My New Normal

While the kids have been settling into their new school year, I have been settling into my new normal. My previous job, counseling for Recombine turned CooperGenomics, had been slowly phasing out in the spring and ended completely this summer when the company stopped offering their carrier screen panel. In January, my sister contacted me about a possible consulting position with her company for an Alzheimer's clinical drug trial. I started in March so the timing was perfect with my other job ending. The only catch is that I need to work East Coast hours. So I make myself available two afternoons and four evenings a week, after the kids are asleep until around 10:30pm. The spring months were tiring, working evenings and then still staying home full time with Maeve 3 days a week. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel though, and now it is here!

It has been an adjustment working in the evenings, giving up the time I would spend with Pete or friends or just decompressing on the sofa after the evening bedtime routine. But the tradeoffs now are so great. With many of my friends home full- or part-time, I am able to do my socializing by day. Lunches, a spa day, matinee movies, shopping, daytime pilates classes, chaperoning school trips, kayaking in the bos, vegging on the sofa by day instead of by night. Interspersed with running our home, taking over all of the grocery shopping and meal prep duties, travel planning and blogging. The days go by in a flash! I've given myself the first half of the school year to reap the benefits of this situation and then I will tackle some of the more pressing things on my to-do list: catch up on continuing education credits to maintain my certification, begin learning Dutch, look for some additional daytime work.

Knowing that I would have more free time on my hands this year, when a mom at ISA asked me to be a representative for the USA community at ISA, I decided to give it a go. I am one of the group's least involved members due to my work schedule, but the activities have still been keeping me busy. The year starts with a bang with the USA welcome coffee morning, the international coffee morning, USA Parent's Night Out, and the big event- Trunk or Treat, which happened on Friday night. I wanted to be more involved at the school and to give back to the events that I have enjoyed the past four years. I also thought that with the US looking like an a$$clown to the rest of the world these days,  I could help be the face of America and show that deep down, we are still good people. The ladies on the committee are awesome so it has been a lot of fun.

At the USA Welcome Coffee at Lauren's beautiful home. 

At the International Coffee Morning at school, representing the US of A. We were stationed between The British Isles and Germany, which was a dangerous place to be with all of their delicious treats! 

Trunk or Treat Night (Post to follow)