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Be Your Own Crisis Management Leader - COVID-19 in 2020

After many years of being a single Mom, I have learned a thing or two about how to manage things in the middle of a crisis.  After managing through numerous hurricanes and other weather related issues, as well as terrorist threats and other threatening situations, I really do feel that I have learned a thing or two over my 50 years on this planet.  What I remind myself to do EVERY SINGLE TIME, is to gather all of the information I can quickly, calmly and diligently, use both my brain and my gut instincts on the appropriate set of actions I should take.   I never wait for the government, my friends, my employer, the school district, or anyone else to tell me what I should and should not do.  I try to stay one step ahead of that, I am always prepared in advance.  This approach has served me well. Now that we here in Houston find ourselves in the beginning of this COVID-19 crisis, I would like to share with you what I myself have done so far. During the month of February, I kept up
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So I haven’t written an entry in a while.  I got hurt at work and the whole thing turned into ridiculous situation.  I always say that everything happens for a reason and I felt like the whole thing was a test and a learning/growing experience. It was a test to see how much more patient I have become now that I am older.  Maybe also a test for my professionalism and maturity level.  I was stuck in a bad situation that I had very little control over and I normally don’t handle those things very gracefully.   I was in a very painful and somewhat humiliating situation that went on for over a month.  I was embarrassed for getting hurt because all I do typically is sit at a desk all day.  It was a lot to navigate through.  But here I am, FINALLY getting on the other side of it. So what I call my “stupid injury”  happened when I helped one of the guys carry a 35 pack of water from his truck to my office.  Two of the bottles on the left side had fallen out.  So as i walked with it, the plas
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The More I Know

I was listening to a Cody Jinx song called “No Guarantees” on my way home from work yesterday.  There is a line in the chorus that goes, “the more I know, the more I know what I don’t know.  the only guarantee is that there ain’t no guarantees.”. something like that. Anyway, it got me thinking about this blog.  A lot of times I feel like I am writing it to my younger self.  One thing you might notice when you are in your 40s and 50s that is so awesome is that you start to realize that you understand life better, you know yourself better by now, and that wisdom you’ve earned along the way gives you a perspective that you didn’t have in your young adult years.  Because of my stage of life, I am eager to share my wisdom in hopes that others might benefit from it maybe? I am not a know it all.  Trust me, I realize I still have a lot to learn.  And I am definitely not pretending that anything I have to say in life or in this blog is all that brilliant or revolutionary.  I am just really
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My Two Biggest Childhood Influencers

My grandparents on my Mom’s side were by far my two biggest influencers growing up.  We called them Gran and Gramps.  What always fascinated me about them is that they grew up so differently than I did, yet they held a lot of the same values as I had in my own heart. The number one thing I learned from and admired about the two of them was the discipline and work ethic in which they lived their daily lives.   They were never trying to impress anyone, it was just truly how they were.  My Grandfather grew up on a farm, didn’t finish high school but worked hard everyday to provide for his family and my mother.  He worked at a chemical plant until he retired.  On his off days he had a 50 acre farm that he took care of with horses, cows, a garden and two stocked fishing ponds.  My grandmother was an extraordinary housewife.  Always clean, not a thing out of place and three meals a day, she prepared the best food ever,  They both took such pride in everything they did and they were such a
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The Songs in My Heart

One of the main ways that I relieve stress and stay positive on a daily basis is by listening to “my music”.  When I listen to a song that I really enjoy, I don’t just hear it, I FEEL it with every part of me.  Good music is extremely powerful in that way. This extreme connection to music started for me when I was a young teenager.  Journey and Pink Floyd were the first groups I remember listening to over and over.  Of course back then we had cassette tapes and eight track players.  With the invention of i-tunes and airpods, I can now easily and discreetly have my music playing almost constantly.  My playlists are like a Soundtrack to my life. I have a playlist entitled Anthem Songs. These songs are songs to live by and represent me.  My Wish by Rascal Flatts, This is Me by Keala Settle, Thy Will by Hillary Scott and Get to You by Michael Ray are at the top of my list.  I also have a Christian playlist and a Friday playlist. I’ve started really relying on having my music with me to
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Blame it on The Dixie Chicks - part one

It was 1999, before every vehicle and cell phone in America had a GPS.  This would have been before you could use the google man on the street feature to take a sneak peek of the new place you were visiting before you arrived.  I was on my way to a big job interview in a small Texas hill country town that I couldn’t remember the name of and had actually never even heard of before.  The recruiter had arranged my flight from Houston to Austin and they booked my rental car and hotel for me.  I was 30 years old and had never traveled alone like this. Nervous and excited, I knew that this was my chance to advance my career and break into Management.  I was newly divorced a few months prior adjusting to life as a single mother of two small children.  I had a house being built and under contract, but I knew I could easily back out of that if needed.  I was month to month on my apartment, so I could move out of it in 30 days if I decided to.   My oldest was about to start kindergarten, so pe
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Blame it on The Dixie Chicks - part two

As a single career driven Mom, living in a small Texas town, the song “Cowboy Take Me Away” was my theme song.  The lyrics of that Dixie Chicks song along with “Wide Open Spaces” took over my brain and my soul during that time in my life.  That’s my only explanation for what happened in October of 2001.  “I wanna walk and not run, I wanna skip and not fall, I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall, I wanna be the only one for miles and miles except for maybe you and your simple smile.”. “Cowboy take me away, fly this girl as high as you can into the wild blue.  Set me free oh I pray, closer to heaven above and closer to you, closer to you.” The September 11 terrorist attacks left our whole country feeling vulnerable and restless in 2001.  YOLO wasn’t a thing yet, but there was definitely a feeling of life is too short and live in the moment that everyone was experiencing.  I believe it was the mentality of that time in our country that prompted Tony, our 3rd
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