Yellow Wallpaper

If creative writing is so much more fun than writing the news, why does my news column get written, all 300 words, faithfully every week while my blog suffers?

I do enjoy covering the community news, but it just isn't as gratifying as immersing myself in my creative non-fiction. My column consumes large portions of my limited attention span while my beloved blog languishes. A cynic might point out that my column pays while the blog is a hobby.

But I know better. It's the Deadline. The Dreaded Deadline. Would there be a single piece of fully completed work without one? Even life has a Deadline. Maybe it's that Deadline that inspires memoirs late in the lives of the Notables.

Deadline is the father of Good Enough. And without Good Enough, writers, really good writers who write for the sake of writing, spin toward a non-existent, insane artistic perfection like some listless, moody, immortal homeric god.

But Good Enough is hard to live with. Convenient, but lacking artistically. A good writer can optimize to Deadline so that Good Enough approaches the artistic vision, but I'm afraid that takes more genius than I'll ever have. I'm hoping that I can earn it the hard way, with years of experience a lot more discipline. I'm still a newbie.

I suspect that artists are just as susceptible to the deadline-less insanity as writers are. It makes me wonder if Picasso and Dali had enough Deadlines. Genius without a Deadline creates insanity. And yet, creativity requires a healthy dose of insanity.

There is no insanity in my weekly column. Although some might argue that I am surrounded by insanity, artistic insanity needs time to ferment and grow, sprouting in the darkened subconscious and gradually leafing and blooming in the conscious. One week just isn't enough time. Just the facts, Ma'am, are all you're going to get in a weekly column. Daily writers have even less time for their art which, without a slightly and continuously insane author, emerges dry and bland.

So it's been nearly ten weeks since my last blog post. And it looks like it was definitely enough time for insanity to set in. I told you I was researching new material.

You still here? Still reading this? You are? Stop it and go get an easel or a notebook. You've got a Deadline.

WWJD

Sunday should be my favorite day of the week-- it's the day set aside for rest and Divine Thoughts. If I were more saint and less sinner, maybe it would be. But at 6 in the morning as I'm trying to extract myself from bed, all I can think about is drugs. I know: "WWJD?"

Getting the family ready for and on time to Mass at 7:30 a.m. should make me feel holy. But I just feel grumpy. It's so early! My brain longs for caffiene.

Why do we go to the 7:30 Mass? Well, there's no singing at the 7:30 Mass. And with two toddlers in tow, that's a good thing. Short Mass, not optimal for holiness, but optimal for sanity. Also, at 7:30 some of the kids are still comatose which makes it seem like we have very well behaved children at Mass. This is good for appearances. Which is always a plus at church.

I go into the girls' room to see if they're progressing with their morning. Sophia is huddled under her covers in bed and sounds like an echo from my own head as she moans, "It's too early, I'm too tired!"

Drugs, I think, I really need my drugs. "Everyone's tired, Sophia, but we all have to get up!" Lauren, looking somewhat disoriented, is turning her dress around her body for the third time to determine which side is the front.

"Look, I'm going to go check on the boys and when I come back, Sophia, you'd better be out of bed."

The boys' room is only slightly better. Drew is at least dressed. Alex is thrashing about in his bed while alternating between, "No church! Mommy, I don't want to go to church," and, "If I'm good in church can I have a donut?" My head is spinning. I need my coffee, but it'll be about two more hours before I get my hands on some. Technically you can have water and medicine before Communion. "Does caffeine count as medicine?", I wonder.

I temporarily bribe Alex: "Alex, you're not going to get any donuts if you don't get dressed for church." Sensing hope, Alex immediately begins to cooperate, "I'm a good boy, Mommy, see?!".
Fifteen minutes later I'm back in the girls' room. Sophia is imitating Lauren's trick of turning her dress around her neck in an attempt to find the front while Lauren complains bitterly about her tights.

"Mom, I can't pull them up! This is IMPOSSIBLE!"

Sophia looks up from the buttons of her dress, which are now in the front and looks blankly at Lauren: "That's why they're called tights." I can't help laughing which Lauren mistakes as criticism and immediately bursts into tears.

"Caffeine is a drug, and some drugs are medicines," I think desperately while trying to remember that logic trick with Venn diagrams I learned back in college. Twenty minutes later the girls are calm, consoled, with tights on and hair combed.

7:28 we're backing down the driveway. Late again, Bullwinkle.

