Achoo! Work life balance is a myth.

I am allergic to conversations on work life balance. Basically, they make me feel uncomfortable and guilty, which make my eyes red and itchy. (And allegra doesn't seem to make the deadlines go away...)

So I was happy to see this article in Fast Company by Craig Chappelow, "Work/Life balance is a myth; here's what you can do about it." There was no real news in the article, but I liked this a lot:

Here’s what I tell [executives]: work-life balance is a myth. That myth compels many of us to view an ideal life as a set of perfectly level scales. On the tray on one side is your personal life. On the other side is your work life. With heroic efforts, you can keep both trays exactly level. If one starts to tip too far, you make some kind of nifty move that balances them again.

In reality, that perfect balance almost never occurs, except for those rare, fleeting moments when the trays pass each other on the way up or down--and we’re too frazzled to appreciate that brief moment of self-actualization anyway.

In professional life (both academically and previously in industry), I tend to find it's feast or famine. There are times when everything is going nuts, and there are times when things are calm, peaceful, and somewhat boring.

In personal life, things are usually calm, peaceful, and somewhat boring with occasional intense, dramatic moments. Some of these dramatic moments are quick and minor (flat tire, broken furnace, lost filling, puking child), some of these moments are lengthy and painful (health decline / death of family members, financial worries, etc).

It is not possible to predict when dramatic moments will occur in real life, and it's only a little bit possible to predict when fires will happen in professional life. So I tend to agree that having work life balance is a bit of a myth.

Separating Carbs & Fats ~ My Rationale

I get a fair amount of traffic here from time to time thanks to my posts about Zoe Harcombe and the Harcombe Diet.  Zoe's dietary philosophy boils down to parroted Taubesian Pseudophysiology, but one of the things she advocates, that I've discussed here before, is the strategy of separating carbs and fats and having them at different meals.  She makes a lot of comments about how calories don't count and all that too ... so the Google searches on her name and/or CICO or the separating carbs & fats thing tend to land folks here at the Asylum.  As a result, apparently just enough folks know enough about my stance on carbs & fats to misrepresent my position in discussions about the web.  More than once I've been described as subscribing to "that old food combining nonsense" or things along that line.  I've long since passed the point where I could answer to these various misconceptions everywhere they are found, but in this case, it's happened enough times that I thought I'd set the record straight on this issue.

Read more »

*images courtesy of pretty stuff, pinterest, bippity boppity boo, brown dress with white dots

Congressman Darrell Issa: FDA's email monitoring of "whistleblowers" communicating with Congress was illegal

In followup to my post of Jan. 30, 2012 "Can You Sue the Government? FDA Whistleblowers Sue Over Surveillance of Personal e-Mail" I provide a link to a probing letter from Darrell Issa, Chairman, US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to Margaret Hamburg MD, Commissioner of the FDA.

The letter raises the issue that FDA's email monitoring of "whistleblowers" communicating with Congress was illegal ("unlawful, and will not be tolerated"), and the illegality was further compounded by harassment and retaliation against the "whistleblowers."

Many probing "who? why? when?" questions are asked of FDA.

I do not have free text of this letter, just a link to images of the letter. I cannot post the text (no access to OCR of a PDF at the moment), but the letter images are here:

http://www.whistleblowers.org/storage/whistleblowers/documents/FDAComplaint/issaletter.fdaspying.pdf

Worth reading in its entirety.

-- SS

atlanta was a blast!!  well worth the effort it took to get there and so much fun to see old friends!!  one thing i LOVE about atl is the shopping.  i get so much inspiration from the stores there!!  here are some of my go to shops there:
Gramercy: amazing bedding, headboards, monograms and the girls who run it couldn't be any cuter!!

Pieces: i mean, pieces is just the bomb.  i was absolutely drooling over the lucite bentwood chairs upholstered in hot pink wool (why did i not take a picture).  to die for.

Scout for the Home: beautiful pillows, love the unique furniture (really wanted to take this table home w/ me), and pretty table top accents.

 Bungalow Classic: didn't get to make it here this time but i ALWAYS stop here.  best store ever.  such great upholstery, amazing vignettes, great lighting, and bedding... the whole store is full of inspiration.

South of Market: love the industrial feeling of this store, such clean lines in the furniture, fabulous custom pillows, and killer vintage lighting (used several of these in clients homes).

Mrs. Howard:  if you haven't had a chance to experience one of pheobe howard's stores, you are missing out.  it's absolutely stunning....it's not like a typical store.  it's like walking into a showhouse.  a must see for any design lover.

and i highly recommend going to atl w/ girlfriends...b/c they make everything more fun.....

hope y'all had a great weekend too!!