Me I am

 A new year

not a new me

but a me who has become more me than I was last year

I look in the mirror and feel 

I have worked my whole life to become who I am now

the confidence that comes from grey hair 

and no longer having eyes tracking every movement of my butt

the power that comes from wisdom 

and learning to rely on my own "Mommy Magic"

feeling the power of "Mommy Magic" fill my being

and burst out of every pore

Learning that management is the balance of working for what is best for each in your circle 

while maintaining the integrity of that circle

Understanding that the physical is only a partial representational of the spiritual

And that life is about loving those you are with

and choosing to be with those you love

that things can exist simultaneously in states of "this is all-important" and "this has no real importance, even if its due tomorrow" and choosing which one you will act on

and no matter how patient you are trying to be, a toddler in your care 24/7 does occasionally need to be yelled at.

Wouldn't it be wonder-full?

 I hate the Soccer mom vibe, the idea that I need to be everything and do everything for my kids, manage all their play dates and get them to sports practice in time.

I hate spending all week in and out of cars, never exchanging more than pleasantries with people.

We do this to enrich our kids, when all they want is to pursue their spark with no time constraints. Drawing for hours, dreaming weird theories while stretched in a hammock, or just chasing after butterflies and fireflies with a puppy on their heel.

Or even sending them to bed when there are falling stars or northern lights to watch.

Bugs to watch, hands to stick into things. Why do we insist that the world is full of human things? Why do we get hung up on schedules and grades? We should let every little excitement sweep away into wonder.

Email saved for postarity

 Hi Joel,

You want me to edit this, rather than drop it in a fire?

It breaks every conceivable rule I have ever learned about technical
writing and looking at it makes me nauseous. The 1,000 superficial
changes of note on each page, don't come close to the deep-seated
problems with that document. Now usually, I consider myself a
descriptive person when it comes to language and uses, but the use of
language and lack of structure in this doc makes my skin crawl in ways
no southern drawl on the vowels of Es and Is ever could. This
document’s passive, yet controlling voice, rekindles my hatred for the
patriarchy and the society wrapped around the fragile male ego. The
lack of graphical determination reminds me of those so lacking in
imagination and knowledge that one must consider the writer's lacked
theory of mind. I shudder to think what a Greek God of Language would
do to those perpetuating such filth, and that's saying a lot because
the Ancient Greek didn't even have spaces between their words.

If I accept this project, I will edit it like God did to Sodom &
Gomorra and utterly wipe it off the face of the earth, but instead of
leaving pillars of salt, I will leave you with an easily printable
version of this: Hugh the Ducky’s Quick Quack Start Guide

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10f6lU-PBFuDpG8Jp7qiG6GxwtZr3B6xXDlEDIAtrMrs/edit?usp=sharing

I can have a mostly finished document to you in 2 weeks.

Cheers!
Raya



On 2022-05-17 10:26, joleary@hugllc.com wrote:

Hi Raya. Later last week I dropped the Quick Start Guide on your desk.
If I recall correctly, we briefly discussed this document last week. I
marked it up fairly significantly, and Mike also added some edits.
(His edits are in red ink.) Anyway, I believe you are the person to
make edits to the master copy. (With your educational background,
please make whatever changes you feel are necessary/beneficial too.)
Also, please remember the audience is anyone who has purchased a HH1
system, thus fairly broad. Lastly, let me know when you think you will
be able to tackle this project. If you have questions, you know where
to find me.

Thanks so very much for your help with this task.

~ Joel

The next big thing

 Part of me wants to be just a poet and a gardener, weaving words and guiding grapes up trellises. My grapes escaped their trellis and grew high into the branches of the pine trees above my garden, and I realize I must climb to harvest my grapes.

 Yet the only reason I have had time to dabble in such pastoral pursuits, as gardening, is because of the generosity of those of whose knees I sat at as I learned business as a child. Bedtime stories became quests of learning everything my father ate on a business trip. Movies became times to clip leads or fold brochures. Family holidays always became business planning sessions.

At 17, I opened my first business, the only dance studio in the town we had moved to for my parents business to grow. I had 3 students and we put on a full length ballet, with a little recruiting from students at the dance studio where I trained, before I moved to college.