Here comes the part when I get to kneel piously at Mass and absorb all of that Saintly Stuff that will get me to heaven, right? Somehow I can't feel it between trips out to the vestibule to put Alex in the corner, and wrestling the Kleenex packs and flying Kleenexes from Stephen. When the collection basket comes around, Alex puts in the envelope while loudly singing Barney's clean-up song and I slide down further in my seat.

Where is that amazing grace when you need it?? Do they have a super-dooper-amazing-turbo grace?... because I think that might work better.

After Mass Lauren whispers to me: "Mom, I think God thinks you're doing a really good job. I think he loves you so much he would give you twins!" WWJD!?!? If He knows me as well as I think He does, He'll give me a baby twin espresso machine and a dispensation for caffeine before Communion.

Copyright © Elizabeth Hertz Puglise 2009. All rights reserved.

Mindful Jobs

After college and before I had a family I was an engineer. Although my degree is technically in Astronomy, I decided that a paying job in a technical field was preferable to years of poverty and graduate school to get a doctorate that would allow me to teach.

Yes, I sold my soul for cold hard cash.

Most engineers starting out at an engineering firm have an engineering degree. So once I was hired on they weren’t sure what to do with a certified Spacey Blonde (being female didn't help-- luckily I left my southern accent in Georgia). But a sympathetic boss got me into systems engineering courses and pretty soon I landed a position at the bottom of the engineering food chain: Briefing Engineering. I can make PowerPoint do anything.

Ten years later I was somewhere near the edges of engineering again-- doing Process Engineering. Now to most people, "process engineering" sounds like a engineer's professional death knell. But for someone who is working part time and raising a family, Process Engineering is the perfect job. A mother of five and a process engineer have a lot to learn from each other. And if you are one in the same, you can grow in each profession by leaps and bounds.

Process engineering is studying how humans do a task, figuring out the best way to do each step, and then capturing it in a form that can be repeated over and over. In essence, it is teaching humans to make tasks machine-like so that they can be optimized for efficiency and quality. Which is to say, to help humans to design repeatable tasks.

Did you say repeatable tasks? Every mother reading this just nodded knowingly. A mother's life comprises endless repeatable tasks. It can seem mind-numbing. But process engineering and improvement saves you from the mindlessness.

What does process improvement have to do with raising a family?

Say you get married and have a baby. That’s a family of three. In one day there are 24 hours to accomplish a set of tasks: Laundry. Unloading the dishwasher. Reloading the dishwasher. Laundry. Cooking breakfast. Making lunch. Grocery shopping. Picking up toys. Serving dinner. And, of course, Laundry. Now add another person to the family. Same tasks, more volume, but still 24 hours. Add another person. And another. Now there's a lot more to do, but there are no "schedule slips" allowed here. And even though we've all tried it, stressing out doesn't work. Process improvement does. You can get more done with the same amount of time, but you have to stop believing you're doing mindless jobs.

The tasks themselves are only mindless if you stop thinking-- think about how you can do it better or faster. That's what makes doing them interesting. And it is so rewarding when you figure something out that actually makes the task take less time or more fun. I'll never forget when I figured out how to do the laundry without sorting. Sorting is probably half the job. Which means I bought myself an extra couple of hours each week to do something else. Like figure out how to keep the basement clean. And write a blog.

It's taken me many years and having five kids to figure out some basic strategies for doing process improvement. Here are three of my favorites:

Be a creative manager. At some point you have to do some training and delegating with the kids. They can start younger than you think. And a little creativity goes a long way. Yes, it‘s that worn out corporate phrase: "Think outside the box," but try it. For instance: put your pans up in the upper cabinets and the dishes in the lower ones. Then the kids can unload the dishwasher. And reload it. And set the table.

Take a lesson from Tom Sawyer's fence-painting story: "Oh honey, I’d love to let you use the washing machine, but it’s just too hard a job for you. You‘re not quite big enough yet.... Really? Really? You think you can do it? Well, all right." Forget about the wrinkles. By the time the kids care if their clothes are wrinkled, they’ll be able to use the iron for themselves. But if you give a kid a job they perceive is important, then they feel important doing it. Being coy with allowing them to do the job makes them feel like they're getting something valuable. And they are.

