Those who know me well, say that I always seem to be on the run. But I know I’m not the only one. Moms everywhere seem to be scrambling for time and we usually manage to juggle (sometimes, rather successfully) one too many balls in the air.

A glimpse of what we juggle every given day: Carpools, supermarket shopping, school activities, meals for the household, school supplies, our kids social lives, after-school activities, managing the home, setting time aside for our spouses… the list could go and on. And this is EXCLUDING any professional obligations you may have.

The important issue that we tend to forget about is not only the juggling, but the balancing. It’s very easy to let one aspect of your life take over the others. And with women, that usually means forgetting to take care of ourselves.

Don’t you forget about me…

Remember that Simple Minds song? OK, now that you know how old I am, I just want to share some simple tips to not lose yourself while juggling everything else during the adventures of motherhood.

• Don’t feel guilty about doing something for yourself. Nobody else will do it for you.  And look at it this way: it will allow you to release tension. A more relaxed mom, is a happier mom. A happier mom, is a better mom.
• Take care of yourself. Yes, that means taking your vitamins, getting enough rest, eating well.
• Treat your “me” time as an appointment. Sounds too planned? Well, the truth is, IT WORKS.
• Organization is key. Arrange with your spouse or partner or a trusted friend to watch over the little ones for a specific amount of time each week to give you a breather.
• Choose something you’d like to do, not something you need to do: a manicure, coffee with friends, reading a book, even shopping.

When work overwhelms you

Regardless of where you work at, the juggling act seems to throw in more and more balls in the air and if you really pause to think, it can overwhelm you. In these cases, learn to prioritize what’s urgent from what’s not. If everything’s urgent, then something’s really wrong, because something has to be most important in your to do list.

In this era of hyperconnectivity, it can be hard to set limits and boundaries. But just like you need them when raising your kids, you need them to keep your sanity while working and trying to balance your life a bit better. And believe it or not, you are the person that needs to respect those boundaries the most.

For some, it means no smart phones even near the kitchen or dinner table. For others, not taking calls or answering emails in the evening. And I’m assuming you already know that texting and driving don’t mix well. You need to find what works for you. Then, stick to your resolutions.

When family responsibilities drain you

Sometimes it’s the chores and everyday routines that sap out your energy, Again, a little organization and planning goes a long way.

• Decide what really has to be done and don’t get sucked into the non essential stuff.
• Make a schedule for your kids. For younger ones, take pictures of the daily tasks they must do (for example: eat breakfast, brush their teeth, take a bath, got to bed) and decorate together a poster they can look at. For older kids, make a schedule on the computer and print it out for them.
• Buy gifts for birthday parties in advance. If you are always pressed for time, use gift bags and tissue paper instead of wrapping every gift individually. You can even buy in bulk online and save.
• Do a master shopping list on your computer, print several and have them in the kitchen. Check off items as soon as you are running low and that way you’ll avoid multiple trips to the supermarket during the same week.
• Learn to say no. Sometimes that means scheduling less after-school activities, organizing less play dates or not hosting all the family dinners.
• Ask for help. Wonder Woman only exists in a comic book.

Personally, I dream about having my groceries delivered, but have to accept the reality that none of the supermarkets close to my home offer that service. So, I shop once a week and go at odd times when not so many people do their grocery shopping. Sometimes that means right after dropping the kids off for school, other times it’s late in the evening while my husband takes over parenting duties.

You’re in this for the long haul

The juggling act of motherhood is not a one hit wonder. You’re in this adventure for the long haul, and will have better days and not so great days.  Sometimes one of the balls will fall to the floor, or you might get hit on the head by a curve ball. It’s not the end of the world, and those around you will follow your lead on how to react.

So next time something doesn’t work out the way you had planned, try laughing or smiling instead of getting angry or even wanting to cry. A sense of humor works wonders and aside from making you feel a bit better, comic relief is underrated when dealing with your children. So then, aside from juggler extraordinaire, you will tune into the comedian inside of you. After all, there are moments in life that are so utterly absurd, all you can do is laugh if you want to find the strength to keep on going!