As my parents business made its first million, I eyed the MBA program at my college. Then I got married and started having children, but the maternity clothes were not cutting it. So by my third child I opened a new business, using the infant technologies available to online retailers in the early 2000s. 

After struggling to open clothing production facilities in the USA,  mostly due to my failure to create a functioning team, and being overwhelmed with my own children’s needs at the time. We chose to downsize just to me again, but still hit all of our growth estimates until I had my 5th baby. Then I knew I could either grow my business or my children.

Now we have another business, one that I must climb to harvest. That climbing includes learning how to market the technology that revolutionized in-floor heating, learning how to manage and focus our talented team, and learning how to set up manufacturing and fulfillment. 

Our current marketing and sales team is staffed by engineers, attempting to market to the Heating and Plumbing professionals, which is the lowest value proposition market we have access to. One year ago, I took over the online marketing bringing us to the do-it-yourselfers and small contactor market. Our online sales have triple the closure rate with 10% higher margins than our average sales. 

I want to know enough to bring HUG Hydronics to the world, starting with North America and then Europe.  I need to learn how to manage people, build networks, finance a growing business, add to my abilities to analyze data and see trends, and build sustainable and robust supply chains in our ever-changing economic and physical environments. 

I see the MBA giving me the tools to climb and harvest safely. I see St. Catherine’s MBA as being particularly valuable in helping me navigate a traditionally male centered business and learning how to establish a workplace that values all voices, experiences, and backgrounds.

Hiring the Gaps

  

Those of us who are the most capable in the workplace are often the most capable caregivers, when demands collide we have to place priorities on those we love the most. The problem is caregiving can leave gaps of years in our resume and make us feel out of touch with the business world. New York Time’s Clair Cane Miller pointed out on February 4, 2021 that we should not penalize people for care giving. In her article, Working Moms Are Struggling. Here’s What Would Help. What government, employers and the rest of us can do, she says “hiring managers should not discard résumés with pandemic-era gaps, and consider rehiring the employees who left for caregiving reasons.” This empathy for caregivers during the pandemic should be extended to all who are caregivers, in whatever circumstances they have been in.

Whether it is motherhood or elderly care, caregiving builds many soft skills that are important to becoming good leaders and effective employees. In 2019, Berline Cameron did a study on Motherhood and Leadership, aptly titled Reframing Motherhood . They found “that 75% of mothers believe that parenting has made them better leaders.” Jennifer DaSilva, the president of Berline Cameron commented on this study by explaining   

The skills that you develop as a parent — empathy, multitasking, flexibility, understanding, time management, communication skills, staying calm under pressure, and many more — are all skills needed for being successful in the workplace. It’s no wonder, then, that even non-parents who worked with managers who were parents found them to be better in all of these areas.

Due to the soft skills learned in caretaking, our company has a policy of hiring farmers and teachers because they have learned through the constant caretaking of children, animals and/or crops the skills of hard work, adaptability, and leading others. It is fun to watch Molissa, a cow farmer, who works in sales and fulfillment, handle communications snafus with  particularly dense salesmen we have. She takes no guff as she pulls that stubborn bull into line.

Yet about one third of the workforce have left to give care at home. “Overall,” writes Joyce Famakinwa at Home Health Care News in August of 2019, (pre-pandemic) said “researchers found that 73% of the employees surveyed had some form of current caregiving responsibility. About 32% of employees reported voluntarily leaving a job due to caregiving responsibilities.” Shelley Zalis, in her 2019  article for Forbes, The Power Of Caregiving In The Workplace No One Talks About, says “The best leaders today are caregivers, and yet we’re losing our best leaders to caregiving.” So how do we help our leaders to stay?

In the tight labor market this question seems to be on every HR person’s mind. Forbes had a panel discussion on this very topic. An article dated July 26, 2021, named Nine Ways For Organizations To Better Support Working Parents first mentions the big ways “major steps like setting up a breastfeeding area and offering daycare during working hours” which are often out of reach for small employers, but then gives several “little ways” to support working caregivers. This list includes: flexibility, autonomy, letting employees account for their own time, extended maternity leave, giving parents time off for children’s activities, allowing them to bring kids to work, and ultimately a focus on results. It is interesting to note that every one of these is practiced by my company, not just for parents, but for all employees. When I started back to work, I did have a baby in tow. I was allowed office space where she could hang with me all day without disturbing or being disturbed by the noises in the shop. The breaks from what I was focusing on to nurse or play with her served as a cognitive reset, allowing me space to think about what I was doing and accomplish the tasks clearer and easier when I returned to them. 