Finally, acting is a great skill-- use it. Just because you think picking up the basement is drudgery doesn't mean you can't pretend it's the most fun ever. Just like a baby responds in fear to a mother's fearful face as he attempts to do something dangerous, children will take their cues from you. Play basketball with the toy bin. Count points. See who can count the highest number of things picked up. Or pretend you're the wicked witch who will inspect the results and throw them in the dungeon if she finds anything out (this is the easiest one to do when I'm feeling, well, "witchy").

Any mom who can figure out how to do more work within the same schedule and over the years grow and train a support staff to accomplish those repeatable tasks with a high level of efficiency and quality has all the skills she needs to be a highly successful professional (and by that I mean paid) Process Engineer.

I happen to know the non-profit Process Engineers (there's a new job title for you, Moms!) get better benefits and have higher job satisfaction. There's nothing like the affection from a well-trained, confident staff who thinks helping out is fun.

(PS If you want to learn from the master and one of my all-time heroes, read The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes.)

Copyright © Elizabeth Hertz Puglise 2009. All rights reserved.

Family Fun Running

Triathalons seem to be all the rage these days.

Maybe it's my age, maybe it the demographic, maybe it's just all the rage. But everyone knows someone who's doing a triathalon. The most famous is of course the Ironman, which includes a marathon as the last of three grueling legs. Seriously? A marathon? After you've already been swimming and biking?! I couldn't finish five miles, much less 26... and to run 26 miles following the swimming and bike riding? Forget it.

But I can change the messy diaper of a male child while talking on a cell phone and avoid getting "shot", and traipse across a busy parking lot with four-to-five small children and the husband's 200 pounds of clean shirts while weaving around the curbside-parked cars of those "busy executives". So I guess it's just a matter of how you train.

I wish I could do that swim-bike-run thing. I'd sure like my body in a bathing suit better if I did. The key for me is to make it a family affair-- you know, get the kids involved. I wish I could say the idea of family exercise is original with me (a family that jogs together, uh, what rhymes with "jogs"?), but I'll confess I come by this genetically.

When I was growing up my father used to wake the three of us older kids up at five in the morning before school to run two timed miles. No stopping, no walking, and you had to make it home in the allotted time (16 minutes or something). Well, you could break the rules, but if you got caught you had to run it twice.

I'll never forget when Dad first "pitched" the idea to us kids:

"You kids are just in terrible shape! You need more discipline! Starting tomorrow we're going running every morning." I don't think the dropped jaws and round eyes even registered with him.

"How are we going to do that? We have school tomorrow!"

"We're going to go before school."

"But... but that would mean we have to get up at like 6 am or something!"

"We'll need to get up at 5. Set your alarms!"

"But Dad! None of the other kids have to run before school!"

It was useless. That first morning it was freezing cold, worse since our warm beds were only a few minute's memory away. Bleary-eyed and still in shock we all started out, trying to run in time with Dad's nifty little Casio watch with beeping-pace-setter. After five minutes we were all sobbing and protesting. Dad ran stoically on, alternating between encouraging us that this was just the first day and berating us for being out of shape. It took us 25 minutes to run that course the first day. I thought I'd never get home.

But after three months we were all running the two miles in under 16 minutes, and somehow my dad was always there at the finish line ahead of us with his handy-dandy stop watch, having run it even faster than we had.

Yes, it was an insane upbringing (that's a story for another day), but now, looking back I can see my father's flawed approach. We only had to run. It was such a one-dimensional approach... so... unimaginative. It was probably very physically limiting not to have more cross-training.

My kids are not going to suffer like that. They're going to swim, and bike, AND run. Before school. No stopping, no slowing down, and they'd better make it home in the assigned amount of time-- or else!

Now if I can just get myself out of bed at 5 am, maybe I can go with them.

Copyright © Elizabeth Hertz Puglise 2009. All rights reserved.

Spring is a Salesman

If seasons had jobs, Spring would be a salesman.

From the robin puffing out his ruby chest for a mate, to the sporadic 70-degree afternoon, Spring is selling hope. And nowhere is hope for sale more effectively than at the seed display at Home Depot. I am that dupe that Salesman Spring loves. Ever the optimist, and like one of my five wide-eyed children in tow, I can not resist the brightly colored little packages of seeds and neon green bags of "Miracle" soil that promise to help even the blackest of black thumbs to grow something. In my case, anything.

