emanuela franchini /Stock Photos

The last year has been a rough one on me.  The year previous I was promoted and the company I worked for was acquired by a much larger and more established organization with a slightly different focus.  We had about six months to acclimate, and then the proverbial shit hit the fan.

The organization that acquired us is quite motivated, and very aggressive.  This is great for staying out on the cutting edge (bleeding edge!) of technology, but takes a toll of the folks working there.

Needless to say, I have been discombobulated and out of sorts just running to keep up.  So much so, that I am three months late at even looking at my new year goals, and now that I’ve looked I wish I’d just skipped the entire thing altogether.

I don’t set new years resolutions.  Instead, though, I think about things that I would like to accomplish over the course of the next year.  Things I want to try, test, places to visit… whatever.  Doesn’t matter if it is big or small, the idea is to just bring some intention into the year ahead.  Without intent all those things we want to do ‘some day’ will never come to fruition.  I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I did none of those things because I let all the day to day responsibilities take precedence.

Except, it turns out that in 2011 I DID EXACTLY that.  And that, my friends, is why I’m sitting here writing this post with a bottle of Pino Noir on the table in front of me which I have no intention of sharing with the boy!

I had eight core things that I wanted to achieve over the course of 2011.   A pretty small number really.  Or so it seems.  Below is my list, along with a commentary on what I succeeded at or failed miserably at.

1. Post at least two blog entries a week for the entire year. – FAIL!  I posted 31 total blog posts last year.  To hit my goal I would have needed 48 at a minimum.  Can anyone say Do Over?
2. Mountain Bike Crested Butte Colorado – FAIL!
3. Learn how to Telemark Ski – Nope, FAIL!
4. Take a rafting trip down the Green River in Utah – Oh, on this one… FAIL!
5. Donate/Volunteer more – You guessed it, FAIL!
6. Complete my currently “in progress” screenplay – FAIL – although I did write a second novel so I think this one can probably be counted as a PASS.
7. Read at least 5 books from the Top 100 Best Fantasy Novels list  – Wanna guess?  Betcha know the answer… FAIL!
8. Learn how to drive a motorcycle – PASS!  Yes! I did this one teensy weensy thing.

Out of the eight small things I wanted to do last year, I accomplished only 2 (counting the novel).

So here I was feeling pretty bummed about how much 2011 got away from me when I read this quote.  Well, two quotes really.  First, a quote from Rosabeth M. Kantor, a Prof at the Harvard Business School, who said (about entrepreneurship, but hey, we are ALL entrepreneurs when it comes to our lives!), “The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.”

And second, by a person by the name of Winston Churchill who said,  “Success consists of going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”

Wow… thank you for putting me in my place!  Who would have thought that I’d get a bitch slap from the pages of a business book?  I sure as hell didn’t expect it, but I’m glad I got it!

Yes, in a way I did let a year of my life pass me by in a haze of business meetings and customer requirements, but it wasn’t all bad, and it was only a year.  Enough for me to wake up and take notice of where things are going, and enough for me to make some changes.

Not only did I learn to ride a motorcycle last year, but this year I bought one.  For five or so months out of the year I’ll get 65 – 70 MPG riding that puppy… something very important to me.  I’ve already reached out to some friends about doing the Green River trip.  And I’ve joined a book club this year – we are not likely to read a whole lot from the Top 100 Best Fantasy Novels list, true – but so far I have read some wonderful books nevertheless.

So, what are your intentions for 2012?  I wish you the best in achieving them all!  But if it turns out you don’t, just remember, it is always messy as shit in the middle.  Just keep plugging through, keep your enthusiasm, and success will be yours.

Not Just Married - and perfectly happy about it!

For the entirety of my adult life I have found the idea of marriage an odd one.  Not the idea BEHIND marriage – two adults who love one another and want to share their lives and pool their resources – but the legal entity that is marriage.  And apparently I’m not the only one, check out this article from AM New York.

In particular this idea that the state has to give my relationship a stamp of approval before it can be a ‘real’ relationship.  I find this to be incredibly odd.  I am far more qualified to make that decision for myself than nameless faceless bureaucratic men in bowler hats are thank you very much.

This came up in a conversation I had with some friends over dinner this last week.  My boyfriend and I have been talking about starting a business, and as a part of the process we started looking into matters of health insurance.  We discovered something that I find quite confounding.  Both our companies will cover a same-sex domestic partners (which, by the way, is totally awesome!), but neither of them will cover a heterosexual domestic partner.

Wait.  What?

