Do you hear that?  It is a quiet calm settled through the households around the great state of Maryland.

Why?

The Maryland School Assessments are being conducted throughout the state this week.  For teachers, I suppose it is five days of stressful exam situations. But for us parents, it is nirvana.

Well, at least a slice of it.

For me, the working mother, it is a rare slice of serenity in a sea of turbulence.  MSA testing, at least in my school, means no homework. Can you feel my relief?  Not only that but  this week I have found MY VERY OWN OFFSPRING lecture ME about how they need to get to bed early and eat a healthy breakfast. Imagine that!  The school must be really drilling that info in them because it is working miracles in this household, let me tell you.

So for one week, my children come home and the entire family is relaxed and carefree.  There are no homework battles. No papers. No deadlines. It is like a mini-vacation.

I am savoring it.

I’ve always been a working mother.

I’ve just, well, always WORKED. I’ve never had the luxury of staying home full-time.

When the boys were very little I never even entertained the idea of staying home with them.  Financially we couldn’t anyway, but at that time it was more about the fact that my career was my IDENTITY.  I mean, I interviewed celebrities for a living!  Seriously.  My parents joked that I got PAID to go to parties and concerts.  And they were right. My job as bureau chief of Sony Worldwide Networks was essentially to run around the music industry interviewing the Tim McGraws and Shania Twains of the world, talk with them about their latest accomplishments, then head back to the studio and create news stories for radio stations across the country.

Not a bad gig. Was a little challenging on the diet, but overall I wasn’t complaining. You know? (Besides, McGraw was kinda hot and I was diggin’ the free alcohol.)

But the music industry was no place for a young family.  And so my husband and I had to make the first of many tough decisions.

So we moved up North to be closer to the family and times got tougher.  I almost had to begin fresh.  It is a bit hard to translate such an over-the-top job into living-in-the-real-world work (What do you mean, I have no real world experience?  Willie Nelson offered me a joint!  Doesn’t that count for anything?) that pays well.  Especially since I ended up at a non-profit.  Not the most brilliant career move, salary wise, but I had a passion for the work and I was close to the kid’s school.  My boys loved it there though.  (Okay. They were spoiled.  I admit it. They were mini-gangstas and it was their ‘hood.)

When it comes to work, I have moved around a bit since that time, giving up opportunities here, finding my own opportunities there and overall working hard to try to find the perfect balance of family, money and career fulfillment.  Not nearly as easy as it sounds! (Can I get a holla?) Jobs might present themselves but they would be hours away and completely un-doable for our schedule.  (Is that even a word? Un-doable? Did I just make that up?)

It is through these experiences that I have come to realize that it is not about the job or how cool it sounds or the deadlines. (Because in my field, there are always looming deadlines.) It is about how I choose to react to the situations that are presented to me.  As good as the job might be, I have to always take my family into consideration when making a decision.

Not to mention all of those Murphy’s Law “mom moments.”  I can’t tell you how many times I have been perfectly pulled together for a board meeting and suddenly had a kid spill chocolate milk on my white blouse.  Or worse – being hit by a projectile potty accident from a training toddler. (shudder) To this day my little ones still manage to put me back in my place when I am feeling a tad over confident.  I think it is God’s way of making sure that realize that I don’t have any REAL control over my life.  Just in case I happen to have any illusions to the contrary.

It is in those uncontrollable moments, when I have been hit in the leg with projectile urine or I reach into my purse and pull out mysterious green slime, that I laugh at how far I have come.  Yeah, maybe I used to interview celebrities and stay in ritzy hotels, but it is how I deal with the real life “mom moments,” that define me.  And I wouldn’t trade that opportunity for all the back stage passes in the world.

I’m a big believer in the power of  personal branding. Maybe it is because of my public relations background but I have always be mindful  of cultivating and promoting my personal brand on the Internet.

Does that sound “over the top” to you? Or maybe even ridiculously unnecessary?  Because, well, I’m just a mom blogger, right?

WRONG.

Yes, I am a mom blogger. AND  a professional.  AND a wife, friend, daughter, relative, community activist and volunteer.  And because I live out loud and on line, I would be wise to control of my personal brand.  And so should YOU be.  The repercussions could be staggering.

The modern concept of personal branding is essentially a summation of how you are presenting yourself online.  Your personal brand is made up of all of the messaging sent out online via status reports, news, blog posts & comments, profiles on social networks, images, videos and personal websites.  Essentially, it is content of ANY KIND that connects to you.

Guard your brand carefully.  Be intentional about how you are presenting yourself in the world.

Your social messages reveal to the word the reality of your character, your  intentions, your wants,  thoughts, and  needs.  You must  make sure the messages you are sending are the ones you want. Cyber footprints never go away. Only put out “there” messages that you would be happy for the world to receive.  (Would your mother wash your mouth out with soap if she saw that Tweet?)

