Husband Credits

I love my husband. I actually admire him quite a bit. And I love him a whole lot. He's a great father. He helps me everyday with the little things and the big things. I wouldn't have this life, this wonderful happy life, without him.

I'm actually uncomfortable gushing about him. I have a friend who is so very good about praising her husband and children. And part of me feels like "Wow! How can that marriage be real?" Where are the warts? But I'm sure they are there. But when you sit down and start to really think about what you are going to write, you don't think about the crap. You reflect upon the good or the emotional, the inspiring moments and thoughts. Observer effecting the phenomena.

Top Five Major Good Things That I Credit My Huband With:

1. Our family. It's true that your love your children more than anything you can imagine. So my son and the son I'm about to bring into the world. Not to mention my little dog whom I love but never would have without my husband.

2. My divorce. Long before I married current my husband, he was a good friend who wasn't afraid to make me see that my first marriage wasn't right. Actually, I'm convinced that anyone who knew me well and loved me could see that I wasn't happy. But my first husband was/is a saint and I constantly felt overshadowed and inadequate. And he didn't help. I think in his own way, he was happy to be in a marriage where he was worshiped and it was OK for the wifey to be not-good-enough. I was too afraid to get out of my relationship with my first husband. Once you feel insecure or not-good-enough, you are sealing your fate. Ladies, do NOT ever convince yourself that you aren't good enough for love, reciprocation, happiness. You ARE deserving and if you are with someone who makes you feel "not worthy", GET OUT of that trap! No matter how hard it is to do, you'll never find happiness by staying it in!

3. Our marriage. Oh yeah, my current marriage has plenty of warts. Soon after my divorce I read The Good Marriage. This put my first marriage into perspective. More importantly, it helped me identify what kind of marriage was the right for me. I was able to figure out that the role in a marriage I felt most comfortable in was a traditional one. Call me old fashion but between my husband and I, we have pretty traditional man-woman split of responsibilities and strengths. After having a baby, the biological aspects of this were just further reenforced. The fact that my husband is comfortable being "The Man" of the house and he's comfortable having a wife that is ok with the traditional role and STILL wants to have a career and he doesn't feel threatened by my success or by my strengths is HUGE.

4. My career. My husband is also a software engineer. And not only is he good, he's got incredible business savy. His business accumen makes him so valueable on top of the technical strengths and leadership. With his coaching, my career has really taken off. I went from a severely underpaid and under valued individual contributor position to one of leadership (without formally managing) in a company that really values me. My husband actually assessed my current company before I interviewed there and what's funny is that they would love to have him.

5. My happiness. Basically, my husband has convinced me that not only can I be happy, I deserve it and he encourages me to live and do things to make me happy. I'm always complaining that my husband is selfish. But he's trying (and with some success) to convince me to be more selfish and less selfless. Less martyrdom, less soccer mom, less volunteer to go out of my way. This coaching came at a good time since having a baby really effects how thin I can spread myself. The happiness comes from not feel guilty or like a bad person when I put myself first, put myself or my family's needs first. I think I'm a better mom for this. And I'm happy almost all of the time. I'm actually also in love with my husband and my child and my dog. And I owe all this to my husband.

6. Our future. OK there is one more I need to sneak in here. I used to think that I would be dead before I was 20. Yes, I was a morbid teen. Anyway, after 20, I sort of lived in this world where my first husband was the only real focus in my life and I think I spent all of my time thinking and obsessing about him and my relationship with him. I'm not saying this was his fault; it was my own doing because I didn't have anything inside of myself to put me first. Anyway, I lived this life for almost 10 years. It wasn't until I started to study computer science at Berkeley did I figure out that I had a passion for doing something. Unfortunately, my first husband wasn't used to the competition for my attention. Or even weirder, he would say things like my earning potential was higher than his and that he would follow me wherever I wanted to go. Now I know all these things sound supportive. But remember, I'm most comfortable in a traditional role where I am not the driving factor. So this extreme was exactly the opposite of comforting, it was TERRIFYING! And sort of selfish in that it was all on me and I had to be the leader. But my current husband, he's got a vision, a plan. He sees what he wants his future to be and I'm happy to participate and contribute. For example, we have a house. I never wanted to have a house. And a child with another on the way. I was never really sure that I wanted children but my current has ALWAYS wanted a family. Sometimes, I don't know what I want and my life has shown me that I don't always know what is good for me or what makes me happy. But my husband is so confident and truly strong. And I lean on him for support and vision. And together we've come up with a good life and a good life plan.

There is so much more that I credit my husband for. But I've rambled enough for one night.

Fear and Loathing (OK just Loathing)

After taking 2 days off of work (well, more like 4 since coders work weekends), I'm back in the swing of things. And I can't decide if I hate it. Oh, I like the code part. It's the other stuff that comes with being an engineer/lead that sort of make me nuts. Like the politics of work life, communicating and setting expectations, clarifying things that are built in the code but folks tend to forget, etc. It all boils down to, coders like to code but being a software engineer is so much more than the code. It doesn't have to be but it is for me.