My boyfriend and I have been together for many years now.  We live together, we vacation together, we share resources and every night we share a bed, but we cannot share our work benefits?  WTF people?  Discrimination wears many faces, and you find it in the oddest of places at times.  (Side note:  This is what happens when you let men make all the rules!)

The conclusion for my boyfriend and I is that we either fork over the cash for an individual insurance policy, or we give up our individuality and personal values and comply with what our society dictates to us is an acceptable form of relationship.

We are in the 21st century.  The internet has made it possible for me to instantly communicate with someone on the other side of the planet without even the need to speak their language, we can beam radio signals from any point on the planet to a satellite roughly 22,000 miles above the earth and back down to any other point on the planet, in the US we have a 99% literacy rate and according to a few sites on the interwebs about 70% of folks in the US enroll in a college curriculum of some sort.

Yet, despite all that, this idea that my values are better than yours and you must comply with my opinion of things is still so powerfully prevalent.  And this in a country that is so proud of its foundation of individual liberties and self determination.

What a dichotomy we are in this country.  It’s a wonder we can survive the cognitive dissonance this creates.  Or maybe we can’t – according to the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology in 2009 total retail prescriptions for psychotropic drugs (anti-depressants) exceeded 380 million, that is a net dollar cost of about $22 Billion.  In 2011 the total US population was roughly 313 million people.

Rachel Carson – Biologist and ConservationistEuclid vanderKroew /Free Photos

There is no question that the Wage Gap still exists within America.  The ever-so-reliable Wikipedia puts it at $ .77 for every $1.00 a man makes in this country.  This is shameful, yes, but this is not true across industries.

Late last year a report, Women in STEM:  A Gender Gap to Innovation (STEM = science, technology, engineering, mathematics) reported on some interesting information when it comes to the equal pay of women within these industries.

They found there is greater income parity between genders within these fields than there is the market as a whole.  Specifically:

In non-STEM jobs, men earn 21 percent more hourly than women, on average; but in STEM jobs, the hourly difference drops to 14 percent. Women with STEM jobs also earn 33 percent more than women in non-STEM jobs – $31.11 per hour versus $19.26 per hour – which exceeds the 25 percent earnings premium for men in STEM.

I find this quite interesting, considering the traditional domination of men in these industries.  Clearly, women in these industries know what they are worth and won’t take any guff from the ‘ol boys club incumbents.

Engineering, perhaps the most male dominated of this male dominated bunch actually had the smallest gap in pay.  Meaning, in the hallowed halls (or cube farms) of engineering departments across the US, women make very close to what men make.  In the land of math and science, women get equal pay for equal work.

Despite this, though, women are still hard to find in these fields.  In my department I have four women out of a team of 30 (five if you count me), and it is not for lack of trying either.  Female applicants are few and far between in my industry.

Why is it that women make up 48% of the work US workforce and yet hold only 24% of STEM jobs?  I surely don’t know the answer to that, but we need to find it and change it.

You cannot change the rules if you don’t play the game.

Given the slang definition of Santorum, this headline was particularly funny today.  A nice break from the ho hum drum of the day job.  **Warning, that link leads to a description of a vision it is hard to wash out of your brain once you’ve read it! LOL

I love jewelry.  What self respecting woman doesn’t?  I love designs that are unique and interesting, not the same ‘ol same ‘ol that everyone else has because their husband went to… well, we’ll leave the place nameless here.

I love jewelry, and I love it even more when it is brought to us by a powerful and independent woman with a desire to give something back, to help foster and grow industry and well being everywhere she goes.  I read about her in a blog post on Huffington Post and just had to share her story here.

I’d like to introduce you all to Zavida Gemstones, a company started by a 40 something year old woman who decided she was done with a successful corporate career and ready for something different.  Something that had a bit more shine and shimmer to it.  And she did it!

She walked out of her corporate office for the last time and launched Zavida Gemstones, a business that is designed to bring us beautiful, unique, handcrafted jewelry from around the world while simultaneously supporting the artists in developing countries.  And, they gives 25% of their profits back to the areas where the gems are mined and where the artists do their crafts.  Very inspiring.

I love businesses that support their community in this fashion, businesses with a concern for humanity backing them, up as opposed to mindless grubbing for profit.  It is, in fact, possible to make money and run a successful business while sporting a concern for human well-being.  Zavida Gemstones is a great example.

So ladies, when you next feel a hankering for some new bling, check out their website here, and sport your gorgeous bling with an even bigger smile knowing you also supported local artisans in perpetuating their craft.

Send me some pics of your beautiful bling and I’ll post it up on the site!  Happy shimmerings!