Value Menu

I spent most of the day at an all-day staff retreat where the facilitator led us through a series of activities concerning VALUES. The most fun activity consisted of each participant being handed a deck of probably 50-60 "values cards" and then identifying the top ten values he/she held. Some of the choices: Learning, Love, Challenge, Autonomy, Affluence, Authority, Courtesy, Competence, Adventure, Family, Integrity, Generosity.

It was hard to narrow my list down. After all, it's not like there were any real stinkers in the pile. But after much winnowing and further paring and final honing, I came up with my top ten list (in no particular order):

1. Action
2. Development
3. Balance
4. Location
5. Influence
6. Health
7. Order
8. Self-awareness
9. Trust
10. Responsibility

It was an interesting exercise, and I realized that I value things that are very self-focused. I mean, I didn't choose values that centered on interacting with other people. I really veered toward qualities that I can control in myself, things that increase my happiness and self-esteem.

If I did this exercise again in a week, I'm not sure whether I would select the same cards. And in a month or a year, almost certainly not. But the values deck selection was an interesting snapshot of my life right now and what is important to me.

Age/Old Questions

I am young for my age. That is, I have always been younger than my peers.

I graduated college at 20. I finished grad school at 22. I was married at 24. My daughter was born when I was barely 27.

Now, those benchmarks may not seem extraordinary, but consider that I went to a grad school mixer on a fake ID. It's true. Also, consider that I live in the DC metro area. Getting married and having a baby before the ripe age of 30 is practically the social equivalent of getting knocked up in high school.

The age issue is sitting on my chest today because I am working with someone new. He is the third member of our department's professional staff, and he is older than my father. In fact, he is retired from civil service and is pursuing this "second career" more out of academic interest than anything.

Considering that my boss is closer to my mom's age than to mine, that our department's administrative assistant is close to retirement, and that my industry peers are generally middle-aged lawyers, well, sometimes I feel a little green. Even though I've been in policy/advocacy work for almost eight years.

Even the woman who worked in this position before me (and is now part-time in another capacity at the association) is almost seven years older than me. My daughter is two and a half months older than her son.

So I am wondering, when will the age issue go away? When do I stop being the youngest one? When do I stop feeling like people are questioning my reactions because I don't have enough experience?

I feel like I have to work so hard just so people will take me seriously, and then a slip of modern slang or a cultural reference that no one understands can set back months of professional achievements.

C'mon, people, RESPECT MAI AUTHORITAI!!!

Contractual Obligations

Last week, we lost our contractor virginity. We had crown molding installed in our living/dining room. I think we got off easy.

I hear these horror stories from friends, family and neighbors about kitchen and bathroom remodels (and even supposedly little jobs) that go horribly awry. The house sits in a state of disarray while the contractor is unreachable, or the work is done shoddily, or - in the very worst cases - the contractor disappears with the money while no work is done.

Well, we had a very good experience with our contractor. The work took a little longer than we were told, but there were no surprise costs. The work was done well, and our house was generally left in a good state at the end of each day, with the exception of a couple of random nails and screws scattered around the carpet.

Let's hope the crown molding is the beginning of a streak. Starting next week, we are having our powder room updated, new flooring installed and recessed lighting installed. At the end, I think our house will be much improved and - this is the important part - upgraded to a point where the sales price will increase significantly. But I am a little nervous about dealing with three different contractors on three different jobs over the course of about ten days. There is so much that could go wrong...

But someone has to have a good experience with contractors, right?

Beach Blanket Bingo

We are booking our vacation house this week! Well, one of our friends is being this year's cruise director, so all we have to do is look at pretty pictures of beach houses online and write her a check.

I can hardly believe it, but eight years ago, a bunch of crazy college seniors in Ohio got the nut-job idea to drive all night to North Carolina and spent Memorial Day weekend at these beaches most of us had never heard of. The Outer Banks may well have been on the Columbia River, for all we knew.

It turns out, North Carolina has some terrific sand and sun. The beaches are not crowded like many of the other East Coast summer hotspots, and they're not clogged up with touristy establishments like high-rise hotels or chain restaurants. Just lots of rental houses, great local seafood establishments and plenty of breathing room for everyone.

So we've been back basically every year since then in some form or another. The group has evolved, and the trip has evolved. Last year, we brought babies for the first time.

(They were our babies, so it wasn't illegal or anything.)

Planning the trip is another aspect of the fun entirely. For six months leading up to the big week (or long weekend, depending on people's availability), I can count on a string of bawdy emails with witty subject lines, double entendre and clever one-liners calling to mind past years' hilarity.

When we get there, we consume a lot of alcohol, eat a lot of good food, stay up late and take it easy. A couple of times, we have ventured out to do recreational activities, but usually we just eat, sleep, drink and laugh. We play a lot of Good Friend Funball, where we keep a beach ball aloft for as long as possible. Each hit is one letter, and we try to spell things out. Like "Osama Bin Laden Kiss My Red White And Blue Ass," which was borrowed from the tail of an advertising plane that flew over the beach in summer 2002.

And all week long, we keep a quote list going. We capture all the hysterical, raunchy, stupid things that get said over the course of our beach vacation, and someone publishes the list when we return.

Anyway, it has really become one of the highlights of my summer each year, and the countdown to this year's good times has begun! I can't wait until July. WOOHOO!

Feliz Ano

It broke my daughter's heart to take down the Christmas tree. She literally cried as my husband carried it outside, and she kept pointing to the angel sitting on the dining room table, woefully out of place as we packed up the decorations.

Saying goodbye to Christmas and hello to a new year is tough. Especially when it's been a good year. You wonder if you've peaked and if the oncoming months will be worse than those you've just experienced.

It was a good year for us as a family, overall. I started a fantastic new job, my husband got an incredible year-end bonus, my daughter transitioned pleasantly into toddlerhood. It was not a year without challenges, including illness, job-related stress and family tensions. But on the whole, I think we did alright.

It was a hard adjustment to motherhood. Physically, I had a very hard time recovering from my daughter's birth, and my hormones had me out of whack for much of the summer. Throw in a hospital stay and prolonged leave from work for meningitis, and I had a tough time with my body this year. And I never did figure out how to exercise and get enough sleep at night and still do the things I wanted to do as a working mom.

So between my being exhausted, bitchy, sick, wounded and totally uninterested in sex, there were some new lows in our marriage. They were not unmanageable or relationship-damaging, but they were new for us.

Yet, I think we are doing alright. As a married couple, as parents. He is endlessly patient with me as I try to rediscover my libido. I am eternally grateful for the gentle way he always deals with our daughter when I am ready to throw her out a window. We're doing new things (like blogging) and trying to reinvigorate old things (like exercise). There is still some romance, some spark, even though we are largely helpmeets and friends these days.

It was a year when we could have fallen apart under the stress of all the changes, especially those that come with being new parents. But we hung in there. And I'm really proud of us. And I think that we'll have a good 2005 because we have shown that we are committed to making this marriage work even when things are hard.