in hard-copy books, brainstorming (I prefer pen and paper for that), or doing small tasks on the iPad. If you're about to do something in your office that doesn't require the computer, stop and set it with your pump so you can take it and do it then.
3. Go hands-free. Hopefully you've at least figured out how to hold both breast shields with one arm/hand, so you have one hand free while pumping, but if you can have both hands free, you can work that much easier! One friend of mine really recommends a hands-free pumping bra, like a bandeau or bustier with holes in it that you can put on to hold up the shields for you. This second time around, I just left my nursing bra clipped, and the cups held them up for me, but depending on your bra, you might need a special thing for it.

3 Tips for Being Lactationally Productive

1. Ensure your privacy. Stress is a big milk-buster, so if you're nervous about someone walking in, or otherwise feeling too exposed, it's going to hurt your milk production. If you have a room with a lock on it, use it (duh), but if you don't, make a sign to hang up each time. I've seen cute doorhangers, though I felt safer with something at eye level. I made a sign that said "Privacy Please. Do Not Enter," and had it laminated so it would last. I kept it and a roll of tape in my pumping bag so I could post it every time and it wouldn't get torn up.
2. Time it right. Keep track of when you pump and how much you make for the first week or so you are back at work. What patterns do you see? Generally, the more often you pump, and the longer the session, the more you will make, but work doesn't always make that easy. I at first wanted to do three sessions for Claire like I did for Kate, but the room this time was so far from my office, I reduced it to two pretty quickly, and had to pump morning and night as well at home, just to get enough for her daily needs. (Four pumping sessions to make the three bottles we sent to school.)
3. Prepare during maternity leave. With Kate, I was already prepared because she didn't nurse and I started pumping for her from the very first week. By the time I went back to work, it was old hat and I had both a great milk supply and a good frozen stash built up as back up. This was one downside of Claire being such a great nurser. I only pumped a few times over maternity leave, so my body hadn't adjusted to it and was dependent on Claire's 1-2 hour schedule. And I had little to no frozen stash to fall back on. It was day-to-day for the first month or so, sending to school every bit of milk I'd pumped the day before, and my frozen stash was always pretty small. So work ahead to build up a frozen stash to take some of the pressure off those first few weeks back at work.

I hope this is helpful to new working moms. Seasoned moms, what tips can you add that made pumping at work go more smoothly?

WMW: Flexible Jobs

As I realized while writing last week's WMW post about taking flextime, etc., when one's child is home sick, many jobs just don't allow the flexibility that office jobs sometimes do. My teacher friends came to mind, not just in regard to the sick child situation, but many aspects of working motherhood. It feels sad and ironic that those women who are so devoted to caring for other people's children might be at a disadvantage when it comes to balancing work and the care of their own children.

Teachers often don't have a paid maternity leave, and so have to try to plan for May/June births to allow a summertime postpartum period. Teachers can't easily take two or three breaks from the classroom each day to pump their breastmilk, and so might abandon breastfeeding when they'd prefer to keep nursing.

Teachers who commented on last week's post and via Facebook confirmed the general inflexibility of teaching. Pastors, on the other hand, and working moms with pastor-husbands, confirmed the flexibility pastors tend to enjoy. There aren't too many perks to a job that requires you to work a lot of evenings and weekends (something pastors have in common with waiters and bartenders, I imagine) but weekday flexibility to care for sick kids and get other personal/family business taken care of is a big one. Until just recently, it was almost always Matt who handled the calls to rescue a sick kid from school, staying home for the repairman to come, running packages to UPS, etc.

I remember when I started my first full-time job, working 8-to-4:15 Monday through Friday. It was a definite adjustment from being in grad school, where my day was a varied combination of classes, part time job, studying at Starbucks, running to Target or the grocery... Suddenly, I was confined to one place for the bulk of the day. I was in an area of the building with no windows, so in winter (when, in Nashville, it gets dark at 4:30) I really felt like I barely saw daylight. If I ran an errand during my lunch break, I remember getting mad at all the traffic, thinking, "Why don't these people have to be at work right now too?!" 

