This is so sad to admit

The company line is work/life balance.

 I like to say life/work balance.

Friday, while I worked at home I realized how out of balance my life is.

Work is insane, out of control, stressful and all consuming.

I didn’t realize how out of tilt I was until around lunchtime.

I had planned to make a can of soup for lunch.

No big task you would think.

I opened the can of soup and added a can of sliced mushrooms.

Into the pot they went.

Then it happened, my reality check about the balance in my life.

I stared at the stove I bought back in February.

I had no idea how to use my dream stove.  It has a flat cook top, double oven where you can cook at
different temps and one of them is also a convection oven (whatever that means).

I took a guess based on the images next to the dials on the stove.

I guessed wrong.

When I get home at night on the nights I commute, Jenn fixes us something like soup.

Easy and quick.

The key words in that sentence above are “ Jenn fixes us”.

Jenn has used the stove and oven many times since February.

I end up too tired from work/life to do anything except grab something from the fridge.

Hummus and celery. String cheese and turkey pepperoni. Nothing fancy or that takes more than an ounce of energy.

Who owns a new stove and finally tries to use it and has no idea how to use it after all this time?

I thought I had it figured out.

I put the pot on the stove, turned on the burner and went back to work.

I guess my sense of hearing and smell are not great.

I thought I heard the soup sizzling.

I thought I smelled the soup.

I went to the stove and poured the soup into a cup.

Back to the table to working.

I took my first mouthful of the yummy, hot lunch.

It was barely warm in fact more cold than luke warm.

I was so hungry I ate it, the cold cream of mushroom soup with sliced mushrooms.

How pathetic is that?

I had a conference call coming up, so I didn’t have time to go hunt down the owners manual to figure out how to use the damn stove.

It was as I sat there eating that cold soup, it hit me again like a 2X4 !

I need to stop preaching to others about LIFE/WORK balance, if I am not going to practice what I preach.

There are always defining moments in life and not knowing how to use a stove I have owned for more than six months is one of them.

Work is not all my life encompasses. It pays the bills, provides challenges and interaction with great people.  I think I am a good manager and I care about my team.

BUT my life is more than just my career.

I have an incredible daughter, a family that loves me and wonderful friends who really do care about me. They all put up with my moods, my highs and lows.

They have all encouraged my to stop and smell the roses and enjoy this journey called life.

How do I take control back?

Baby steps I guess.

When I finish writing this I think I will go find the owners manual for my stove or maybe I can just ask Jenn for a lesson so I can make myself a can of soup tomorrow.

Damn job.

LOL damn stove.

See you next week.