Seven Survival Secrets from a Working Mom

I haven’t posted in a while, and I have a lot to tell you. At the risk of exposing myself to be a total nerd, I’m letting you in on a few of my latest Survival Secrets–just a few little things that get me through the work day right now. (Oh, and by the way, this is just Stuff I Like. I’m not being paid by anyone to write about any of this. I’m not sure what compels me to occasionally shout from the blogosphere about my PROFOUND APPRECIATION AND AFFECTION for breakfast sandwich makers and HEB Greek Yogurt, but my quirk just might be your gain.) I think I’m compelled to share this because the world is a messy, busy place. And sometimes we all need something to make the world a little less messy and a little less busy. Here we go. In chronological order, from the beginning of my average work day to the bitter end, Stuff that Gets Me Through:

1 :: Cheap Coffee

This is neither the time nor the place for me to wax poetic about all the reasons that I love the Wal-Marts, but it’s true. I. Love. Wal-Mart. There. I said it. Don’t hate. It’s my happy place, and you will often find me there on Sunday afternoon in a daze, my hair in a sloppy ponytail and not a touch of makeup on my face, blissfully, almost hypnotically, pushing my cart down the aisles, apparently ignorant of the woman beating her kid in the greeting cards, the pajama-clad man mumbling to himself near Sporting Goods, or the lady on the rascal whose parking job in the middle of the cereal aisle is creating a shopping cart traffic jam. Recently, on one of these blissful solitary Sunday outings, I took a risk when I bought the 44-count Great Value Donut Shop Blend Coffee Single-Serve Cups for $18.98 at my local “Great Wal.” I worried I might be stuck forever with 43 K-Cups of nasty tasting java. I was thrilled to discover that the GV Donut Shop K-Cups are good. They are just right. And they are a hell of a lot cheaper than the other K-Cups out there. The GV Donut Shop has a robust, medium body and it caffeinates me on school mornings when I’m stumbling through the house, turning on lights, tripping over dogs and bracing myself to face my tweenage daughters who are natural morning people (NOT). Starbucks, schmarbucks. And you can have your fancy K-Cups. For me, [insert old Folger’s commercial jingle here] the best part of waking up / is a Great Value Donut Shop K-Cup.

2 :: Baby I’m So Classic(al)

I’ve realized over the past 16 years of my working-woman life that my taste in music ebbs and flows, changing over time as I’ve aged and changed.  Back when I was starting my career, I wore out my “Songs from Dawson’s Creek” disc as I cruised down Broadway from my apartment in Alamo Heights to my big city office building downtown job, passionately singing “I don’t wanna wait…for my life to be oveeerrrrrrrrr” along with Paula Cole on repeat most mornings. A few years later, I dated a musician who introduced me to The Replacements and Robyn Hitchcock and made me the best CDs that got me through my brief morning commute. After I married Ryan, became an instant (step)mom and started having babies, I didn’t listen to music, because I spent most of my commute crying to my mother on my pink Motorola flip phone. When I started my job at Southwest Research Institute in 2008, I could plug my iPod Nano into my Honda Fit dashboard and suddenly had the ability to customize my iTunes playlist for my longer, 30-minute commute. A few years later, I discovered The Radio, and I haven’t turned it off since. I’ve been through my country phase, my Kidd Kraddick phase, my JACKfm phase and my TPR/Diane Rehm phase. And now? Now I’m about to turn 42 years old and I’m all about KPAC 88.3 FM. CLASSICAL MUSIC, y’all. I love it. It soothes me. It reminds me to breathe. And because I’m new to classical music, I’m always learning something new and hearing something new. I heard a song the other day that just stopped me (okay, it did not literally stop me, because that could have been dangerous on 410 somewhere between Jackson-Keller and McCollough) and made my brain freeze up a little the way it can when you are exposed to something entirely new and wonderful, literally awestruck. You may not think you’re into classical music, but I say give it a try. Our local classical music radio station is a great place to start. Listening to Bach’s Brandenburg concertos on my way into work this morning was so rejuvenating and inspiring it seemed radical. (I feel like my timing on this is impeccable–I’m pumped about going to some classical shows at the brand new Tobin Center in the near future.)

3 :: Skimming the Skimm

My friend Christy turned me on to The Skimm a month or so ago, and it’s my first read of the day when I’m sitting down to my computer at my office in the morning. It’s an entertaining, brief, witty, somewhat snarky, smartly-crafted compilation of the most newsworthy items from the past 24 hours, written by and for women. After reading it for just a few weeks, I feel better informed about national and global current events, which has been helpful to me when I’m making small-talk before a meeting or having cocktails before a dinner. I commend it to you.