Whenever another interesting job would cross my feed it was easy to stay loyal because of the incredible flexibility and autonomy my employers allow. Sharon Rusinowitz at Chart Hop in September of 2022 offers 4 Ways to Support Working Parents beyond parental leave policies.  She explains it is all about the work-life balance and points out that “According to a study by Catalyst and CNBC, 64% of working parents are considering changing careers for a better work-life balance to meet their new priorities and schedules.”  Rusinowitz discusses the same ideas of flexibility, autonomy, and the focus on results rather than seat time that were brought up in the Forbe’s Panel, and says businesses should be 

Creating a culture of flexibility. Cultivate a culture of trust, where parents can leave if needed, with no shame attached. In a results-oriented company, leaders trust employees to meet deadlines, whether that happens at 10am or 10pm.

These policies can be applied equally to caregivers and non-caregivers with minimal costs and high increase in worker satisfaction. 

Another awesome idea to hold on to and attract caregivers is suggested by Zalis. “Rewrite job descriptions to include caregiving qualities. . . such as being nurturing, collaborative, empathetic.” Zalis explains why this will help women to apply; “research finds that men apply for a job when they meet just 60% of the qualifications, but women don’t apply unless they meet 100% of them.” She then says “Imagine how many women would feel more qualified if we rewrote job descriptions to include caregiving qualities.” When job descriptions are written to include skills we have honed in caregiving, we are way more likely to include the caregiving on our resume and fill in the gaps, but even if the gaps are left in the resume, it could be a sign of something good.  

 

 

Works Cited

 

Brower, Tracy. “Working Parents Need Better Support: 3 Ways to Build the Best Support Systems.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 11 July 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2022/07/10/working-parents-need-better-support-3-ways-to-build-the-best-support-systems/?sh=3acea35f75ea

 

Famakinwa, Joyce. “32% Of Employees Quit Jobs to Provide Informal Care at Home.” Home Health Care News, 7 Aug. 2019, https://homehealthcarenews.com/2019/08/32-of-employees-quit-jobs-to-provide-informal-care-at-home/#:~:text=About%2032%25%20of%20employees%20reported,job%20due%20to%20caregiving%20responsibilities

 

Miller, Claire Cain. “Working Moms Are Struggling. Here's What Would Help.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/parenting/government-employer-support-moms.html

 

Rusinowitz, Sharon. “4 Ways to Support Working Parents (beyond Parental Leave).” ChartHop, 23 Sept. 2022, https://www.charthop.com/resources/blog/employee-experience/how-to-support-parents-at-work/

 

Zalis, Shelley. “The Power of Caregiving in the Workplace No One Talks About.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 May 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2019/05/14/the-power-of-caregiving-in-the-workplace-no-one-talks-about/?sh=67cdbd1047c8

Daughter of Zion-Two Thousand Twenties

 Will I sit back and laugh when the world burns?

tired of sadly shaking my head

   hide my face from the heat

    singe the hairs of my hands?

or turning and walking away?

run

tired of the heat

   petty games of blame

   finger pointing

am I carrying the buckets all alone?

 one spot of green left

wet my plants

  wet my pants

Sitting on the curb, 

ash falls around

I long for the cold shower

the fuller's soap

To stand clean from the filth of this time

filth of the times that have brought us to this

too many have sold themselves

turned  natural beauty into plastic

earth and soul

to be redeemed 

 a power

 I, alone, do not possess

Soul

stardust that formed the earth

elements recycled many times

into me they formed

flesh, bacteria, a colony of one

yet in and through everything in ages past

part of everything now

I breathe plant exhaust

they breathe mine

elemental as I am, 

flesh

     and bone 

              and blood

My spirit soars

for it of the skies

boundless and eternal

 So as a Mom of 9, I do laundry 6 days a week. 

