What a perfect day to launch our mommy blog!

Mothers’ Day is for celebrating moms and we decided to celebrate US by launching This Mommy Gig today. We’re a group of working moms trying to survive the juggling act of career and motherhood. We come from all over the U.S. and have different backgrounds, but we’re all dealing with the same issues. Join us in our quest (usually chaotic) to keep everything running smoothly.

Our children are different ages and we have different careers, but the craziness is the same. We’ll be writing about our experiences and ups and downs while we try to balance juggle career, motherhood, and relationships. We’re all writing on our own schedule - some days you’ll get all of us, some days none. We’re all insanely busy, but want to share our lives with other moms like us - after all, who could get through motherhood without friends and community?

Who are we? Here’s a brief introduction:

Kate

Kate Olson shares her 40 acres in Wisconsin with a husband, a 1-year-old boy, a 2-year-old girl, and a giant dog. She attempts to work at home and is constantly protecting her laptop from little hands and sippy cups - her printer has already been corrupted by a mini-technician and her “fix-it” paperclips. She’s a child of the ’80’s and mistakenly believed that women could have it all………ha. She’s an accountant turned stay-at-home mom turned teacher turned consultant, and always, always, always, no matter how hard she runs, MOM. She blogs about her other professions and lots of tech/geeky stuff at Kate Says. You can find her on twitter as @kolson29.

Stephanie

Stephanie Sandifer lives and works in Houston, Texas where she shares her life with an amazingly supportive and loving partner, two beautiful 4 month old twins — one boy and one girl, two yellow labs, and two spoiled cats. Stephanie works full-time in education at the high school level as an instructional coach, and has the great luck to work on a campus that has a daycare where the twins spend the day. Prior to her current education role, Stephanie studied and worked as a visual artist, graphic designer, and adjunct college art faculty. Her interest in education technology has led her to recent explorations with online education and she hopes to eventually become more involved in online eLearning adventures. As another “child of the eighties”, she feels passionate about focusing on family over career like many others of her generation, and she hopes eventually to find a better way to manage a career while also pursuing her passion for Motherhood.

A water-bug by nature who grew up in Southwest Louisiana, Stephanie enjoys the Houston weather (except in August) and access to the Gulf Coast. When she gets away from work she enjoys spending time with family and friends — especially when that time includes good Cajun food, barbeque, or chips & salsa and a sunny afternoon around someone’s pool or at a lake or beach house. She is also an avid reader and sports fan — especially college sports. She enjoys hiking, traveling, golfing, and can be found enjoying a nice dinner with wine as well as holding her own at a crawfish boil. She hopes to eventually dust off her golf clubs and her art supplies… someday…

Stephanie blogs about education, education technology, leadership, and school improvement on her own blog Change Agency and on the group blog LeaderTalk.org. You can also find her on LinkedIn and Twitter @ssandifer, and occasionally playing around in Second Life with a bunch of other edtech geeks on ISTE Island.

Christine

Christine Perkett is a busy mom of two busy boys, ages 3 and 6. As a working mother, Christine spends every day trying to maintain balance between her passion for family and motherhood and her drive to run a successful business. She founded and runs PerkettPR, Inc. - a high tech pr agency with over 30 employees across 10 states - in 1998.

Perkett is active in her local community as well as the city of Boston - serving as Vice President on the Board for Boston’s Business Marketing Association and is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Norwell Visiting Nurses Association in Norwell, Mass. In addition to writing for This Mommy Gig about motherhood and its joys and challenges, she also writes for her company blog and two personal blogs including Training4Dublin which follows her marathon training with her husband for the Dublin Marathon in October 2008. Perkett is also a Blogger for WomenForHire.com (run by Tory Johnson, the Workplace Contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America) and has been a guest-blogger for PRWeek. She has been a featured speaker on the topic of technology and PR and is also a published author in “Inside the Minds: Public Relations Best Practices” by Aspatore Books and was profiled in the “Entrepreneurial Small Business” college text book by McGraw Hill (January 2008).

Christine lives with her husband, children and three dogs – two beagles and a Chihuahua – in Marshfield, Mass. She enjoys the areas many beaches as well as running, kayaking, reading, writing, travel, wine, chocolate, cheese and is an avid Red Sox fan. If you can catch her in between her family and work commitments, you can connect with Christine on Linkedin, Facebook or on Twitter at @missusP.

Thanks for visiting and we hope you’ll be back!