4 :: Pretty Office Supplies

I have developed a passion for office supplies over the years. They are the tools of my trade, and I have grown very particular about my pens, pads, and Post-Its. I am partial to the Uniball Vision Micro. Black ink. And I LOVE Papermate Flairs. I also enjoy a rainbow array of Post-It flags, binder clips, and simple silver paperclips. I struggle with the colorful plastic paperclips—too thick, too plastic, too inflexible, not shiny enough. I guess the moral of this story is that it is possible (maybe even essential) to surround yourself with useful little things that you love to get you through the banality of your everyday working life, wherever that work life takes you.

A few of my favorite office supplies and a salted caramel for an afternoon pick-me-up.

5 :: A Tiny Treat

I pack my lunch for work most mornings. When I worked downtown, I used to eat out every day, and I look back and can’t believe I did that. The sheer caloric intake, let alone the expense, baffles me. Along with my standard desk-lunch components, which don’t look too different from the stuff Ryan and I pack in our kids’ lunches (sandwich, chips, fruit), I almost always send myself off to work with a little treat. Something small and happy to look forward to during the bewitching hour between 3pm and 4pm. One of my favorite treats right now is Trader Jacques Fleur de Sel Caramels. My friend Meredith gave me a box recently, and I often toss a single plastic-wrapped caramel into my lunchbox to enjoy later when I really need a little pick-me-up. I also send myself to work with a little note in my lunchbox that says, “You’re AWESOME!” and “I LOVE YOU!” Kidding. I don’t even do that for my kids.

6 :: Dinner in the Slowcooker

Family Dinner is crazy-important in our household. It is a ritual, and one we rarely miss, even when my Ryan and I and our 4 kids are all going in at least 6 different directions after school and in the evening. Recently, the boys had a Boy Scout troop meeting that went late, one daughter had a horseback riding lesson and the other was off at diving. We couldn’t all sit down together at the dinner table until 8:00pm. Early that morning (while sipping my Great Value coffee!), I loaded up our trusty crockpot with short ribs, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and a few fresh jalapenos. (The recipe for Slow Cooker Korean Short Ribs can be found in my new favorite family meal cookbook, “Dinner: The Playbook”.) At the end of our individually busy days, our family of 6 all sat down and reconnected together over a relaxed and delicious meal that required very little advance work and cleanup. Our crockpot made this possible for us. (Now if only we could get it to do a little laundry and make the beds….)

GV K-Cup of joe, “Dinner: The Playbook,” and Korean Short Ribs ready to go at 6:30am!

7 :: A Romp In The Highlands of Scotland

I went through a period of mourning for several weeks after my husband and I had our minds blown by the last episode of “Breaking Bad.” And I know it sounds ridiculous and melodramatic, but I have felt a void since it ended. We looked forward to watching an episode (or two…) after putting our kids to bed. It was dark and dirty and adult and a great contrast to our early evening kid-friendly activities of homework, family dinner, baths, story-reading and tucking in. We enjoyed mulling over, debating and philosophizing over what happened between Walt, Jesse, Hank and Skyler during our brief morning dog walk after our kids had left for school on their various yellow buses and before leaving for work ourselves. On a recent rainy weekend when I was feeling lazy and the kids were off somewhere or playing Minecraft Realms or whatever I decided to give “Outlander” a whirl on Starz On Demand. We have Grande Cable in our household, and Starz is part of one of our cable packages. “Outlander” is no “Breaking Bad.” I’m not going to tell you that it is. It does not fill that void. But I will tell you that it’s intensely satisfying. I have always been a sucker for time-travel stories, beginning with “A Wrinkle in Time” when I was a little girl and continuing with “The Time Traveler’s Wife” as an adult, and I felt like this show was Made For Me. The protagonist is a brave and brilliant English woman from the 1940s who is catapulted back to the 1740s in Scotland. There are some down and dirty adult scenes, a hot guy in a kilt, haunting Celtic music, and a historical overlay that makes it feel legit. And, bonus, my husband enjoys watching it with me, mostly because of the battle scenes and soft porn. (PS: The books are awesome, too.)

So there you have it. My Seven Survival Secrets. Shhhhhhhhhh. Don’t tell anyone. Okay?