The Digital Life of Michelle Evans | Business, Family, Faith & Fulfillment

Photo: melomane on Flickr

When I was growing up I was never an athletic kid. Sure, I tried every sport under the sun – my parents saw to it that I was well-rounded that way – but I never found anything I excelled at.

It was only in my adulthood that I began to seek out ways to be active that I would really enjoy. It didn’t take long before I realized I am just not, nor have I ever been, a team sport kind of person. By far my favourite activities are all individual sports: kickboxing, snowboarding, yoga, kayaking and running.

Photo: Polkaroo on Flickr

As I learned to incorporate sport and other activity into my life I began to see a shift in my mindset: I feel lost and sluggish if I can’t get any exercise. I’ve become dependent on the endorphins for a sense of wellbeing, health and vitality. I even kept running until I was 28 weeks pregnant.

I’m now 5 weeks postpartum and am DESPERATELY awaiting the go-ahead to run again. I miss running more than any other activity except maybe for hiking the Grouse Grind.

I’ve started a daily 2 mile walk now with mini-boy either strapped to me in the carrier or in the stroller as well as some mild abdominal exercises to try and put together what’s left of my post-cesarean muscles. I’m hoping when I see my doctor next week I’ll be given the go-ahead to resume normal activity.

I’ve decided to give myself a goal: I plan to complete this year’s Seek The Peak Relay solo.

The challenging 16-kilometer course starts on the beach at Ambleside Park in West Vancouver, winds its way through North Vancouver, then heads up the legendary Grouse Grind® to the Peak of Vancouver. [seekthepeak.ca]

The Seek The Peak Relay is a very special event. There’s something very fulfilling about standing on the top of Grouse Mountain, 4100 feet above sea level, looking at the ocean and knowing you just traveled that distance on foot.

Photo: Houston Marsh on Flickr

I have done this race before… and when I say race I mean I have completed the distance on event day. I don’t race. I’m a real slowpoke but I love the sense of accomplishment from completing races. Last time I did it was, I think, in 2003 or 2004 and I finished in 2 hours and 50 minutes. I was much fitter then than I am now, so who knows how I might fare this year, but I think it’s a good goal to aim for.

So I’ve got a daily 2 mile walk until I’m cleared to run. Then I hope to get out 3 or 4 days a week for runs of 3-5km to start and building back up to 10km within a couple of months. Once the Grouse Grind opens up for the summer season (which may be early this year if the snowfall levels remain so low I suspect) I’d like to get out to hike once every week or two.

The Seek The Peak Relay usually takes place early July… I’ve got 5 months. I hope I’ll manage to get back to a ~1hr 10km and lose about 25 lbs by then. I have 15 pregnancy pounds left to lose.

Anyone want to run the Seek The Peak with me?

Photo: tibchris on Flickr

Here we are at the start of a new year… a new decade… a new era… and a new blog theme.

The Olympics are coming to Vancouver; I have a brand new baby boy; I’ve just begun a year without my day job and I feel like I’m poised on the edge of a cliff, waiting in anticipation of what twists and turns 2010 will bring.

I stopped blogging for a long time. I don’t want to become a “Mommy Blogger”. I don’t believe being a mom is everything I am nor will it ever be, but certainly the past few months have left me with little else to think about. Now that mini-boy is here and mini-man is a big brother I have had some time to think more about how I’d like to take advantage of the upcoming year and the opportunity it presents.

For so long I told myself if I had another child I’d make the most of a year’s maternity leave and try and make my way as a self-employed marketing consutant/contractor with a goal of being self-sufficient and 100% self employed by the time mini-man starts full time school in September 2011. I started blogging; I connected with a host of very skilled people and thought leaders via social media in order to equip myself with the knowledge to move forward confidently; I worked my LinkedIn and Twitter connections and built Urban Shore to draw attention to myself in the local business community. I spent countless hours outside of my day job working towards this goal… it was no small investment. Just ask big-man or mini-man. They’ve both seen far more of the back of me at my computer than they ever should have had to.

Now that my second maternity leave has finally presented itself, I hesitate to keep it up.

I love what I do. I love my day job; I love solving problems; I love communicating with people; I love influencing people and I love seeing the direct results of my efforts. But this year of complete and total uncertainty presents a very special opportunity to do… well, anything.

See, not only am I home every day with my two kids, but big-man has been off work for over a year too. He’s on WorkSafe BC benefits from an injury to his arm that he sustained on the job last December. Now, after months of physiotherapy, surgery and rehabilitation, he’s been told his arm will never be fixed enough to go back in to construction so he’s negotiating for training in another field. Neither of us knows how much longer he’ll be on benefits, nor do we know what the future might have in store for him.