At the time, my awareness of people not working 9-to-5 was probably limited to the aforementioned waiters and bartenders, third-shift factory workers, and ER docs. But obviously, the work world is a lot more diverse than that, and getting more so. I remember a stat my high school geometry teacher used to cite: that 75% (or whatever large percent) of the jobs you'll be competing for don't even exist yet. (Who could have imagined a position called "Social Media Manager" or some such in 1995?) Technology has created many career paths we couldn't have imagined, but also changed the face of many other career fields, allowing many people to work from wherever, whenever.

There is such a diversity from the 9-to-5 concept, but there are trade-offs no matter what kind of position you pursue. Teachers get summers off (to some extent), but seem to have very little freedom over their own schedules and things when school is in session. A friend of mine recently transitioned from a demanding but relatively flexible job to starting an in-home day care, keeping two or three children in addition to her own during the day. She has the pleasure of being home with her kids, which she wanted, but I imagine there is much less flexibility than being a SAHM who is not also in charge of other people's children during the day.

For me, I traded greater security for flexibility, and so far, it's working out pretty well.

What are some of the trade-offs of your job? Where do you rank flexibility in comparison to income, satisfaction, advancement potential, etc?

WMW: When Kids Get Sick

Kate has been sick all week, after being sent home with a fever midday Monday (her birthday—boo). So, the last three days have been a good reminder of why I made the switch from WOHM to WAHM. Yes, my primary motive was greater flexibility for the unpredictable needs of foster kids placed in our care, but I was also eager to be more available to my own kids when they are sick, have field trips, class parties, etc.

We haven't gotten any calls about foster kids yet (probably because our social worker recommended us for only one child at a time, close in age to our bio kids, and it's teenagers and sibling groups that are most in need) but I've been so grateful this week to be able to tend to Kate here at home, and get work done as well. Granted, not as much work as my new normal, and not without help; Matt's mom came over for a while yesterday, and today I took Kate to Matt's office for a little while while I went to a meeting.

A child's illness is one of the more difficult aspects of two-career households. Which parent will stay home from work to tend the child and take him or her to the doctor? Is there a family member, friend, or backup childcare service that could care for the child that day? Will there be a loss of pay? Loss of confidence from colleagues and supervisors?

It's no wonder that contingencies for such inevitable circumstances are among the elements rated in Working Mother magazine's 100 Best Companies rankings. 100% of those companies offer flextime and telecommuting (and an average of 77 and 50% of employees use such benefits)—so that parents can take the time they need to care for their sick children, with the freedom (and trust) to get the job done. For the times parents have to be in the office on a day their children are sick, 86% of the 100 Best offer "backup child care," and 65% offer "sick child care."

If you're among the 43-47% of U.S. companies that do not allow flextime or telecommuting, you may need to take preemptive action as suggested in this article—things that seem obvious but I never really thought about!

• Always (or at least, when you suspect your child may be under the weather) try to get your essential tasks done earlier in the day, so if the day care calls just after lunch, you won't be in quite such a bind.
• Talk to your boss in advance about his or her policies and preferences when you have a sick child. I did this when Kate was first born, but I had one or two new bosses in the time since then and never thought to ask up front.
• Research backup care. According to the Working Mother data, only 3% of employers offer such a thing themselves, but you can find such agencies on your own to call when you're really in a bind. My employer actually did have an arrangement with a local backup care agency, but (and I feel silly to admit this) it was located in the federal building just a block way, and thinking of Oklahoma City's federal building bombing and the day care kids there killed, I just couldn't use it.

When I worked full-time in an office, Matt and my solution to the sick-child challenge was either to call his parents (and risk getting them sick—Kate infected at least six other family members with a stomach bug she had as a toddler!) or do the half-day split, where one of us stays home in the morning while the other goes to the office, and then switch around lunchtime. I'm glad to have the flexibility now to do most of the sick-child care myself, escorting to the pediatrician, etc., but even with flexibility and a home office, there are still challenges, and it still takes a village.

In closing, I have to note how the solutions I'm discussing here are specific to the corporate/office-type context. For moms working in fields that require your physical presence—teaching, medicine, retail, etc.—the issues and possible solutions are very different. I hope to address that some next week, so I hope you'll leave a comment about some of the issues faced by working moms beyond my obvious office frame of reference.

