Scheduling and the Working Mom
Hello, I’m Gloria, Chief Marketing Officer at Mission Ready. Being part of “Bullfrog 13 and Friends” is of special interest for me because as a working mom, I’m well familiar with the daily juggle and want to share some organization nuggets that have helped me.
It is a challenge (understatement of the day) to raise children and be on top of your career. Scheduling is tough. I have three school-aged children and every day is full of moving parts: different vacations, after school activities, plays, recitals and woe the day that someone isn’t feeling well. Our part-time sitter is great, and essential, but sometimes it can all be pretty zany.
About 6 years ago when they were in three different schools, we were living in temporary quarters as we were undergoing renovations to our house, and my work schedule was similar to what it is today: up at 5:30 a.m., out at 7:30 a.m. and home anytime between 7 and 11 p.m. (or sometimes later). I came to a conclusion. I found myself pre-packing school lunches the night before, freezing them and hoping they’d thaw in time to avoid icicle laden carrot sticks. “You need a schedule,” said the clever little voice deep within.
I drew out a massive chart, longhand, with a green marker on art paper and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Every child, my husband, the sitter and me all carefully noted as to where we would be by day part for a week. The next day my lack of drawing skills were much commented upon as we all reviewed it— while putting on coats. I decided this new world order had potential and got fancy with a ruler and graph paper. We all reviewed the schedule and made comments and revisions—this is key: buy-in from the troops. I made a general template with items we knew already in place, like school schedules, piano lessons, activities, mom or dad’s travel plans, and made copies. Our family decided that Sunday night was the night we would write in all the extras: play dates, birthday parties, doctor visits that were special to that week. Voila!
The children have redesigned and reworked this many times over the years to be better suited for them, but scheduling is second nature to us all. They like knowing what is happening, as well. Stickers, artistic designs, as deemed appropriate by my youngest, have added to the aesthetics of this vital addition to our bulletin board. It was bringing home a work tool and making it work for us as a family. Yes, I have missed a pick-up or two (okay, four) and received concerned calls from teachers in which I desperately try to display my responsible parenting skills, forgotten a birthday party, or shown up on the wrong day for orthodontist appointments. But, in general, we are pretty organized. No more frozen carrot sticks for us. I pre-pack them in bags for the week and simply drop them in the lunch bags in the morning— it’s on the schedule.
Source: getmissionready.com
Welcome!
Welcome to Bullfrog 13 & Friends! Navy SEALs call the longest-serving SEAL on active duty the honorific title of “Bullfrog.” In 2006 Bullfrog 12 retired with 40 years service and I became Bullfrog 13. In 2009, I retired with over 39 years service, and with a lifelong passion and knowledge for natural medicine, started on a journey to create a nutraceutical company. We’ve built this blog for the Mission Ready community to learn and engage with different personalities and experts. Our guest bloggers specialize in the areas of nutrition, health and sleep. Here’s a little more about me, and how Mission Ready came to fruition.
As I reflect on my years as a U.S. Navy SEAL, I’m proud of the teams in which I’ve served and the work we’ve accomplished. At the same time, I realize I spent at least 10-years with very little REM sleep at all. My sleep was very disturbed for a number of factors and it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly why. I guess I drank a lot of coffee and that disrupts sleep, and if you have too many drinks before you go to bed that will disrupt sleep too. But, I also had a little PTSD left over from my experience in Lebanon, saving someone’s life and then getting burned over 75% of my body. Sometimes when you relive this kind of experience, it puts you in a bad place, but you just deal with it. As a US Navy SEAL, I was also working long hours. And, when you continuously work night operations and throw in the night training missions, you don’t really have any real circadian rhythms anymore (despite the fact that I’m a drummer and I do have rhythm). If you throw this all together it equals interrupted sleep.
Here’s how I broke the pattern … Jim McKay, “Skip” and I went through SEAL training together in 1971, and we had been lifelong friends ever since. So, about the time I was getting ready to retire from the US Navy, we had been discussing a number of things and began talking about the possibility of going into the nutraceutical business. Jim had the same problems sleeping as I did, but his was from big business. The one thing I’ve always known is that if you don’t sleep well, you can’t heal well. So, one of our first formulas we thought about was one to target those problems adults have — trouble with sleep. So, at Mission Ready we’re going to address sleep as our first issue.
And, here we are today, a company called Mission Ready, founded by former U.S. Navy SEALs, and an organization that also gives a portion of its profits back to the military community. We will help you WIN and have fun while doing it.
Other folks you’ll meet here at Bullfrog 13 & Friends include:
Lori Tubbs: Lori is a military nutritionist and a public health educator. She’s also a registered dietitian, and a certified specialist in sports dietetics. Lori will share her nutrition best practices with you.
Gloria Altherr: Gloria is the CMO of Mission Ready, Inc. and brings over two decades of marketing experience. As a busy mother of three children, she balances work and family carefully and shares her stories about the balance for a healthy, but busy lifestyle.
Dr. Kevin Pett: Dr. Pett is licensed as a Doctor of Oriental Medicine (DOM) in the state of New Mexico. He’s been in private practice since 2001, and maintains a Clinical practice of Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine in Leesburg, Virginia. Dr. Pett will share his strong and passionate interest in the study and use of natural botanical substances for health and wellness solutions. He is my personal doctor and was the first and only doctor to ever tell me: “I will heal you.” And, he did.
We’re excited to share our knowledge about health, sleep and nutrition challenges, and welcome your opinions and feedback. Thank you for stopping by Bullfrog 13 & Friends, and please feel free to invite your friends to visit our community and to join in the discussion too.