We went to Home Depot for a very boring piece of toilet plumbing (this was to help Sophia from pausing before flushing any potty in our house or anywhere else to say "Mommy is THIS potty broken?"... but that's another story). After the usual Search For The Racecar Shopping Cart and inevitable Argument About Who Gets the Working Steering Wheel, we headed for the plumbing aisle. The only way to get five children to behave surrounded by nothing but shelves of white pipe is to play "Simon Says" with them. But since I needed to actually examine the potty parts, I used my sure-fire backup. A bribe.

"If you guys will just give Mommy fifteen minutes to figure this out I'll let you each pick out a packet of seeds."

Four heads swiveled to the seed display in the distance, then back to me with big smiles. I swear whatever they do to those seed package displays involves magic. Semi-silence ensued with only minor fidgeting, and fifteen minutes later I had my potty part. We headed to the prominent display of seeds.

If only the seed packets would show a picture of the actual seeds instead of What Might Be. Or, if there were a Surgeon General's warning across the picture that said: "Objects in package will probably be a LOT smaller than picture shown, if they grow at all," instead of depicting those perfect plants. Even the plastic pods of dirt disks look so promising: "Just add water!"-- if only. Just add water, and a whole lot of prayer and patience. People with five kids are not patient. The effort required to water seedlings at just the right moment each day without drowning them or drying them out is spent on diapering, wiping, cleaning, and cooking for five human seedlings.

But, oh those bewitching seed packet pictures. Bright, beautiful, bountiful flowers. Fat juicy vegetables. I'm already imagining serving fabulous hamburgers off the grill while the children pick fresh tomatoes to go with them...

The shrieking of two-year-old Alex brings me back from my reverie.

"Sophiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiia!!! That's MINE!"
"LET GO OF MY SEEDS!"
"--how about this sweet corn? Or does it have too much sugar like Froot Loops?"
"--these sunflowers grow 24 inches, but these grow FIVE feet, can we get them?"

I hold my head, hoping stuff, specifically brain cells, won‘t fall out. Seeds. Spring. Salesmen.

"Ok, everyone, STOP TALKING! Just put your seeds in the cart and let's get a bag of soil-- yes that one that says we need a miracle-- and some of those little plastic boxes. I'm not promising this is going to work--" (the standard black thumb disclaimer).

"Yeah, like last year," Lauren pipes up.
"--and before that," Drew adds.

I ignore them and my common sense for the time being, "AND, you all are responsible for watering them." Vigorous head nodding follows while the baby chews on the sunflower seed packet (those pictures really do look good enough to eat).

Well, maybe this is our year: the kids will follow the seed directions, my thumb will turn green, and we'll have fresh-cut flowers and vegetables in 8-to-12 weeks. If you buy that, I've got this great bridge...

Copyright © Elizabeth Hertz Puglise 2009. All rights reserved.

Introducing: Sophia

Sophia is my middle child. I suspect she will be the topic of this BLOG more than any other child. Middle children are like that. If you were a middle child, you probably understand exactly what I mean. Caught between the older children who seem to know everything and the younger children who seem to get their way with everything, it pays to stand out. Sophia is the child who has no fear and says exactly what is on her mind. Loudly.

Before my 95-year old grandmother passed away last fall, we used to drive into Arlington every week to have lunch with her. There was a very nice dining room at her retirement home, staffed with a wonderfully multi-cultured group of waiters. They all knew us and we felt like they were family. One day we were waiting in the lobby for my grandmother to arrive for lunch. While we were sitting at the entrance of the dining hall, a new manager at the retirement home walked by. He was a very distinguished looking African-American man.

In a very clear voice, Sophia said, "Wow! YOU look different!"

At moments like these in a mother's life, there is never a hole deep enough in which to crawl. I try to think of them as "OSGs" (Opportunity for Spiritual Growth-- in other words, I'm hoping it reduces my time in Purgatory). Ashamed and surprised that Sophia would comment on the man's appearance, I desperately stared off in to space in the opposite direction (ok, I turned so my nose was nearly touching the wall behind me) to pretend I hadn't heard a thing. Meanwhile, the nice manager across the room briefly glanced at Sophia and stalked away. I don't think he bought my ruse.

As soon as he left, and trying to keep from sounding angry, I whispered to Sophia, "Why would you say that? Why did you say that man looked different, sweetie?"

In a voice that I wished had been a little louder, Sophia said, "Mommy, didn't you see him? He didn't have any hair!"

Copyright © Elizabeth Hertz Puglise 2009. All rights reserved.