What is your workplace's policy on sick-child-care?

WMW: What Do You Wear to Work?

I remember when I got my first full-time job; one of the first things I did was go out and buy a work wardrobe. Actually, I got the call that I'd gotten the job while I was on a mission trip in rural Tennessee, so I went out and bought a skirt at Walmart to celebrate. But when we got back, I went to Ann Taylor LOFT and went on a spree for dressy pants, blouses, skirts, dresses, etc.

I felt cute and enjoyed dressing up for work. My boss always dressed nicely and looked very cute too, but it wasn't too long before I noticed the overall more casual attire of most people in the company. They practiced "Casual Friday," but it wasn't all that uncommon to see jeans on other days of the week too, especially on the men, for whom ties were really only worn at board meeting time.

Me, I could barely force myself to wear khakis on Fridays. I wore skirts and dresses and 3.5-inch heels all the way through my pregnancy with Kate. After becoming a mom, I couldn't handle the heels quite as well and started heading toward the more casual end of "business casual." (I was having deja vu here, and found a Working Mom Wednesday post from that stage of my work-wardrobe-timeline, titled, fittingly, "Business Casual.") But still more committed to polish than comfort.

It was right around that time that I moved into my Ministry Matters role, and I felt a little overdressed for a "web" person. People who run websites are supposed to be all hipster-like, right? Pearls seemed somewhat out of place in the digital suite, and before I knew it, I was wearing jeans on Thursdays. (gasp!)

There are two "Work Wardrobe Rules" I've tried to keep in mind over the years, both of which I probably learned from my dad, who has traditionally been my go-to person for professional advice.

From Ann Taylor

Rule #1: Dress for the job you want.

This makes sense, as it puts a person in the right mindset for the career path she is pursuing, and sends a message to others that she is serious about her work. There are times when this doesn't make sense, though. Like when I worked in a day care one summer in college and never once wore jeans, shorts, or sneakers. What was I thinking?

This rule actually provided some guidance in my "year of discernment" these past twelve months. I used to want the metaphorical "corner office." I wanted to rise up the ranks and be the "power chick" Matt jokes that I am. But as my vision shifted closer to home, my attire did as well. When I started wanting to wear jeans on a Monday, I knew something had changed in me and I joked "if you're supposed to dress for the job you want, apparently I want to be at home on my sofa!"

Fortunately, with our office being so casual anyway, this wasn't a problem. Apparently everyone wanted to be hanging out on my sofa! And this brings me to the next rule:

Rule #2: Never dress nicer than your boss.

It was actually easier to follow this rule once I relaxed my "never dress down!" standards, and I actually love the way my boss dresses. I love cardigans, and the flowier and cozier, the better.


From J.Jill

This is my favorite piece of clothing right now. (I actually have it in green, but didn't like the shirt they paired it with in that pic.) I'm wearing it right now, actually, with jeans. But I'm not sitting on my sofa. I'm at my desk, in a work-oriented environment. Which brings me to newly-discovered Rule #3.

Rule #3: When you work at home, you still get dressed.

I've heard a lot of jokes about working in my pajamas since I shifted to working from home, but that is really, truly unadvisable (and not just because a deliveryperson might come to the door!) It's about getting into a "work" frame of mind, being productive and focused. It's a signal to your brain that it's time to be "on."

Admittedly, I dress more casually than I would if I were going to the office. Leggings or jeans every day and certainly no panty hose! But I do get dressed before sitting down to work. I even put on makeup and jewelry most days, even if I know I'm not leaving the house.

What's your typical work attire? How do you feel about it?

The Return of Working Mom Wednesday

If you've been reading this blog for a few years, you may recall a little weekly feature called Working Mom Wednesday. You can read those and all posts on working motherhood here.