Now, you might be vehemently disagreeing with me right now. I know many of us use Twitter and Facebook to vent and “let loose.”  I’m not suggesting that you loose your personality or that you to censor yourself as if the Pope were watching, I’m just suggesting that you keep in mind future opportunities:

• That business that you would like to sponsor you for a conference one day.
• That company looking for a brand representative.
• That audience hoping to find a blog where they can relate.
• That future employer silently monitoring cyberspace.
• That school official approving your volunteer application.

Don’t turn them off with careless messaging.

Each of us is our own brand.  So, what kind of a brand are YOU? Do you work well with others or are you complicated and cranky?  Do you bring your drama with you?

Image is unavoidable, gang. If you have an online presence, people are making assumptions and forming opinions about you. It is that simple.  They are putting you into categories. That is life.  The conclusion they reach from these opinions constitutes your image, whether you like it or not.

So next time you sit down to fire off that nasty tweet, give it a quick thought before you hit “send.”  Is it consistent with what you want the world to know about you?

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks people. Because of the two blizzards, my kids have now been on break since February 5th. Couple that with the fact that I launched a new business on February 1st and well, its been kinda, CHALLENGING. 

Case in point, to the left is today’s “desk.” I had to move all of my work downstairs with the kiddos while they watch iCarly re-runs. (Note to self: Don’t try to be concentrate while “random dancing” is on.)

The biggest challenge has been dealing with the need for ORGANIZATION. Even the word itself is intimidating, let alone with kids who have been on snow break for nine days. I’m trying to organize the business, clients, tasks, blog responsibilities, the Momz Share event and my little ones. Maybe it is me, but I am finding it hard to concentrate and focus. Know what I mean?

How do YOU  juggle the responsibilities of  parenthood and business / blogging during times like this?  (Besides consuming copious amounts of alcohol before noon?)

Today is a big day for me.  I am launching my new business AND revealing my blog redesign all in one day!  Hey, I had to do SOMETHING while I was snowed in, didn’t I?

What do you think of the new blog site?  I am so happy with it.  I just feel like it looks less cluttered and more clean.

IN OTHER NEWS….

My new business website is being launched today as well.  I (we) have officially launched Bring It To Fruition.  Please go check it out and let me know what you think!

And for those of you in the market to redesign your Wordpress blogs, you should really consider working with SimplyWP.  They designed BOTH of these sites.  YEP.  My business site is a Wordpress site.  How awesome is that?

Thanks for stopping by today!  And by the way – full disclosure – I paid for both of these sites Mr. FTC.  Just sayin’….

Okay, friends.  We are coming down to the wire with the job thing. I am almost there.  Two days closer to owning my own business.  Woo hoo!

As I told you in this post, I had to make some  hard choices with regards to my family.  And because of that I quit my full-time position with a regional non-profit and am going into business for myself.  Not to rehash the reasoning, but for anyone who is new here… it basically boiled down to being there for my family and having more control over my schedule.  I am tired of not being there for classroom parties.  Tired of not having time to schedule doctor’s appointments.  I’m tired of being, well, TIRED.

I gave my organization two months notice and as of MONDAY I will move into a contracting role with them and commence to launching my own  business.  I’ll give you more details on that once the site is up.  (Patience, grasshopper!)

SOOOO…. that means I have two days left of the daily “grind” and then maybe I will be able to breathe again.  Or maybe not.  Either way I plan to work at least one day a week in my pajamas.  <—- Lofty goal, huh?

This is a rant. Consider yourself warned.

I am tired of people assuming that I can’t cook.  I CAN cook. I really can.  I kinda wish I couldn’t. I’m not kidding. Because if  I COULDN’T cook, then I wouldn’t have to feed people all day long every single day. 

Basically I have enough cooking skills to NOT kill my family and to NOT to force us into bankruptcy from continuous fast food runs.  Which stinks, you know?  I know just enough to get me by and make me the primary chef in the house.  Oh joy oh joy oh joy.

What I can’t do is create a culinary masterpiece or even, err… a pie.  In my house there is simply no need to have ingredients like baking soda, flour or molassas hanging around.  Seriously, I have no idea what would I use those for.  I buy them every once in awhile for a random recipe (usually around Christmas) and then banish them to the back of the cupboard until they go bad.  My sister is always running out of these ingredients because apparently she knows how to use them.  Either that or she is trying to play mind games on me. 

Hold the phone… are you actually SNICKERING at me?  What?! You’ve got some reason to stock baking soda?  Is that it?

People, is is not because I don’t want to do it.  Oh no.  I just don’t have TIME to devote to reading a recipe and experimenting with various flavors and textures of food.  Oh how I wish a were a foodie!  One of my secret (Well, not anymore!) ambitions is to become a tremendous cook.  But I think that family position was filled by my sister.  According to my friends and relatives, I just know how to “warm dough.”

Can’t I just get an “A” for effort?  You know, one of these days I am going to make one hell of a meal and amaze the world.  I’ll have my 15 minutes of foodie fame and never again will people ask me if I know how to boil water.

Let’s get realistic… that is not gonna happen. Ever. (BTW – Contrary to what you may be assuming, this post was not inspired by my husband. Even though he can also cook better than I. Darn brat.)