Harvest Festivals, Halloween Parades, Pumpkin Patch Field Trips, Thanksgiving Feasts, Christmas Plays, Fall Break and Winter Break…if you’ve got school-aged children in school then the holiday season can be a time of both joy and stress!  Managing your child’s hectic schedule during the fall and winter months can be a huge challenge for working parents. Depending on your work situation, there are multiple strategies that you can take that will allow you to keep your job while sharing your little one’s precious moments:

The “Tag Team” Approach

If you live in a two-parent household, you and your partner can figure out a way to share the special-event appearances.  Perhaps you can alternate dates, or maybe one of you has flexibility during the day and becomes the “Field-Trip Parent” while the other commits to evening activities.  Spreading the love this way will ease the pressure of one parent or the other repeatedly needing to take time off of work.  The obvious bonus to this approach, of course, is that your children will get the benefit of both parents (or even Grandma) actively participating in their events.

The “Quality Not Quantity” Approach

You can’t possibly make every single event without losing brownie points at work or running yourself ragged. So, you can decide to choose a handful of events that you can commit to and make it to those. This works well in helping you maintain your sanity, keeping your boss (mostly) happy, but can also bring on the Mommy Guilt in heavy doses. Though your physical presence may be less, you can make sure that it counts by going the extra mile to volunteer during the events you attend, whether it be working the register at Turkey Bingo Night (been there) or taking the photos for the Costume Parade.

The “Make It Work” Approach

If you feel comfortable talking to your boss about alternative work arrangements, this method could provide a perfect solution to a difficult problem. On days when you’re on pie duty for the Holiday Party, plan to work from home; that way you can prepare your dish at home before heading out to the event (instead of the mad dash to the grocery store before zooming into the school parking lot). Also, chances are the commute to your child’s school will be easier if they attend school close to where you live, allowing you to miss less of the workday. You could also try a compressed work week and work extra hours Monday through Thursday so that you can take Friday off to help set-up for the Kwanzaa Play.

No matter what approach you choose (and it might be a combination!), the key is to be flexible, do what works best for you and your family, and most of all, experience as many of these special moments as you can.

How do you balance your children’s many school activities during the holiday season?

Ever have one of those days when you just want to push the “delete all” button – in your inbox and life in general? I’m having one of those…weeks. I not only want to clear my inbox and start all over, but I wish I could do the same with my house and other aspects of my daily life.

I know many of you strive to manage it all and have some type of work-life balance, much like me. So, in an effort to help each other out, I’m going to lay it all out and share my current struggles. Perhaps in doing so, I can get rid of the mental clutter and move on to actually setting a plan of action to get things done. Or, at the very least, it will provide an outlet for venting.

Current challenges I’m struggling with:

• 160 unread emails: plus a bunch more marked unread and starred for action
• Messy house: every room in our house needs help
• An ever-growing to-do list: I have several projects I’m working on outside of managing this blog and my pregnancy blog. Each project has a to-do list that seems to add 2 items for every 1 I cross off.
• Cooking: Last night was the first time in a while – maybe a month – that we had an actual real meal. I’ve been traveling quite a bit, and dinner menu planning fell off the radar.
• Physical issues: Of course, due to the pregnancy, my energy and stamina are not what they should be. I’ve been able to keep up quite well, considering, as was pointed out by several friends who’ve seen me at recent events, but it’s still not what it could be.

So, what do I plan to do about it? I’m not exactly sure yet. I hope to stabilize one or two projects, so they can be more manageable. I may just hit delete on quite a few emails in order to get my inbox to a workable status. (Maybe. I’ll admit, it’s a little scary to think about doing that.) And, perhaps I can take advantage of upcoming weekends that are relatively free of commitments to dedicate time to the house and put a dinner menu back in effect.

Do you have current challenges you’re facing? Want to share with the rest of us in an effort to help each other with ideas for getting back on track?

Guest post: Sandy Salle is a native of Zimbabwe and was born and raised in Southern Africa. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Hills of Africa travel and is passionate about using her first-hand knowledge of Africa to create the trip of a lifetime for her clients. Currently based state-side in North Carolina, she resides with her husband and two small children. Sandy travels home to Africa several times a year and believes that the next best thing to living in Africa is sharing it with others.