In light of my recent shift from WOHM to WAHM and the changes in schedule, environment, and mindset that shift entails, I've been thinking more about a variety of working mom issues and felt compelled to revive Working Mom Wednesday. (And to make a new button for it :0)

The awkward part of talking about "working motherhood" is the implication that stay-at-home-moms don't work. NOT SO. If "work" is defined as the use of energy (is that right, physics people?) I undoubtedly expend more energy per hour when I'm with my kids than when I'm alone at a desk. It is HARD WORK to care for young kids for their entire waking hours. I have absolutely nothing but the highest praise for SAHMs. So please never see me denigrating moms whose work is childcare- and home-based. (And in the same vein, I hope SAHMs won't accuse me or any mom who works for pay of not caring about her children or "letting other people raise them." That's insulting and untrue.)

All that said, let me restart the series by sharing just a few observations on my first week and a half of freelancing from "the home office."

• To clarify, since many people have asked: No, the kids aren't staying home with me now that I'm working from home. They are still in day care/preschool five days a week, and foster children we are privileged to parent will also go to school during the day. I spend the bulk of my day in the office/craft room off our bedroom, doing much of the same work I used to do from an office downtown, and working on growing a client base.
• I love the flexibility of this new arrangement, which was the main reason for the change in the first place. I can make the girls' dentist appointments in the middle of the day if I need to, be home for the plumber to come, or whatever else needs doing. When I need a break from the computer, I can put a load of laundry in; and rather than battling traffic at the end of the day, I can be getting dinner started.
• I am the consummate introvert. I knew this before, and evidenced it whenever I returned to my office after a long meeting saying, "Ah, the blessed isolation of my cube!" And that isolation was only an illusion, since my wonderful coworkers were barely more than a whisper away. I crave alone time and don't mind having the house entirely to myself for up to eight hours a day.
• I love my home office. My desk is a WWII-era piece my grandfather had. It has a panel on top you can lift to reveal and raise up a typewriter stored within. (My uncle has the typewriter, though.) Charlotte loves to hang out with me while I'm working, sometimes sitting right on the desk. I have to close the door when I'm not in there, though, because she will eat my plants. (I brought them back from the dead by taking them to my office about five years ago, and now they're back in her sights.) 
• I don't always stay home, though. I'm enjoying working at Panera or Starbucks for a few hours at a time some days. (I love Starbucks, but Panera is my preferred place because you can drink endless refills of coffee for only $2.99.) I also go into the office for a weekly meeting, and have church and other activities, so I'm not totally cut off from humans outside my family :0)
• I do miss standing up to work. It was a growing trend at my office, and I joined in on the "stand-up desk revolution" a few months ago, when I felt like I was always stretching and squirming in my chair. My muscles felt tight and I could never get comfortable. Standing (or sitting on a bar-height chair, as I often did) was great. Now that I've been sitting most of the time to work again, I find myself stretching and straining a lot. The kitchen counter and my craft table aren't quite high enough to stand, but barstools both places do help!

I hope you'll offer me some insight by leaving a comment answering any of the following questions:

1. If you are a parent, what is your employment story? Did you stop working when you had kids? Did you or do you plan to work outside the home again at some point? Do you work from home?
2. What topics would you want to see addressed in a Working Mom Wednesday post?
3. Would you like to write a guest post for the series? I would love to share some other people's tips and insights, so please pitch me your ideas!

Working Mom Wednesday: Selfish at 5 am

Now that I'm back at work, I may try to do some Working Mom Wednesday posts again. This week, I want to tell you how much I love my morning routine, and how it has been essential for my sanity in the mornings.

Blogger/author Jon Acuff talks about being "selfish at 5 am." For him, this was about getting up to write early in the morning because he dreamed of being an author but had a day job and a family that made it tough to write at any other time of day. He now encourages this in his (third or fourth!) book, Quitter, which is about pursuing your dream job while keeping your day job.

I'm not looking to change careers, but I have discovered the joy of being selfish at 5 am. Well, not 5, but 5:30. I tried practicing my intended routine once while still on maternity leave, and was back in bed by 6:15. 5:00 may be too early for me, but 5:30 has worked out well, enabling me not just to get myself and the girls ready so that we can all get out the door by 7:30, but to have some "me" time as well, that I'm typically too exhausted to enjoy by the time the kids are asleep in the evenings, the kitchen is cleaned up, bottles prepared for the next day, etc.

