Last week I had several things I very much wanted (and needed) to get done in conjunction with the launch of the redesigned SaraBear website. I knew that I would need to be aggressive in my activity planning to keep the girls a) less aware of the unrelenting Adirondack humidity and b) relatively out of my hair in order to cross some things off of my list. I knew that my greatest chance of success lay in my successful choreography of a project that would put the big girls in plain sight of the littlest girl.

Successful projects when working from home, in my experience, tend to involve the weaving of said project into your work. Now, even though my girls can steer a mouse through iTunes and sing their abc’s, they have not yet mastered HTML, helping was out of the question. Parking them in front of the tv or computer, while occasionally effective, always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Taking my laptop outside fails as the glare from the sun is too intense and the dirt that Avery gets into and the water that Briar splashes in, put the baby and my computer in peril. Sigh.

Looking at my mountain of things that I take to and from the office each day I spied my research, magazines. A collage? No, that would mean 2 projects rather than 1. It needed to involve both girls and, quite honestly as much structure (read: less choices) as possible to allow more “project-doing” and less bickering. I grabbed a magazine and sought inspiration, it came in the form of water-colored sketches of women in Real Simple, a magazine that I love for its reassurance that everyone is really just trying to figure it out the “it” being managing work, family and organization.

I quickly snipped the heads off the illustrations as the wheels in my head turned, we’d make a garden.

A job well done.