Like most work-at-home mothers, I wage a daily battle against the clock to get the kids dressed, emails sent, homework completed, proposals drafted, calls returned, and dinner cooked all within an impossible twenty-four hours.

Struggling to do it all, I began multitasking, but I found that, when I did everything at once, nothing was done well. This, in turn, led to guilt: I got to the soccer game late, I didn’t have time to distribute the invoices, and I was on conference calls the entire time my daughter and I were making cookies for her class. Wasn’t the whole reason I left the office to work at home so that I could spend more time with my kids? Yet, here we were together, and I was so distracted with everything that still had to be done, that I wasn’t present.

As the CEO of Hills of Africa travel, a premier provider of personalized, luxury safari vacations, I have big responsibilities at work. Clients depend on me to plan once-in-a-lifetime safari trips for them, and it’s hard to do that when I am scrambling to clean up the house during the few quiet hours my kids are at school. On the other hand, I don’t want to sacrifice time with my kids. They are only young once, and this time with them is precious. I want them to be experiencing their childhood with me instead of a nanny.

Exhausted, guilt ridden, and overwhelmed, I had to make a change. Here’s what I did . . .

Stopped Multitasking

My first step was to create a structured work schedule around the time my kids are at school, 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. During this time, 100% of my energies are focused on Hills of Africa—no more scheduling play dates or baking during conference calls. No matter where I am in my work at 3:30, I close up shop and refocus all my attention on my kids.

Eliminated Distractions

The old me would sit in front of the computer first thing in the morning and look through a few emails before jumping up to brew a pot of coffee or download a few songs to listen to while I worked. Each of these small tasks took time and broke my concentration. Now, before I even sit down at my desk, I have cup of coffee in hand, my favorite classical play-list on, and my personal phone line set to go straight to voice-mail, so that I can sit down for several hours of uninterrupted work. It’s amazing how much more I began to accomplish when I wasn’t jumping up to switch the laundry every couple of hours!

Became Present

Just being physically there with my kids was not enough. I had to be mentally and emotionally present for our time together to be meaningful. Now, when I’m with my family, I’m not just there, I’m present, listening, and interacting. I mentally free myself from distracting work obligations when I’m with the kids. At the end of the day, my kids crave my attention more than my home-cooked meal, and there’s no shame in occasionally ordering a pizza if it means that we get to eat and engage in conversation together as a family.

Let It Go

If that client call has yet to be made and those pots and pans still need to be washed when the kids arrive home, I forget about it. It can get done the next day. I’ve learned that supermom is an impossible notion, and I can’t do everything by myself. I now have my groceries delivered by Peapod and outside assistance with housekeeping. Anything that allows me to focus my work time completely on my job and my family time completely on my kids is a worthwhile expense.

What a hectic week so far. Work is super busy. Of course, the home life is always hectic.

I find that more often than not, I have an inner battle going on. Part of me knows that I can’t possibly keep up with everything – home, work, husband, daughter, myself, parents, etc.

Yet, the other half, for whatever unknown ridiculous reason, has it in her head that she should be able to keep up with everything. Not just should, but MUST.

It’s insane.

I realized the other day that this is probably due to years of brainwashing from my mother. And, when I say brainwashing, I mean that in the nicest way possible. Obviously, she did not set out to corrupt my mind. But, through example, it happened.

You see, my mother was a stay at home mom – way before that was even a term; in fact, I believe the term at the time was “housewife.”

Since she stayed home with us until I was about 12 or so, I watched her keep the house in an impeccable state of cleanliness. She had no clutter, no baskets of laundry just waiting to be folded, no dust, and always had dinner on the table when my father came home from work.

Even when she did start working, she still managed to come home from work, and get right to the kitchen. Maybe it had something to do with our Puerto Rican culture. But, whatever it was, it still amazes me how she did it.

I struggle on a daily basis to be able to just put a quick dinner together. To spend some time with my baby girl after a long day at work. Don’t even mention trying to squeeze in some time for the husband.