My alarm goes off at 5:15, because I love hitting snooze a few times (who doesn't?) but I try to get out of bed by 5:30 and shower immediately. I come downstairs to enjoy a cup of coffee, which has just finished brewing from the auto-timed start at 5:30, and putter around on the computer for a while. Yesterday, I worked on Kate's birthday party decorations a little, but usually I just spend this "me" time checking email, blogs, etc. I head back upstairs by 6:30 or so to finish getting myself ready and get everybody else up. If Claire hasn't woken up in the night, then her waking is a variable in this morning routine (as it was this morning, since she slept from 9:30pm to 5:30am—woo hoo!) and sometimes I hit snooze a few more times than I should, but if at all possible, I still try to steal away to have a little time to myself before the craziness of the day begins.

Sure, it's hard to get up earlier than I would naturally, but as I read recently in Girl on Top: Turning Dating Rules into Career Success (just couldn't resist that title!), "I'm tired at seven, and I'm tired at six. So why not get up at six?" It's true. Left to my own devices, I would probably sleep until 8:30 or so. But I never have that luxury, so if I'm going to artificially wake myself anyway, why not do it at a time that brings peace and satisfaction to my mornings? Plus, I have a number of go-to "wake up songs" in my head that I can sing and dance to in the shower to shake the sleep from my eyes (Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and The Pointer Sisters' "Jump for My Love" are two favorites, as is Matt's once-annoying, super-chipper cell phone alarm, "pa pa POW Good Morning, POW Good morning, pa pa POW, it's a beautiful day!")

I've always wanted to be one of those people who rises at 4am to study, do a devotion, practice flute, actually eat breakfast, etc. (these examples reflect a particular person I knew in college!) and 4am just wouldn't be smart when I don't get to bed until 10:30 or 11—it's important to get 7-8 hours of sleep, if possible—but this new routine works for me and makes me a happier person and a better mom, I think. Like Matt says in his pre-sermon prayer each week, "Lord make us masters of ourselves so that we can be the servants of others." Being disciplined with my wake-up time and morning routine gives me the serenity I need to care for my family in the mornings in a calmer and more loving way.

Now on with my day!
pa pa POW pa pow pa POW good morning... it's a beautiful day!

Working Mom Wednesday: Mommy Groups in Church

It's been a long time since I wrote a Working Mom Wednesday post--and I've actually had one percolating for quite a while now, but this is not it. No, this is a piece I wrote for Ministry Matters, the website for church leaders that I edit in my day job, and since it deals with working moms and church fellowship opportunities, I thought I'd share it here.

***

While visiting my parents this past weekend, I had the opportunity to worship at my home church (which I've gushed about before) and something in the bulletin caught my eye:

Mothers in Faith, a Kingdom Group for moms of young children, meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30 pm.

My heart lept for joy, despite the fact that I live 150 miles away and couldn't actually be part of this group myself.

Why was I so happy?

Because this was the first small group, Bible study, play group, or fellowship gathering for moms that I'd seen that did not meet at 10 am on a Wednesday, or some other time that--intentionally or not--sent the message that working moms need not apply. . . . 

Read the rest at Ministry Matters...

Working Mom Wednesday: Workaholic

Throughout my childhood, my father would leave for work even before I got up, and would return home promptly at 7pm for dinner. Then he would work on the computer for a while longer in the evenings. I don't know if that counts as bonafide workaholism (my mom would say it does) but I know my dad swells with pride whenever I display similar behaviors.

I don't work extra-long hours or anything, but I do fetishize productivity--my self-esteem rises and falls on it every day. I'll work from home in the evenings, sometimes, but I can't focus as well at home. When the "official" end of the workday rolls around (what my colleague and I call "yabba dabba doo time," after our boss commented on how so many people in the company are out of there right at quittin' time that "It's like the opening scene of the Flintstones!") I often wonder "where did the day go?" I worked all day and yet there are more things on my to-do list at the end of the day than there were at the beginning, and I barely made a dent. Still, I usually leave within 30 minutes after yabba dabba doo time because I want to get home to Kate.

I think about how, before she was born, I would stay late almost every day, and despite the hour-long commute, it didn't bother me. But now, that evening time is precious, and as the aphorism says, "at the end of one's life, no one says 'I wish I'd worked more.'"

