A) I’d like to say it was divine inspiration. I always knew I wanted to be a mom first, but on my 6th grade promotion sheet, I wrote down I wanted to be a lawyer, which still holds some truth. Initially, I planned to head down that path & worked two different jobs at law firms in the valley while I was in college. Shortly thereafter, inspiration struck & I quickly realized it might not be wise to have law school sized student loans if the degree just adorned the wall, while I wiped baby bums. I quickly changed course & set my law school dreams to the side and suddenly I was taking classes like, Puppetry in the Classroom. True story.
While I continued with my degree, I accidentally landed the job of my dreams working with a local home builder. It was a small office initially, but as the market took off, we grew & grew & grew. With the growth I was afforded the opportunity to wear almost every single hat possible. I answered phones, I pulled permits, I worked with subcontractors, I wrote checks, I spec’d out houses, I developed flooplans, I named streets, I sold houses & lots and I developed land. After all those years I graduated college and realized I really loved my job. After wearing all those hats we all decided I should land in marketing. With my position in marketing I taught myself Illustrator & began designing sale sheets & signage, hosting seminars & my very favorite thing? I, as a 22 year-old girl, bought a semi truck trailer, hauled it to be cleaned & prepped & then designed signage to be painted on it. It functioned as a huge billboard for us on some land we owned & I’m not going to lie, I’m still impressed with myself on that one.
From there, I got married, then had babies & had to hang up my real estate dreams. The thing was, I still knew Illustrator, I still had a laptop and I was already blogging. With only 1 baby at the time, I had some time on my hands. I started designing things for myself & having them printed through my old contacts with the home builder. At that point my sister, Lindsey had already started dabbling in photography & from there, the rest is history. She started taking more photography clients, I started taking more design clients & we quickly realized we were a match made in heaven. What I didn’t know, she did & what she didn’t know, I did. We’ve leaned on each other ever since.
Q) Tell me about your road getting there? Bumps? Successes? That moment when you felt like you had finally made it?
A) Oh there have been & still are a lot of bumps. If I’m being honest, I still feel like that 22 year-old girl that showed up in a real crummy part of town in my husband’s BMW to buy a semi-truck trailer. I had no idea what I was doing then, and sometimes now, I still feel like I have no idea. The thing is, I figured it out then, and I know I’ll figure it out now. That’s the fun part; figuring it out. I tend to like ‘figuring it out’ sessions to occur over chips and salsa with a Diet Coke.
Q) Tell me about your role as a working mother. How do you balance work and mommy hood? If you work from home, how do you get anything done?
A) Ha! Balance. That ever-elusive word. Does anyone ever achieve long-term balance? If so, I don’t think they are challenging themselves enough! I might strike a balance every now and again, but for the most part, we just do what we need to do. I don’t think I even strive for balance anymore, I just strive for happiness & sanity. The season’s of my business & motherhood move & evolve so quickly that any time I’ve struck balance, I know it is only momentary. For once I’ve figured out how to manage homework & dinner & a busy wedding season, well, my baby decides to start teething or my 6-year-old goes on a rebellious streak. That’s part of the territory.
Q) What is the best advice you’ve ever received or lesson you’ve learned?
Q) What has been the secret to your success as a working woman and mother?
A) Just do it. Sometimes I think we all talk ourselves silly, myself included. Instead of talking about it, just do it. Your biggest risk? It fails. It doesn’t work for your family. You don’t like it. All of those can easily be adjusted. Embrace the opportunity to fail. It is in the failure where I have learned how to make it work, and it will work differently for everyone. I wouldn’t trade away any of my failures.
Q) What advice do you have for other women wanting to pursue career ambitions, but also be mothers?
Q) How do you define success?
Best advice from my mother in law … Make as much noise when your infant is sleeping and they’ll be great sleepers. My oldest is twelve and sleeps through everything!
The best advice I’ve been given: step back and take it all in. In the moments when things are great, step back and look at it to lock it away in your memory. At your wedding, at your child’s first birthday party, or at a family reunion. Get caught up in the joy of the moment but also take some time to let it sink in.
Love this!!!
Don’t sweat the small stuff!
It is better to understand than to be understood.
The goal is growth, not perfection. {Following with heart & ink’d.}
My mom told me to not worry about how clean my house was and to sit down and PLAY with my kids…. my house will always be there but my kids will grow up.
Best advice ever given is to never go to bed mad at your spouse. Never have and never will.
Best advice I have ever been given – “don’t give up what matters most for what matters at the moment.” My mom put that quote up in the mudroom as a constant reminder.
Following withheart on bloglovin’! Name: calliebowers
Following ink’d on bloglovin’! Name: calliebowers
For aslong as I can remember my mom has told us to always be “kind and loving” no matter what! She is a kill them with kindness kind of lady! I have always tried to be kind and loving and it’s helped me in all aspects of my life, from my relationship with my husband to the ones I have with my clients.
It’s better to shoot for the moon and land in the stars than aim for a dung pile and hit it dead on.
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[…] to find the balance for ourselves & our families. You can read my remarks on her blog here. For Jen’s…read on: For any career-driven mother, it’s complicated. You […]
[…] we can’t forget to announce the winner of the WOMAN’S WORK feature from Amy Gregory of Ink’d […]