I think (well actually, it was brought to my attention by the husband recently) that because I grew up seeing her manage so well, I now have these extremely high (and false) expectations of myself. The fact that she often talked with me about having to be a “good wife,” probably added on to it as well. Let me give you an example of something I grew up hearing. Verbatim, my mom used to say, “You have to learn how to cook and clean, because when you get older and get married, you’ll need to take care of your house, husband, and children.”

Though I’m extremely grateful that my mother taught me how to cook and properly clean, hearing this growing up and seeing her manage the “super mom” role well, has resulted in me trying to achieve the same. It’s actually quite frustrating.

How do you manage to keep up? Do you find you have false expectations for yourself?

As a full-time working mom, it’s very hard for me to keep up with the household duties. I’ve posted before about the expectations – false no doubt – that I’ve set for myself.

Elizabeth over at Career & Kids touched on the subject recently, when a friend of hers realized there’s not enough time in the week. As she mentions, when you’re working all week, you want to use the weekend to spend time with the family. That is when I’d like to take a trip to the zoo, the park, or sometimes it’s just a matter of the “must” trips – like grocery shopping that needs to be done.

What can working moms do to manage the housework?

I’m not sure I have the answer just yet, but I AM trying something new.

I’ve set up a weekly chore schedule and broken down the housework to a little each day – there’s even a day off!

Here’s my schedule:

• Sunday: clean bathrooms
• Monday: wash laundry
• Tuesday: fold laundry
• Wednesday: sweep & mop
• Thursday: vacuum
• Friday: OFF day
• Saturday: change bed sheets

Plus, every day is de-clutter day, since this can be done simultaneously with the other chores. That means, putting away toys, clearing the day’s mail, and other small tasks. The chores scheduled on the weekend can be done quickly in the morning before heading out for the day.

To keep track of my schedule, I’ve printed out Hannah Keeley’s Total Mom Chore Chart, but any calendar will do.

I’m hoping this will help keep me on track and make things a bit more manageable. I’ve just made my list this week, so I’m only starting to put it into practice.

How do you manage your housework?

Photo by Jane Ring

Photo by Beth Sobel from Flickr

Today has been a very balanced day for me. I was able to work out this morning, did some client work, responded to a few emails, worked on this blog, and even put a load of laundry to wash. For me, that’s a great balance of taking care of myself, working, managing social media, and house work. It’s not much either – you notice I didn’t say I cleaned the entire house. Nor did I answer all emails. But, it was a good bit of each and I feel good with what I’ve accomplished today.

Of course, this is not an everyday occurrence. But, as I get more and more used to working from home, I find that I’m finding little things I can do to feel more balanced. Even if that means redefining what “balanced” means.

But, don’t take my word for it. Check out what others have to say about work-life balance and read their recommendations.

5 Resources with Tips for Finding or Improving your Work-Life Balance

5 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance from WebMD
Something that stuck out when reading this article was when the author said, “You would probably think twice before skipping out on work, a parent-teacher conference, or a doctor’s appointment. Your private time deserves the same respect.”

In other words, do not rearrange your free time and “squeeze in” something else. Treat it just like any other appointment in your calendar.

Work-life balance: Ways to restore harmony and reduce stress from Mayo Clinic
I loved when I got to the end of this piece and read, “Balance doesn’t mean doing everything.”

A lot of times we think that achieving work-life balance means being able to do it all. In fact, it should be about doing what’s important to you, and all that you’re comfortable doing.

Photo by yesterday_once_more0 704 from Flickr

Basic Steps Toward Work-Life Balance from Forbes
The author in this article talked to a staffing company, whose president, Loretta Penn, said: “You don’t have to respond to every e-mail or voice mail as soon as it comes in. Just because someone else deems something a priority doesn’t mean it’s yours.”

It’s a good reminder, especially for us digital moms that are constantly plugged in; just because an email alert popped up on your phone, it doesn’t mean the email has to be answered within 30 seconds. It can wait.