You might think the safe bet might be the best bet in a situation like ours… but for months now I’ve been feeling a pull towards focusing my efforts on other things. Things I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Things I think I was created to do. Things that can and will make a difference in the lives of those around me. And I really don’t care if it will never become lucrative.

I want to spend more quality time enjoying my kids. I want to spend more time enjoying my husband and, let’s face it, being a better wife. I want to spend more time investing in my friends and family… really connecting with them. I want to spend more time enjoying the outdoors, both alone and with my family. And I want to spend more time writing music.

So here’s to a new beginning… of what? I’m not sure. We’ll have to wait and see.

If you could do anything in the world and you knew you couldn’t fail and money was no object… what would you choose to do with your life?

I am a little neurotic when it comes to oral hygiene.

Ever since my son got his first teeth I have been diligently following the oral care guidelines set out by my healthcare practitioners… swabbing his gums and washing his teeth with a soft cloth as an infant, then on to brushing twice daily and he’s never taken bottles to bed. He even went to the dentist for the first time when he was less than a year old because I’d been advised to take him 6 months after his first teeth come in.

Now that he’s 3 we’re working harder on getting regular flossing into his routine and were looking for ways to make oral care something kind of fun.

We recently saw some TV ads for Listerine mouth washes for kids… they have a product called Listerine Agent Cool Blue that works like those awful little red tablets we had when we were kids that would discolour the plaque so kids could see it to brush it off and measure their effectiveness at brushing. They also have a product called Listerine Smart Rinse to be used after brushing to stick to remaining bacteria so they can see when they spit it out after rinsing.

He’s been using both for a few weeks now.

I have noticed in the last week or so that his teeth are really quite brown and I was wondering if I just hadn’t noticed this before or if they were turning darker. I even had my husband make a dentist appointment for him – though he can’t get in until mid October now. So I did a little web search and came up with some other testimonials of Listerine Smart Rinse turning kids’ teeth brown. Just check out the search results for “Listerine Smart Rinse brown teeth“.

Wow… do I ever wish I had searched this info before using my son as a test subject.

Now you can choose to chastise me for using a product that is for 6+ years on a 3 year old but the outcome would no doubt be the same on an older child.

We have obviously stopped using these products and I am going to do my best to spread this message to every concerned mother out there. This product is put out by Johnson & Johnson Inc. in Canada. The product packaging advises rinsing for a full minute after brushing… we’ve only been doing it for a count of 10. I can’t imagine how bad it would be if he had been rinsing for a full minute.

It seems the culprit is an ingredient called Cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), which is known to cause tooth staining that looks similar to that caused by tobacco, coffee or tea and yet it is still included in a children’s mouth without any warnings at all.

Please pass this information on to other parents, and do not buy this product.

I only hope we can get his teeth white again.

Photo: purplemattfish on Flickr

At least that’s what Jack Welch, Chief Executive for General Electric Co. would have us believe. I read an excerpt from this Wall Street Journal article today and while I’m not interested enough to subscribe for the full article, I did read through all the comments.

I don’t think Mr. Welch is all wrong. In fact, I think he has a very good point:

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance,” Mr. Welch told the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual conference in New Orleans on June 28. “There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

In the commenting there was a lot of talk of sacrifices… sacrificing career for children and sacrificing family for career. But the thing that struck me most is the underlying tone that defines career success as more important or more valuable than family success i.e. devoting the time necessary to raising a healthy and happy family.

An entry level corporate job begins with 40 hours a week and increases from there. At the top of the ladder the execs are often putting in so much time that they’ve lost the ability to ever NOT think of their work… and honestly I don’t think it’s healthy.

Photo: Corie Howell on Flickr

We’re told we need to get 8 hours of sleep per night for optimum health; we’re told we need to eat a balanced diet and exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day (some will say 60 minutes); we need to keep ourselves adequately bathed and groomed which, for me at least takes about 30-45 minutes per day… when you put just those things alone together that adds up to about 10 hours out of 24… then you add a commute of, say, another hour round trip (add another 30 minutes if you have a daycare drop-off and pick-up on the way to and from work) and you’re down to 12 and a half remaining hours in a day.

Now if you’re like me and you work a fairly normal 8 1/2 hour day in the office, you’re down to 4 hours left… 4 hours per day left to sort through the mail, and pick up the drycleaning, and stop by the bank, call to make a dental appointment, prepare dinner, clean the kitchen, maybe read a little before bed… and I haven’t even started talking about a spouse or kids.

When exactly would they get any time?

