Some of the people who read my blog are members of my extended family. As they know, I am the keeper of the family tree. In this role, I have made connections with a variety of disparate parts of the family – including my mother’s mother’s side. My maternal grandmother’s father was one of 13 children and we’ve managed to stay remarkably connected over the generations – but only in groups. I thought it would be neat to introduce the cousins to one another in a family reunion.

I wanted to find a central location, fun activities, access to a major airport, and good food. Solution?

Chicago, Illinios!

The only problem with the solution is that while my mom is a native, she hasn’t lived there in more than a few decades and I haven’t been there since the late 90s. So, I’m seeking out some assistance from you before calling on the Chicago Tourism Bureau .

What area(s) of Chicago would be best?

Can you recommend reasonable hotels in Chicago?

Do you have any pointers for planning a family reunion?

This week on Unplug Your Kids, the theme was ‘rough’. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I scoured the apartment looking for rough surfaces — things like sand paper and the like. I figured that we would find something eventually.

I just carried on through life as we ordinarily do, and planned to stop at Toys R Us this weekend to pick up a bicycle for Gabriel who enjoyed pedaling his cousin’s 10″ bicycle with training wheels the weekend before. On Saturday, after examining the bicycle again, we drove to the store. We examined the few options available in his size and Gabriel immediately sat down and pedaled throughout the store. I thought — gee, this is rather easy. Then, we tried the 12″ for size and realized that it would be even better because there would be extra room for growth. We used gift cards and walked out with an unassembled bicycle in a box.

Sunday morning, we put the bicycle together and realized that the chain felt too tight. So, we had Gabriel pedal over to the bike store for some advice. Apparently, the fork at the front was on backwards and the chain would gradually loosen. We realized during the day that we also needed to tighten the pedals and readjust the training wheels.

Today, we set off for day care on the bike. We explained to Gabriel that big boys need to wear helmets. Getting him to wear his helmet has been truly rough! He noticed that his friend who has the same scooter he does didn’t wear a helmet - and so now we’re experiencing the helmet woes all over again.

How do you explain to a toddler that wearing a helmet is a necessity? Falling on rough pavement doesn’t seem to dissuade him… We’re hoping that persistence pays off and insisting that he cannot ride unless he wears the helmet. Coming home, he got the message and started pushing the bike, grew tired, and asked to be held while we pushed it.

One of the questions I get regularly is – ‘how do you manage so many things at the same time?’ It is true that I work, have two children, a happy marriage, this blog, community service activities, and am constantly doing and planning new things. I thought I that I’d take the opportunity to explain how I manage to do things – and hope that you can make suggestions about how you’re able manage your life effectively.

Day-to-Day Plan

1)      I believe in partnership, and was lucky enough to find someone whose abilities complement my own. My husband is the cook and technician while I handle a good bit of the daily child rearing, finances, and social planning. The mother of my daughter’s friend was amazed that we created a chore list that she needs to accomplish on a weekly basis in order to get her allowance. Our feeling is that she lives here and needs to learn how to help out by cleaning and pitching in.

2)      I constantly make and update task lists. There’s a great sense of accomplishment when a task can be crossed out and having open task lists helps everyone know how they can help out or we can delegate action items. Like many families, we have a group calendar too that we share amongst one another. Both of these are available on our Blackberries so that if we think of something, we can easily add it - wherever we happen to be!

3)      A friend remarked to me once that she appreciated how much I thought about things and constantly sought out new and improved ways of handling things. By constantly thinking, I’ve realized that I need help to seek out better ways. So, I’ve developed a list of ‘go to’ people who can offer perspective on a variety of subjects.

4)      At the end of each day, I want to have accomplished something. At the beginning of each year, I create a list of goals – and by the end of the year, I want to know that I have been able to achieve or have started to achieve things on the list. (I have a personal list of goals and a separate list at work so that my superiors can see how I have progressed.)

5)      Not surprisingly, given our careers, we’ve embraced technology as a family. We’ve been scanning in our photos, records, and music so that everything is searchable and readily accessible. Sometimes things seem effortless because we’ve spent time preparing in advance.

Efficiency and healthy living are keys

6)      We minimize clutter. When there’s less stuff around, it is easier to keep things clean/organized and figure out what we want to do. (I do the same with my wardrobe.)

7)      I am physically active. Exercise helps give me energy and makes me feel good. It also helps me sleep well at night.

8 )      I sleep ~8 hours every night. When I don’t sleep enough, I feel lethargic the next day.

9)      I eat a balanced diet – and stay away from processed foods. I tend to eat smaller meals throughout the day because I find that I don’t feel ravenously hungry between meals. Keeping hydrated with water keeps me from feeling drained while the vitamins I have added to my diet help my body in other ways.

10)  My commute to and from work is tolerable. If something happens to my kids, I can help them if I need to as well without spending hours in transit. I have more time to spend at work, home, and doing the things that I feel are important.