How to Find the Right Work-Life Balance: 6 Steps from Caroline Middlebrook
This was a blog post written in early 2008 by Caroline Middlebrook, who quit her day job in order to start an online business and now makes money blogging. In it she said, “If I’ve not spent enough time with family or not called a friend for a while I’ll get that nagging feeling in the back of my mind…When your life is all in balance you’ll feel good and when something isn’t right you’ll feel bad in some way.”

I know that from time to time I’ll get such a feeling and find myself reassessing the situation and even asking my husband for input. Many times, he confirms that I’ve been off in one area and concentrating too much on another. As the author suggests, trust your instincts.

Top 10 Ways to Balance Life and Work from About.com
This article is geared towards dads, but offers tips that are good for anyone. Tips such as: “Sometimes, the things that suffer in our busy lives have to do with our own personal health…Managing your personal health is essential to balancing work and life.”

I think all parents know about putting your own health last. This too, serves as a good reminder.

What personal tips or suggestions do you have for maintaining a little balance in your life? What have you found works for you?

Check out more work-life balance resources I’ve saved on delicious.

Like many mothers today, I can no longer afford the exciting life of a Stay At Home Mom. While I tremendously enjoyed each and every day I had with my son … waking up when we wanted, breastfeeding when he was ready, giggling, reading, and playing all day … life must now adjust.

I must admit, while I am excited to return to the world outside of my small home, ready to meet new friends and have an office to go to, I am also really nervous. This change has happened all so sudden for me and there are a few things I would like to get in order in the next … ooh … 10 hours.

Many mothers have walked this path before, and many more will continue to do it in the weeks/months/years to come, each having their own fears, worries, concerns, and dreams. These are just a few of the topics on my heart today as I begin to weed through my wardrobe searching for work clothes that fit my new motherly figure:

Childcare: How well will my child be taken care of while I am away? I am fortunate enough to be one of the lucky moms who live very close to their child’s ever-loving grandparents. My mother has lovingly offered to hang out with my son while I am at work (don’t want to say babysit – seems so impersonal). All I have to do is provide her with the cloth diapers, some pumped breast milk, extra clothes, some burp cloths, and a few toys. If I didn’t have her, I don’t think it would be worth it for me to return to work. Seems like the costs wouldn’t really justify it.

Continue to fully breastfeed: I am determined to not let anything come in between my goal of breastfeeding my son until he is ready to stop and weans himself. That means whatever job I have must allow me to take the necessary time and space to pump during his normal feeding time. From my close friends and social networks, I have learned that this is the time many breastfeeding mamas are put in the position to end their feedings early and turn to formula. For me and my son, no job is worth it. He is now only four and a half months old, so pretty soon I will also introduce home-made solid foods to him. Maybe we can work it out so that the solids meals are provided when I am at work. We’ll have to play with that one.

Providing good quality contact time with my baby: Okay, I may be overreacting a little bit. I am only returning to work part-time – in the mornings from 9am – 1pm – but for me, right now, that feels like an eternity. Those first morning giggles and wiggles are the best. I want to try my hardest to ensure that when I come home, I am dedicating some good quality time to him and filling our moments with heart-filled memories.

Maintaining a healthy amount of sleep: Ahhh sleep. I vaguely remember what that word means. I think it was something that used to occur between the hours of 10pm and 6am. Not any more. We have just recently established a fairly regular routine pattern of sleep which is now going to be thrown off just a little. I will basically be losing 3 hours of sleep until I can get little man to bed 3 hours earlier. No more staying up and partying until midnight.

Valuable performance at work: While most of my fears involve leaving the home, I do have one fear about life outside … will I be a good employee? Before I became pregnant, I believe I was a fairly good administrative assistant. I have grown over the years and established a pretty good work ethic. However, at that time I didn’t have the world’s cutest, sweetest, baby on my mind. Will I be able to focus and perform my duties to the best of my abilities? I don’t like to disappoint.

Managing house work: And lastly (purposely last), will I be able to keep up with the house work? My honest answer – I would just very well throw in the towel and say…”who cares…really.” So the laundry piled up a bit, the dirty dishes were not cleaned tonight, life will go on. But I vow not to allow that to be a habit.