As l sort through each piece of clothes as l throw them from the dryer to the children's baskets anything ripped or too stained gets tossed n the rag pile. That is until my mother started buying my kids the newest denim styles. You know the new jeans that come prestained and pre-ripped? And l want to as my mom "You paid $90 for the things l am tossing out n my rag bag?"

Yeah, now l have to remember which ones were ripped on purpose and which ones were ripped by actual wear. 

Then l got smart and started passing down their worn-out jeans by bringing them home in a shopping bag and telling the kids that l just got them new clothes.

My laundry room is right off my living room And there is some magic curtain around that laundry room that every time l step into it l disappear. For most of 20 years, l have spent hours a day doing laundry you'd think the ds would realize that is probably where I hang out. I must enjoy sorting socks. But no, they always ask when walking into the living room "Where's mom" and I'm like "Dude I'm right here" but they can never see me.

It goes with my theory that moms become completely invisible when doing chores. No one ever seems to see a mom clean anything. You be like "didn't you all just see me spending all day cleaning that kitchen?" and they all shake their heads no that way they can deny your next statement. "if l can spend all day cleaning that kitchen then you can at least wash your dish."

Its Intense

 My brother got divorced a few years ago, his wife and children moved a few towns away and he sees them several times a month, meanwhile, he has taken to traveling on the weekend with friends and hiking mountains in places like Alaska or doing a little trip in the boundary waters, meanwhile my husband and I have  9 kids, ranging from here (knee high) to here (as high as my hands can stretch) and the only way we can afford vacation is by loading up our big van and camping.

So I told him yesterday, that we were into extreme sports, and he got all interested. Yeah, I said. We go camping with 9 kids, it's in tents. 

Like when you take 9 kids away from their technology for a week and stick them in the wilderness (often there no cell service) there are going to be some meltdowns. But luckily they each take turns. One time when my oldest was freaking out, he refused to go on a hike and we when got back, written in sticks on the picnic table were the words "Take me home, now!" a few hours later and he was fine, and then the next kid in line freaked out... Yup that trip was long enough everyone had a chance to freak out twice.

For me it was when we were taking our big van into San Francisco, I found a little hotel , online, across the street from the zoo. They advertised free parking. There wasn't no way that van was going to fit in there. My sons had to duck for the clearance.  Their shoulders filled the hallways of the hotel. the beds were 5 feet long. I felt like I was taking the whole street, as I skittered out of there. My husband was amazed at how many stop signs I missed as moved as fast I could, stopping every freaking block. No wonder its is one of the cities destroyed first in every disaster film, you don't even have to build the set in miniature.

Finally, after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, we made it north of San Fransico and I kept going for an hour and a half before I felt I could breathe again. I didn't feel so bad against the Redwoods, yeah, even my sons started looking up. My van looked puny against them. But we didn't take it through the drive-through tree.

So my hair turned grey, about the time I had my last baby. I felt kind of shaken the first time someone asked "are you her grandma?" So now I just kinda roll with it. I take Thursday mornings off to bring my kids to the library programs. Several other grandmas are there with their kids, and afterward, we all spoil the kids by bringing them to the bakery and calling a donut and rootbeer "lunch." And then before their blood sugar spikes, I drop them off with their Dad and go to work for the afternoon.

Reminds me of when my Dad took my nephew to a movie and let him get the unlimited refill pop and candy, thinking he would drop the kid off with the parents after the show. He got a phone call after the show that my sister, who has an autoimmune disease ended up in the hospital and he had to keep the kid all day. He learned his lesson and now he's allowed to take my kids on Saturdays.

My mother still feeds them junk food though, she buys these Costco side bags of chips, and always sends the rest of it home with my kids. I'll be like I had a day off I actually had time to cook a full healthy meal. My kids come home with a half-eaten bag of chips and nobody wants my tofu meatloaf and mashed cauliflowers anymore. with a side a kale. 

Sometimes it seems like the healthier I try to eat the less healthy the family actually eats. Yeah, serving vegan foods several times a week seems to be fatsest way to get them to learn to cook. Pretty soon I have kids making 6 boxes of mac and cheese, within an hour of a full meal. Another one does tacos at least once per week. One of my kids even apprenticed with a real chef his senior year in HIgh School and now he never eats at home, perhaps that's because he moved 2 hours away, or maybe its the tofu meatloaf. 