Photo: 3Liz4 on Flickr

When I went back to work after my son was born I was mortified when I realized the schedule he was on had him waking up at about 6:30am and going to sleep for the night about 6:30pm. My work schedule made it so that we left the house at 8:00am and arrived home at 5:30pm… and that’s if I insisted on walking out the door at 5pm no matter what is happening.

I still only got 2 1/2 hours per day to interact with my only child. Someone else got the other 9 while I was at work.

I sometimes wonder what drives the C-Suite. I don’t think I have it. I mean, I’m pretty driven and I’ve never set a goal I didn’t reach without a good reason or a learning experience involved. I’m educated and intelligent and I have a good job; our household income is comfortably above average for where we live. But I have every intention of continuing to contribute my family’s income because where I live it’s not really an option not to. That’s my sacrifice, I guess… my family gets to live in what I consider to be one of the best places in the world but we need two incomes to make it work.

I know I’d be farther along in my career if I was more aggressive with my goals and just sucked it up and did it the way I’m “supposed” to… but I have too many life aspirations for that. I have too many interests and hobbies and other things I enjoy in life that I couldn’t dedicate my entire life to the pursuit of money and back pats from people whose families are falling apart all around them. When I sit down and think about the things I couldn’t live without in this life – the things I feel like I was made to be and do – none of them is my job… and I love my job!

I work hard. I play hard. When I’m in the office I’m working hard; as I’ve said, I love what I do. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do with my morning coffee is check my email and deal with anything urgent. From the time I arrive in the office to the time I leave at 5pm I work hard and if need be I’ll work hard after my son has gone to bed at night, but between 5pm and 7:30pm is my time with my family. Every day. I mean, I think I owe them that at the very least.

Photo: richiedogg1981

This post alone is enough to get me passed over for an interview with some companies. It would absolutely take me off the short list for a corner office. But that’s my life choice. I value the quality time I do have, no matter how scarce, that I can’t imagine having less time than that… nor would I want to.

Why we define ourselves by how much money we make and how many people work under us is beyond me. Perhaps it’s peoples’ lack of self-worth that drives them towards needing the approval of others. Perhaps it’s because people are just greedy… but maybe, just maybe, it comes from millions of people looking for the love and approval they should have gotten from their parents but didn’t because they were too busy working.

Just saying…

I know, I know, you’re never supposed to blog about not blogging… you’re never supposed to apologize for not writing. But I have been completely unable to think about anything other than what’s been going on in my life for the past two months, so I’m finally spilling the beans.

My husband and I are expecting another addition to our family.

That, actually, is the reason for the decision to sell our home and figure out how to add another bedroom to our inventory. It’s also the reason why I haven’t written a thing – because every thought I have has to do with this new baby, my career, my home, my future, and where it’s all going to end up.

First things first: I’m 15 weeks along and doing well. I love being pregnant. I tend to be pretty healthy when I am – so far I haven’t been sick and the worst of my symptoms between this and my last pregnancy has been indigestion, fatigue and carpal tunnel (which comes later; I can already feel it coming on). I’m actually way more relaxed when I’m pregnant too – the hormones seem to agree with me and I take on a way more chilled out personality.

The bigger challenges have been keeping the secret off of Facebook – I told a few friends and my family but of course didn’t want my boss and co-workers finding out from Facebook. Not only because it’s poor form (I think, anyway) not to tell them personally, but because there are some personnel shifts going on and I had been trying to hold off while securing myself exactly what I want as a return-to-work option following my maternity leave.

I’m due January 1st, so I’ll be leaving work around Christmas time and I do plan to take a full year off. I kind of feel like I owe it to this baby to do so given that I’m entitled (thanks to our awesome maternity leave program in Canada) and I did with mini-man. That, however, is not ideal given the industry I’m in and the timing of the 2010 Winter Olympics but the good news is just about everything that needs to be planned will be planned by the time I leave… what will remain will be mostly execution.

Regardless, I couldn’t wait any longer to say anything; I’m suddenly beginning to grow out of most of my pants so I was beginning to develop a complex over everyone at work thinking I was just putting on weight. Yeah, I have some issues in that department.

So now with that out f the way, I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief that the whole world now knows.

Life is going on as usual. Work is busy; I’ll be speaking as part of a panel on Social Media use for the resort industry for the virtual ResortXpo on July 16th. Then, the following week I’m taking the week off for my camping trip with a girlfriend to go and enjoy Creationfest Northwest at The Gorge, WA. I’m still involved in a few music groups – including a songwriting group I feel is expanding my circle of experience in this lifetime – and I am doing my best to stay active by running a couple of times a week.

All in all life is good. As usual, I’m excited to see what the future holds… I guess I’ll have to just ride it out and find out. In the meantime, I can look forward to becoming as big as a house once again.