I have this thing called a career. And most of the time, I wish I was just a heads down individual contributor who was told what to do and I would just get to decide how to do it and just get it done. But I spend a lot of my day wrangling with intra-team dependencies, setting expectations and trying to coordinate with others. And because I don't love it, I'll NEVER be a manager. I would rather shoot myself in the head than be a manager. Career limiting as it is, I'd rather stare blankly at my emacs screen than devote my entire day to meetings and email. Though lets face it, I spend most of my days in meetings and email correspondence. Geez! When did my life turn into this?

I finally told my teammates and coworkers that I'm expecting another baby (boy) this coming May/June. And like a typical bunch of engineers, they could care less. Meaning, I work mainly with men and though they may or may not have kids, a coworker taking time off to have a baby is like a "vacation" notice rather than a life changing event. One young man got up enough guts to ask me if having a baby effects my mental faculties. I told him "Yes, it's called mommy-brain. I can't remember anything which is why I wiki everything." Typical mommy thing to do, turn an innocent question into an opportunity to lecture. I loath myself.

I have more loathing. I recently took some time off because my MIL was visiting. And like a typical son of a nagging mother, my husband hid behind his computer and claimed he had a pressing deadline. (This is true of course but I still want to paint the unfair picture anyway. ha-ha) Anyway, the loathing part is that I think I'm supposed to like my MIL. And we survived the visit better than fine. I didn't lose it until we were driving home from the airport. But I totally LOST IT big time in the car trip home. My husband made some comment about how it hurt him that I snorted "Yeah, it is YOUR mother after all." I sort of lost it. I didn't want to play fair, I didn't want to be the bigger person, I didn't want to take the high road. I wanted to be a screaming pouting teenager who hates all authority figures and wants to slit her wrists and make a scene and cause high drama. I was tired of being good and putting on my nice suburban wife face while I bit back words and snarky replies. I wanted to vent and scream.

The loathing is because I DID vent and scream. How horrible am I to take out 5 days worth of angst on my husband, in front of my son, everyone trapped in the minivan ride from HELL?

I really do hate myself. And after being up all night fixing a cosmetic bug in some crappy JSP code, I'm going to be just lovely tomorrow, I'm sure.

Atleast I fixed a leftover turkey casserole for dinner, finished the laundry and returned to being a domestic, coding goddess before hubby and baby went to bed for the night. I doubt that makes up for my 10 minute rant in the car today but atleast I bounced back quickly.

Sunshine in the midst of Black Clouds

Let's see. Saturday started with a patch candidate build break (JSP grew too large and could not pass precompilation, ugh!). Had to miss a christening which made me sad since there aren't that many of those good ole Catholic rituals in the all too progressive Silicon Valley set. Of course I tried to get my son baptised but after a couple attempts at contacting the church in PA where I grew up, I gave up. I could do it in Menlo Park but...I dunno, I'm still not feeling connected yet. My husband (who since I married him has become much more of a lunatic atheist, not because of the marriage mind you) said that if God wanted to see me, He wouldn't have let the build break. Spoken like someone who thinks God works in not-so-mysterious ways.

I digress. My local build has been down for most of the week. I've been in so many meetings that I don't make any progress on my bug list and I'm supposed be done on Friday (um later today). And guess what! Tonight I am up late because the same breakage on Saturday has now manifested on another code line and though it is not my fault I still feel like I should fix it. I think I'm a glutton for punishment.

I get to find out the gender of my baby today. That's one bright ray of sunshine.

And my son now says "choo-choo" and "waffle" and gives me kisses through his crib rails. Oh he's so sweet! That's a lot of sunshine!

I guess no matter how bad work is, my home life is so great that I can't really feel down.

Happy New Year! Bearer of Bad News

"Don't nobody bring me no bad news." sings the wicked witch in "The Wiz". I was part of that play in high school. I believe I was a part of the Yellow Brick Road foursome and one of the Dancing Poppies. Not big roles. Could never pass the singing auditions due to bad nerves though I'm fine in a small group; no solos.

Anyway....I started this year at work feeling like crap. I feel like I tell my boss and Product Managers bad news or guarded news everyday. I'm terribly honest and I try not to spin too much when I have to tell folks about the realities of software, how long it takes to fix a bug, etc. I'm honest because I believe it is my job. But I HATE it because I never feel "popular" meaning who wants to hear from the woman who never seems to say something sunny?

But today I heard my CEO say that he wants to hear the bad news. And I can't agree with him more. I quite publically said that if Engineering doesn't come clean and tell our Products Team or the Sales Force the TRUTH about our product, we put them in a compromising position. We don't enable them to do their jobs and we fail to work as a TEAM. Their job is to advocate our work and our product. They aren't going to sell us out; they are there to spin and negotiate and set expectations. It felt good to publically share this in front of the company. If felt good to try and encourage people to be confident and brave and work well together.

I hope that folks take this to heart. I see too much insecurity, too much blame-game or duck-and-cover or CYA from folks and I think that is UNHEALTHY. Not that people should be outspoken and blunt like me (atleast not always or not all people) but I do appreciate it when people think critically about things and reflect on ways to solve problems as well as identify them.

Happy New Year! I think 2007 is going to be great. I finally feel like there is some hope in Washington, DC and that my views will be better represented and better empowered.