Matt has been out of town the last few days, and my mom suggested that they take Kate back to Louisville with them after her b-day weekend for those few days. Now, I am more than capable of taking care of Kate without Daddy's help (as awesome as he is) but of course Mom, like all the grandparents, craves as much Kate-time as possible. I don't think she expected me to agree to this plan, but with the website launching in just a few weeks, it's an extra-busy time at work, and a few days of staying late to get more done at the office kind of appealed to me.

Monday morning, I bid farewell to Matt, my parents, and Kate with a very nervous stomach--a mixture of fear and guilt. Fear because even though the probability of accidents and other things is the same whether I'm with Kate or not, I still worry that something could happen to her when I'm not there to protect her with the tenacity of a mama bear. And guilt because I let someone else take care of my daughter when I could have had some nice one-on-one mommy-daughter time... especially since I let someone else take her in part because of work.

This is a working mom's dilemma.

So now it's Tuesday night and I've had two evenings of staying late at the office, running errands, and working more from the laptop or iPad at home.Now that I have Outlook on my phone (which initially I'd heard was not possible with Android, but now is) I even answered an email this morning while still laying in bed. Fortunately, I only sleep with my phone by the bed when Matt's away, so I won't make a habit of that, and soon I'll be back to leaving within a half hour of yabba dabba doo time, rushing home to my sweet girl, and working more only after bedtime, if I need to at all. 

I miss Kate and Matt, of course, but it has also been nice to indulge my workaholic tendencies for a few days. I'm glad we'll all be back under one roof tomorrow night. I'm thankful to have a job I enjoy. I'm even more thankful to have a loving family to come home to at the end of a busy day. The word "balance" often comes to mind in discussions of working motherhood, but I think I prefer the word "full." Life is full--of joy, of challenges, of to-dos, of love. Life is good.

Working Mom Wednesday: Days Off

I have not had a full, five-day work week since the middle of December. There was Christmas, with some days off before and after it. There was our little excursion to Louisville. Then we had a snow day. And then, of course, this past Monday was MLK Day. While I feel a twinge of guilt at not really "observing" the reason for the day off in any formal way (other than by reading my hubby's blog post with audio of a King speech), I definitely enjoy the day off in the middle of January, when (ordinarily) one would be going through vacation withdrawal after the Christmas holidays.

Everybody enjoys a nice day off from work (beyond normal weekends, that is), and while weekends are great for errands, weekdays off are great for doing the fun things one just doesn't get to do ordinarily.  I honestly don't recall how I spent random days off before I was a mom--sleep in, shop, I don't know. I'm sure I enjoyed them, but it's kind of funny the rabid intentionality with which I approach days off work now. I daydream, make plans, and anticipate how I will use this "me" time. Not a moment must go to waste. Because I'm neurotic like that, even with my relaxation time.

Last year, I arranged a play date. I get so envious when I read the blogs of certain stay-at-home-moms and their fun-filled days of play dates and lunches with friends and their babies, etc. (Take that last sentence with a grain of salt because a) I love working and b) SAHMs, I know your days are very tough and not always fun-filled.) Anyway, I'd dreamed of the magical play date, so I kept Kate home from day care since I was home, and Nancy and Becca made the trek to Clarksville to play and visit. (Looking back at that post now, the girls looked so little!)

This year, when I learned that day care would once again be open when I was off work for the holiday, I decided to go ahead and take her in. First off, it was her first day in the two-year-old room, and I didn't want to disrupt the transition into that classroom. (The school does such a great job transitioning the kids when they move up, with progressively longer visits to the new room throughout the two weeks before the change.) Secondly, this scenario provided an opportunity for something else working moms--heck, parents in general--rarely get to experience... a babysitterless movie date!