What fears, challenges, obstacles and changes do you (or did) face when you head out to work? What have you done to overcome them and make each day work? Was finding that happy balance hard for your family?

****Originally posted on Scholastic Parent Voices. But, I wanted to share with you as well.****

Before I started blogging my daily routine looked like this: work, pick up kid, cook, take care of kid, watch TV, sleep. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Now, while there’s nothing wrong with that, and I was happy, you can see why it might become a bit monotonous. There was no interaction with other parents in that routine. The people I worked with at the time were either older (with older kids) or younger (with no kids). No one had a child close in age to mine (at the time she wasn’t even 1).

My friends fit into similar categories. They either weren’t even married or were married with no kids. Those who did have kids lived further away so I wasn’t able to see them often.

You might think that I could have joined a local mommy group in order to connect with other moms. However, most of the mommy groups are catered for stay at home moms. I am a working mom. That means I’m unable to attend events during the week and believe me when I say that none of the groups I looked at had events on the weekends.

So, I found myself interacting mainly with my husband and with my own mom, who is our childcare provider when we’re at work. Until I started blogging.

I began blogging in 2006 after I read one of those “here’s how you can make money working from home” e-books. But, after starting my blog and eventually finding myself on twitter, facebook, and other social networks, I found that blogging was so much more. I was able to actually connect with other moms, and dads, who knew what I was talking about. They got it. Sometimes, they even helped by sharing their experience or tips.

You know the saying. “It takes a village to raise a child.” It was like I had found my own village.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve now actually met some local mom bloggers and have attended several tweet-ups. I’m also connected with many moms on twitter.

And my daily routine? It now looks a little like this: social networking, work, pick up kid, cook, play with kid, blog, sleep. Or like this: work, kid, house, tweet-up, sleep. Or maybe even like this: work, kid, husband, blog, social networking, sleep.

It varies. And that is a major improvement over monotony.

Photo by Rita Crane Photography

This past Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Florida Conference for Women. I have to say a big THANK YOU to Anne Hebert who approached me with the offer to attend the conference on their dime and provided an extra ticket for one of my readers.

So how was the conference? How did the day go? Here’s the breakdown of the day.

The Nonexistent Tweetup

Since many conference attendees were on twitter, a few of us asked if there might be a central place at the conference where we could meet each other and have an informal tweetup. The conference organizers agreed and spread word about an informal tweetup to be had first thing in the morning in the exhibit hall.

Now, when I got there, there were no other twitterers to be found. The conference volunteers had no clue what I was talking about. They gave me the whole “twitter what?” look. So, I tweeted about how I was looking for the noexistent tweetup. A bit after that, @ElizabethB showed up with phone in hand looking around. And so finally the (very small) tweetup formed as @peglegpug, @elsaodette, and @eggmarketing joined us.

Opening Keynote

Tory Johnson (@toryjohnson) – http://womenforhire.com

When I heard Tory speak, I immediately thought “I have to meet her.” She is the author of the book Will Work From Home: Earn Cash Without the Commute, which sounds like a book I need to read seeing as how I’m working towards my goal of working from home. One of the quotes that stood out for me from her speech was, “You’re only an official contributor when you’re paid for it.” In other words, don’t work for free. Something else Tory said is something I truly need to work on, especially with BlogHer ’09 coming soon. And that is to introduce yourself to people and talk to them about what you do. Sometimes it might turn into nothing, but other times it might turn out to be a great connection.

Tory was the only speaker from the sessions I attended that mentioned twitter. So of course, our twitter-filled table smiled and even tweeted about her shout out. Later Tory replied about the lack of twitter talk at the conference. Taking on Tory’s own advice about introducing yourself to people to build a network, Kelly and I later introduced ourselves and exchanged cards with Tory.

Ariane de Bonvoisin – www.first30days.com

Ariane was a great speaker. So great that apparently I didn’t really take any notes from her speech and only wrote down her link and that she had a book. I was paying attention to all the great stuff she had to say that I forgot to write it down! Basically, though, she’s all about change. Loving change. Embracing change. And dealing with change. Her book is The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making any Change Easier.

