Law & Motherhood

On with the new…

March 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Three years ago today one of my closest and dearest friends, the man I termed my life partner for purposes of the bar exam, drowned in his apartment swimming pool.

Today three of his friends, three people deeply affected by his death, joined forces to build a successful business.

I can’t honestly say that we three would have been seated around a table today negotiating the terms for the merger of our fledgling firm with their established one if he hadn’t died three years ago. I can’t say our law school connection would have grown into the bond we have now without that shared loss.

So today, amidst a few tears and the shadow of sorrow, I toasted the future and realized that a decade from now this day will be as synonymous with our success and the brightness of our future as it has been for our shared sorrow over the loss of a comerade in arms.

To the future… and its roots in the past.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Law · grief

The art behind the business.

March 2, 2010 · 1 Comment

It turns out there is an art to being a small business owner. Primarily the art of turning future earnings into bill paying money. I still haven’t found a creditor who likes to hear me say “I have several cases ready to settle and should be able to pay you in five months!!”

I have been working a contract job doing document review and while the work does occasionally cause me to think longingly of flights out of the twenty-two story window it also pays the bills. I have been tossing the business building in at night and on weekends. The problem with this set up is that I rarely see the kids and little Otter is a very sad boy when he doesn’t get to see his mama.

Which is how I ended up agreeing to work a hot dog cart for a weekend or two a month.

Yes, that’s right. This lawyer is going to be slinging hot dogs during bar rush to bring in the cash instead of slowly killing myself reviewing 300 documents a day. (My contract job makes the positions in Office Space seem like interesting career paths.) It turns out there is a fair amount of money to be had from the hot dog cart business if you happen to know a guy and I do. I can make more in a weekend night selling hot dogs than I can sitting in an office all day clicking buttons. My daughter can come along to keep me company and earn a little extra cash helping me out, well until bedtime comes around. Maybe she can earn that DSI she has been begging for.

The best part will be telling this story to incoming associates once the firm is established and profitable. “You all have it easy! Back in my day we worked hot dog carts to bring in extra cash while we built this place up from nothing!”

→ 1 CommentCategories: Law

Udi’s good, Ener-G bad.

March 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Moving onward in the gluten-free food reviews;

I have tried three kinds of gluten free bread so far. Udi’s is the best hands down and I strongly advise buying it. You can get it in the freezer section of Vitamin Cottage or check out their website for closer distributers. (I wouldn’t bother buying it from them online directly as it would cost about $20 a loaf to send it before it went off.) It makes a really good toast and a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich.

Ener-G Brown Rice bread on the other hand is revolting. It tastes like burnt rice. Their tapioca bread is moderately better, but only because it has no flavor, instead of a bad flavor. Skip this brand. Trust me.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Gluten-Free

A not so bad solution to brownies.

February 28, 2010 · 1 Comment

One of the things I thought I might do as I wander my new gluten-free path is review the GF products I try and let you know whether or not you should bother spending the additional cash for something that may just taste like sawdust. To that end I present my first GF review:

Week three of the no gluten diet started with a day where I was tormented by a box of double chocolate donuts at the office. All day long when I went to get coffee I could smell pure chocolate rising out of the box. All day long I watched the number of gooey donuts decrease. All day long I felt irritated that most gooey chocolate treats are made with wheat and that even chocolate itself often has barely malt in it.

That irritation ended today.

Today I made Namaste gluten-free brownies and smothered them in Nutella.

I have eaten three so far, the kids love them, and my girlfriends enjoyed them too. They aren’t traditional brownies with chocolate frosting, but they are good enough to be something delicious on their own instead of a poor replacement!

So! Namaste gluten-free brownies are a go for this gluten free newbie and are good enough to offer to guests without apology for their lack of traditional ingredients.

Namaste Foods, Gluten Free Brownie Mix, 30-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6)

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*Disclosure: I am not paid by Namaste to review their brownie mix but the above link is my Amazon affiliate link so I will get a small kickback if you feel the sudden desire to order 6 bags of brownie mix from my website right now.

→ 1 CommentCategories: Gluten-Free

Now with less gluten!!

February 27, 2010 · 3 Comments

My mom told me she is being tested for celiac’s disease a few weeks ago. I didn’t know a lot about celiacs so I went to Google to learn more and discovered something very interesting.

All the utterly random things I have been seeing neurologists for since I turned twelve are side effects of celiac’s disease.

Migraines, carpal tunnel like symptoms, seizures, bone and joint pain, fatigue, tooth discoloration, abdominal pain.

So, given that I have had over a dozen MRI’s because of my migraines in addition to a wash of other tests and an incorrect epilepsy diagnosis I thought I might try and see if I have a gluten allergy. I had two choices, call my doctor and schedule an endoscopy or stop eating it and see how I feel. I chose the second.

I am in week number three and I am feeling a great deal better. My joints have stopped hurting, my headaches are less frequent and rarely approach the level of a migraine, my weird little thumb seizure appears less frequently. I have more energy and am sleeping better too, though that may have more to do with the fact that I can’t eat 95% of the crap available to me every day and am eating more healthily than it has to do with gluten. All I know is that I feel better all over, and not eating gluten has done what twenty-two years of medical science couldn’t.