It was a good day. Kate and I both slept in a little, so I took her to school around 8, then had some "me time" at Starbucks, enjoying a nonfat toffee nut latte and feta/egg/spinach breakfast wrap. I finished the novel I was reading, Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult. I am not a big fiction reader, but I devour Picoult's books. This one, especially, was riveting. Then, I dragged Matt along on a quest to Toys R Us and Target for the last of Kate's birthday presents. (I am always under the delusion that he will enjoy such excursions. I need to remember otherwise.) After much obsessing, I made my selection and we could move on to lunch (O'Charley's) and our movie. We saw Black Swan. It was good, but the R rating for "disturbing images" (among other things) was well-deserved. At points, it was almost like a horror movie, and I don't do horror movies. The dancer's descent into madness is compelling, and somewhat of an adrenaline rush. I like psychological thrillers, but one of my pet peeves is sudden things that jump out or make loud noises--especially if those things are creepily-morphing faces. Consider yourself warned.

So how do you spend your days off work?

Working Mom Wednesday: The Money Paradox

A big question for working moms (or moms-to-be) who are considering the idea of quitting work to stay home with their kids is the obvious, "Can we afford it?"

Many households are dual income because they have to be--they literally could not pay the bills on one person's salary. Others may be on the cusp and just require some tinkering with the budget, sacrificing certain "extras" to make it work. (And, of course, there are the rare couples who already live off of one partner's income, and the other spouse doesn't really "have" to work, but may choose to anyway!)

Matt and I never even calculated this, because I knew I wanted to keep working, but if I wanted to be a SAHM, I estimate that--given our church-provided housing--we could make it happen, especially if we cut out cable TV, XM radio, Bookswim, etc. If we had a house payment, I doubt we could do it.

There are costs to working, too, of course: day care, dressy clothes, dry cleaning, maybe more gasoline, depending on your commute, etc., but I would think that for most families, these costs do not eat up an entire salary to the point that you "can't afford to work."

Apparently, I'm wrong, though, at least according to some research cited by marriage-and-family scholar Stephanie Coontz. This big question of "affording to stay home" has actually created a misperception of who stays at home and who works, she says in this article from 2007. Apparently, "the highest concentration of full-time homemakers in America is found among women married to low-earning men, while highly educated wives are increasingly likely to combine work and motherhood."

This fuels what Coontz calls "the opt-out myth." We tend to think that women whose families need the money work, and that more women who can afford to stay home are doing so. When really, 72% of the women who could more likely afford to stay home are choosing to work, while 52% of moms in families earning in the 25th percentile and could use a second income, were staying home.  And that puts some families in quite a tough spot, needing a second income but not being able to afford for a spouse to go out and get that second income. It's a sort of paradox (or even "doughnut hole," as they say in the Medicare debates) where some families can't completely afford for Mom not to work but can't quite afford for her to work either.

Coontz links these trends with the support the culture gives to working mothers--socially and practically/financially. In some countries, women are choosing to postpone motherhood rather than get stuck in this paradoxical spot, and the birth rates are plummeting. In America, working motherhood has been on the rise since the 1960s and there isn't a social stigma about working outside the home (though some still debate the issue!) but our laws, normative business practices, etc. do not financially empower moms to work the way countries with universal health care and longer guaranteed maternity leaves do.

In Coontz's words:

"Where employers and policy-makers refuse to accommodate women's desire to combine work and family, we see one of two outcomes: Either women stop having babies, as in Italy or Japan, or, as in the United States, many women who need to work can't afford to (because of expensive and uneven-quality child care) and many women who want to work feel guilty about the choices they are forced to make."