I later attended her break-out session and I know I took more notes during that presentation, so keep reading.

Session I: Reinvent Yourself! – Strategies for Having the Career You Want

Pamela Mitchell – http://www.reinvention-institute.com

I went to this session hoping to get some insight on how to make a switch from the standard 9-5 job to working from home. After all, that *is* reinventing yourself – at least for me. The speaker provided lots of of good information and key questions to get you thinking about how to get started with reinventing yourself. A few key points I liked from her presentation:

• Ask yourself, “What do people come to me for?” The answers are talents you can get paid for.
• Think of your favorite excuse for not reinventing yourself and come up with three possible ways to overcome it.
• Ask how instead of can it be done. If you ask yourself how, your brain starts to think differently and attempts to solve the problem.
• For your resume: List your titles first instead of the companies you worked for. Be sure to also use a “Summary of Qualifications” in order to present your skills from the get-go.
• And finally, you must tell people what you want to do. Otherwise, how will anyone know?

Session II: The Tools of Change

Ariane de Bonvoisin – www.first30days.com

Since Ariane had done a great job during the keynote, I wanted to hear more of what she had to say. Overall, the information she gave is probably things we all already know. HOWEVER, it’s stuff we need to hear…again and again. Plus, she categorized it all into nice little bullets.

9 Principles of Change

People who successfully navigate change…

1. have positive beliefs.
2. know that something good will come from that change.
3. know they’re stronger.
4. don’t get stuck in an emotional pattern.
5. accept change.
6. know what they can and can’t control.
7. know that there’s something bigger going on.
8. are not alone.
9. take action!

These same principles of change are posted on her site in a nicer format and with more information.

Keynote Luncheon

Julie Stav – http://www.juliestav.com

I’ll be honest. Scheduling Julie Stav to speak during the lunch was probably the smartest thing the conference coordinators could have done. She was so entertaining, lively, and funny that she definitely woke up the room and snapped all of us out of that all-too-familiar afternoon rut.

Julie mostly talked about investing in the stock market, but also talked about empowerment and general inspiration of interest to women. As a Latina, she also focused on how Hispanic/Latina women need to take control instead of waiting for things to happen. I definitely need to get in contact with her and see if she’ll be willing to do an interview.

Kelly Corrigan – http://kellycorrigan.com

Kelly is the author of the book The Middle Place. She’s a mom and breast cancer survivor. Several conference attendees were spotted tearing up or full out crying as Kelly read some passages from her book. I’m thinking I need to pick it up myself.

Session III: What Happy Working Mothers Know

Panel: Renee Trudeau (http://www.reneetrudeau.com), Jayne Rager Garcia de Valseca, Lisa Hein (http://www.lisarhein.com)
Moderator: Cathy Greenberg – http://www.cathygreenberg.typepad.com

I went to this session thinking I’d get some great information on being a working mom or even some tips for how to balance it all. I guess I thought that’s what a working mother would want to know in order to be happy. Instead, I got three very different stories on how each panelist found their own happiness. In their own special ways.

Renee found happiness through balancing her life and connecting with other moms. Jayne found her happiness through forgiveness (and believe me, she had major forgiveness to do). Lisa found happiness through learning to let go of her son and taking a step back as a parent.

Jayne’s story of cancer, then having her husband kidnapped, then cancer again, was very inspirational and surreal. After hearing that I felt this small for complaining about everyday things.

Key quotes from this session:

• Be a parent, not a friend. – Lisa Hein
• Happiness is a science and a choice. – Cathy Greenberg
• Forgiveness is for you. – Jayne Rager Garcia de Valseca
• Ask your children, “What kind of day do you want to have?” – Renee Trudeau
• Start your day with stillness. – Renee Trudeau

Wrapping Up

After the last session, there was a career fair, along with some door prizes. I didn’t stick around for long, but did find Tory Johnson and introduced myself.

Overall it was a good conference. Some great stories, good motivation and inspiration, and lots of women to network with. Thanks again Florida Conference for Women! You can also follow the twitter conversation on the conference for more highlights.

Did you attend the conference? Which session(s) did you enjoy the most?