Principles/Philosophy

11)  I always believe that I can do something. At times, there are roadblocks or detours that prevent me from achieving a goal at specific point in time, but I always put forth an effort regardless of what others say I cannot possibly do.

12)  Balance is important. I work from 9-5, but leave work to pick up my son and handle homework with my daughter until 9 at night. At that time, I can go back to working if I have a major deliverable. Taking 5 minute breaks (every hour) to get up and walk or have a drink of water helps me focus.

13)  I accept that change is inevitable. I try to be as flexible as possible and roll with the punches. To the best of my ability, I also try to stay ahead of the curve so that I can be proactive instead of reactive.

14)  I keep things in perspective. Having worked for both high net worth people as well as the homeless, I know that things are never as good or bad as they seem.

What are your secrets to getting so much done and making everything you do seem so effortless?

Sometimes in life, it is the simple pleasures that stand out so clearly. See, I’ve been horribly inundated with work and family lately – and I haven’t had much down time. Writing these blog posts are about as close as I get to relaxation—and frankly I don’t always have time to write even the shortest of posts (much less edit things I do get up here).

In the evening, I typically sign back into work via my laptop to continue whatever I didn’t accomplish during the regular day. It isn’t ideal, but I’m trying to compete with people who don’t have to leave work before 6:00 to pick up their toddler from day care or help their teenager with homework. And yes, I work in a very competitive environment where I am ranked against my peers. If I cannot perform, there are a thousand other people waiting in the wings who would be happy to give my job a shot. This frightens me horribly and I sign on.

Normally when I do this, I turn on something on television to provide some sort of happy experience – the Travel Channel, History Channel, PBS, etc. It really helps me feel better about what I am doing. A few days ago though, I noticed that our Time Warner cable box was displaying a message that said ‘Call Your Operator’ and the TV itself displayed another message that indicated our service had been disconnected. I’m fanatical about paying bills so we called to figure out the issue. The technician on the phone thought our box might be old and told us to bring it in for exchange. My husband, Puma, headed there today, but apparently didn’t have a cable bill with him so not alternate box was provided. I’m not surprised because we’ve had to jump through hoops to get service from Time Warner and if there were an alternative (i.e., they didn’t have a monopoly on the market), we’d have switched long ago.

I’ve been digressing though. Yesterday, without cable, we discovered how much is now available on Hulu – the online NBC provider for old shows. It was amazing – we saw Fame, Welcome Back Kotter, Alf, and Benson… as I marked up stuff for work.

Then today at work, I was able to listen to Podcasts of This American Life with Ira Glass. It could have been easy to distract me from the mundane/detailed tasks of the day were it not for how utterly fascinated I was with each story. Hours went by as I worked and listened.

Everyone has to find the right balance of sounds and distraction that enables them to work most effectively. I’ve found that pure silence causes my mind to wander – but there’s a whole spectrum of sounds that work for different chores. For example, when I do testing of the application, I put on samba whereas if I need to work through mathematical equations or action items requiring concentration of another sort, I use quieter music. As such, my iPod is loaded with a wide variety of types of music.

What helps you concentrate?

On Sunday, we took my daughter to camp. I’ve been sending her to day or sleepaway camps since she was quite small. I used the camps as a form of day care until a few years ago — oh really who am I kidding, I still basically do! I have found that a camp can provide even a teenager with enriching activities that keep the teen out of trouble. Kids can discover new hobbies, become one with nature, and most importantly realize that that everyone is fundamentally the same. While not all camps are good, there are enough day and sleepaway camps that are good - parents/guardians should have a wide selection. I could go on to talk about my daughter’s experience, and I may do that in the coming weeks, but right now I’d like to comment on making the camp experience a reality for other children.

The fact is that many parents would like to give their children the camp experience. Yet, camp isn’t free - and many camps are quite costly. I’ve seen that providing children with experiences they might not otherwise have is a way to start equalizing social inequities in their parent’s generation. Kids who would otherwise sit at home (many in front of the television) are taken out of their element and provided with activities to stretch their imaginations, challenge their bodies, and cause them to interact with people and their environment. Further, for some kids, summer is a period of frustration because their parents/guardians who still need to work (work is year round, but kids are out of school for a few months) realize that they need to provide them with not only activities but food as well (disadvantaged youth may qualify for reduced price or free lunch).

The great thing is that you can make a difference in the life of a child by sponsoring or helping to sponsor one or more children to attend camp. Most camps take contributions for funds set up to sponsor those who cannot pay. I’d suggest, researching a camp you like and finding out what you can do to help. Many camps also gladly accept goods that can be used for craft projects.

Here are a few other options for those of you who are looking for specific organizations:

1) Contact your local YMCA or YWCA - as most have camps.

2) Check out your library, grocery store, museum, zoo, local school, religious organization, or playground for notices/flyers about camps.

3) Ask about funding at the place where your child attends camp.

4) Locate camps online: ACA Camps, KidsCamps, MyCampFinder