I wish I had some practical tips to share on affording to work or not work (as your preference might be) but I find this more sociological look at working motherhood fascinating as well. Perhaps some of you have firsthand experience with these financial pressures.Tell me, how did/will money affect your decision to work or stay home?

~~~
PS: I actually have not read Coontz' best-known book, Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, but after reading some of these articles on her website, I may have to do that! I have read her The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, which compares the 1950s stereotype to reality, and apparently she has a new book coming out in January, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. I found Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique just fascinating, so I may have to check that out too!

Working Mom Wednesday: Self-Doubt

Last week, I asked you to weigh in on your biggest concerns as a work-outside-the-home mom. As a blog poll (one with relatively low turn-out at that), this questionaire was in no way scientific, but gave me some idea of what I should write about for future Working Mom Wednesdays.

"Time for myself" and "time with my spouse" were the top picks (and maybe I'll write about those soon), but close behind were "guilt/self-doubt" and "pressure/criticism."

With around 70 percent of moms with young kids working outside the home (including 50-something percent of moms with babies under one year) it is shocking that the "mommy wars" still rage. We're all trying to do the best we can, but emotions can still run high as we're all wondering "is my best good enough?" or "am I really doing the right thing?"

Some of those feelings come from within (guilt/self-doubt) and some from outside (pressure/criticism) but I think those are really quite intertwined. I feel pretty confident that my career is overall a good thing for me and my family. But if someone criticizes that choice, I am likely to not only feel defensive, but start to doubt myself and the choices I've made. The cycle can work the other way too, when moms who doubt their own choices justify themselves by criticizing others.

A big question for moms dealing with guilt of self-doubt might be, "Where is this feeling originating?" Does it come from the disapproval of family members, acquaintances, or even strangers? Does it come from reasonable concerns like the cost of child care outweighing your income or a child that needs more personal attention than a day care can provide? Does it come from discontentment with your job and a real preference for or longing to be a stay-at-home mom? Does it come from a religious or cultural belief that mothers should be homemakers? Does it come from insecurity or envy?

I'm certainly not qualified to say which of these reasons is valid or not, but simply asking the questions may shed light on those feelings and open the door for some important discussions between you and your spouse.

~~~
PS: If you are new to The Parsonage Family, here are quick links to a few older "working motherhood" posts you might find most useful...
concerns about going back to work
benefits of day care
making time for yourself and your spouse
letting the housework go

Working Mom Wednesday: Family Dinner

I'll admit it: my husband is a better cook than I am.

I went out to lunch the other day with another working mommy/pastor's wife (getting our money's worth from a sushi buffet--yum!) and we were talking about the various challenges of being a work-outside-the-home mom. She asked if I had any good tips for getting decent meals together after a long day at the office.

"Yeah... let my husband cook!" I quipped.

It's true, his meals are often more tasty and creative than mine, but when he doesn't volunteer his culinary skills, I generally fall back on easy, tried-and-true recipes (like my Swiss Chicken or Black Bean Cakes--recipes at the bottom of this post!) or something super-easy (read: lazy) like a Bertolli frozen pasta entree or--like tonight--grilled cheese and tomato soup.

I love a good meal, and I try to make sure we eat healthy, balanced meals, but to me, sitting down together--before Kate goes to bed or Matt runs off to an evening meeting or Bible study--is more important than having anything fancy for dinner. I save the new or tricky recipes for a weekend when I'm feeling domestic and can take my time and have fun with it.

As a Good Housekeeping article my mom clipped for me points out, sit-down meals give a family "civility, economy, and health" (I love that phrasing--sounds like the clipping was from 1950 rather than 2010), calories are burned in the group preparation of meal and table, and meaningful conversation can happen over the table that may not happen on the run. Also, a recent study shows that adolescent girls who eat family meals five or more times per week are 1/3 less likely to develop eating disorders. Good to know!

~~~

And now for a couple favorite recipes. I never post recipes because I in no way fancy myself a gourmet cook, but these are so easy, I have to share. I actually never look at the recipes, because they are simple and flexible enough to do from memory, with a little improvization...

Black Bean Cakes

The inspiration for these was my college cafeteria. I kid you not. They were so good, and when I saw this Pampered Chef recipe somewhere, I started making them for myself.

1 can black beans, drained and mashed

1/4 cup salsa (minimize juice)

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

onions and/or corn, if desired

2 egg whites

Combine all ingredients, mold into patties, and brown in an oiled skillet. Serve on a bed of lettuce. The sauce (now this isn't from Pampered Chef, but what the lunch ladies told me) is salsa mixed with ranch dressing. Yum-mee. Top with sour cream.

Swiss Chicken

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

2 slices swiss cheese

1 can cream of chicken soup

1/3 cup milk

8 oz. stuffing mix

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease 9 x 13 dish. Top each chicken breast with swiss cheese. Sprinkle stuffing mix around chicken. Combine soup and milk in bowl and pour over all. (The recipe only calls for 1/3 can of soup, but I like it saucy, and find that the stuffing doesn't cook thoroughly without more liquid, but it's a matter of taste, I guess.) Cover dish with foil and bake for 50 minutes. Serve with a green veggie for a complete meal!