The downside is a real pain in the ass diet. Gluten is in virtually everything. The upside is better health, and I am guessing a great weight loss plan and I can’t eat most fast foods, junk foods, and restaurant meals. I was really down when I figured out I can’t drink beer. I love to go to the Cheeky Monk and toss back a few belgian brews so I was really bummed when I first started. Happily I discovered Argonauts, a nearby liquor store, carries a wide variety of gluten free beer, including three belgian ale’s with solid flavors.

So, I raise a glass of Green’s Gluten Free ale and toast a future free of pain and gluten.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: health

Second skin…

February 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment

I seem to accept my new roles in life a long time after I fill them. I spent years feeling like a fake mother, someone who was going to be caught doing it all wrong by all the “real parents” out there. I spent years feeling as though I was acting the part of spouse, certain the requirements of the role weren’t quite a perfect fit for me and doing my best to fill them anyway. I spent years feeling uncertain and tentative as a professional, certain I would jump to quickly to answer something and end up making a fool out of myself.

Today I feel like me.

Today all my roles fit snugly against me, like a second skin. Motherhood is me. Marriage is me. Lawyer is me.

It’s nice to meet me.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Just me

My jealous mistress…

January 14, 2010 · 1 Comment

The law firm is really getting off the ground. We have paying clients and everything! It is very hard and very rewarding work. It does take me away from my children during the day, and occasionally at night. Otter started school a couple of days a week last week and that helps me carve more time out of the day for the office but I need more. A lot more. I need time for a full time job plus some.

They say law is a jealous mistress. I always thought that phrase was really intended to describe the amount of time the practice of law carves out of one’s personal life but I realize now that it more accurately describes the nigh-all consuming passion one can feel for the practice of law. During law school I remember living the law. I dreamt it, studied it all my waking hours, and never stopped thinking about it (even sometimes during sex). Suddenly I find myself in a similar position. This new firm is pulling my mind away from everything else in my life. I am obsessed with it, much like I imagine one could be obsessed with their partner in an illicit affair.

I have to pull my mind away from all the little to-do lists, the elements of the claims we are making in various cases, the complaints I am drafting in order to participate in motherhood, my spousal relationship, and with my friends. I was out at a bar last night with no other lawyers and still ended up discussing the legal aspects to developing a 501(c)(3) non-profit with another bar patron. I couldn’t stop myself from diving into the law the moment the topic was released.

The most interesting/disturbing/wonderful thing about this is that I am having so much fun! I am immersed in this corner of my world and loving every minute I spend there. I long for my networking events so I can talk to other lawyers, I feel more comfortable around other lawyers than I do virtually anyone else, and all I want to do is study, work, and live the law. It’s like waking up in the middle of third year of law school again, excited to see what new techniques and rules I discover and what rights I can wrong. Best of all, this time comes with a paycheck.

→ 1 CommentCategories: Just me · Law

Water babies…

December 29, 2009 · 1 Comment

Sometimes the mama-razzi gets the best of me. This was one of those times.

Frozen in time.

Eyelashes.

Monkey.

Otter flies his boat out of the water.

Monkey monkeys around.

A baby curl.

→ 1 CommentCategories: Monkey · Otter · Photography

My favorite kind of holiday gift…

December 28, 2009 · 2 Comments

Like most people there are many little things that please me about holiday gift giving. I love thoughtful gifts, well planned gifts, creative gifts, charitable gifts, handmade gifts. However, over the past few years my cousins have given me something I have come to enjoy above all other little presents. Homemade jam and jelly. Each year they tuck a jar into their other present as almost an after thought and each year I spend the following week gobbling up toast and english muffins spread with their utterly delicious jelly. I can’t help myself, it is the feature ingredient in every breakfast until the moment it is gone, the last few smears scraped from the jar with a spatula.

Homemade jelly just tastes better. It’s colors are deeper, it’s flavors are richer, so much less of it goes so much further, and it has the ability to turn each item it is spread on into a trip back in time to the March’s breakfast table. Spreading it onto my toast feels like the playacting I used to do as a child and sitting down to eat it feels like a treat, every time.

I wish my cousins would simply pack me a selection from their family jar each year and give me nothing else. While their other gifts are tasteful and appreciated nothing makes me happier than to see that shining jar nestled neatly inside my package, placed there as just a little extra small gift, waiting for breakfast.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: holidays

Holiday messages…

December 14, 2009 · 1 Comment

Every year we try and remember the positive socially concious ideas behind the holiday season and behave accordingly. We go through all our stuff and donate everything we can in November, we choose several charities to assist or gift to, and we try and focus on spending time with our loved ones instead of money on them. This year we are focusing a little on the ecological side of giving.

To start with we did e-cards this year instead of paper cards. Every year Americans generate some additional one million tons of household waster over the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s day (according to the EPA).  That number represents 20 percent of the waste generated by our country each year. I believe doing everything I can do to minimize our part in that is hugely important. Hence the e-card.

We are also making our own wrapping paper out of recycled grocery bags decorated with stickers and stamps, and we are shopping primarily at Amazon which is working with their retailers to minimize the packaging on their products. We also give handmade gifts with no packaging at all and try to recycle any of the packaging we get.

So, with that in mind, Happy Holidays everyone! We wish you a joyous 2009 holiday season and a fantastic 2010!

→ 1 CommentCategories: environment · holidays