A god in Your own Mind

A god in your own mind

idol worship supreme

How sad it must be

to imagine you understand all

 How many mothers must die?

How many women tied to poverty?

Your limiting laws show only your limited life

limited experiences

and your arrogance

cut down your groves

stop passing our youth through the fire

clean your temple

renew your covenants

but oh no, you'd rent your clothes

and they're so shiny

your knees - stiff -

and you need to visit your chiropractor

Change

 Change

never a thing harder to accept

or do

If we want to change 

it challenges us, old habits hold us down, strangles our desire to rise

suffocates us from the inside

Of we don't want, life drags us kicking and screaming, until something breaks

our sanity or our hearts

Zero Tolerance Policies

 Zero Tolerance Policies are a failure of compassion and understanding, or are selectively ignored (And thus not actually a zero-tolerance policy)

Because of these two; the failure of compassion and understanding or selective ignorance, the policy fails, and breeds either hate and disrespect or a disrespect towards policy.

I'm trying

 We carry with us the garbage  of the history of our cultures

intellectually, spiritually,

 we know better

but it is hard to shake the 40 years of residue from swimming it and breathing it

must scrub it off

reframe our thinking

over and over

each time we see more of ourself

shining through

It took 300 years for Enoch to build Zion

300 years of scrubbing, reframing, reteaching, retraining

incremental improvements, on a grand scale

a whole city

imagine how it changed 

as people got a little better each day

walkable streets? 

no litter

flowers and fruits and gardens

neighbors helping each other

imagine these small little changes

GO and do likewise

Covid-19 a Review

 0 Stars, Would Not Recommend

So, after my children got their shots, I sent them back to school for the first time in 10 years. It turns out I was sent back to school in the middle of the biggest wave of covid we'd ever seen. So only after a few weeks for some of the kids and 1 day for the last kid to go back- they are homesick, and so are the rest of us.

Covid feels like a bad cold. Sore throat, sinus headaches, pressure headaches, slightly hard to hear, very hard to think. (Brain fog? No perhaps more like brain pea soup).  Some fevers, some coughing, lots of nose-blowing, some sneezing. And it lasts a while. Most colds last just a few days for us healthy people. It's not enough to lay you out on your back, but it's enough to make you wish it was.

Our 5-year-old was the first to come down with it. He complained of a sore throat, but keep eating (so we didn't believe him), then he came with a fever. A few nights ago he was working harder to breathe, but today he is playing like he's normal. That means he was sick 7 days. 

Our 8-year-old is still feeling well. When the 5 years came down with it, she took a nap and declared herself well and hasn't succumbed yet. We ask every morning before sending her off to school. She hasn't yet admitted to any symptoms and so avoids the testing (and subsequent quarantine).

*hehe the school nurse just called? Guess who was crying during class because she wasn't feeling well. She tested very faintly for covid. We almost thought she might get away without catching it.

Our 10-year-old sniffed a little on day 6, he was ready to go to school, but I tested him and he was positive. So far he blowing his nose a lot and feeling bored. He made 1 day of school before being quarantined. 

Our 13-year-old was supposed to give a talk at church on Sunday (day 4) but woke up without a voice. Yesterday she barely crawled out of bed. Today she is doing better. She made it a whole week in school before she got quarentined. 

Next up is our 16 year old. He hasn't tested because he has no logical reason too, but has been feeling out of since day 5. 

Our 19 year old served at church on Sunday (he was the only one to make it). But by Monday he called in sick to school. He says he has no need to test because he knows its covid. He hasn't complained much, but has slept a lot.

Our 21 year old is away at college and will not be coming home for my birthday as he wants to avoid this plague.

Our 23 year old was snuggled in a blanket Monday and couldn't do his schoolwork. Yesterday he could force himself to focus on it. Which is good, there is a test this week.

Me: Well, I tested Saturday with a fat positive with the baby. my head is where most of the action is at, although I have felt some in my upper chest. My GI tract hasn't been thrilled either. I want to sleep, but kids and work don't seem to care.

My Hubby: Stayed home Sunday. He has had headaches and some bodyaches. 

So there you go- Covid for us so far (in case some future historian/medical researcher cares)