Productivity Flow...or and flow (gross, right?)

You may not want to hear this, but I don't really care. I am a woman, and as a woman, I have certain monthly obligations. For me, I've had this monthly obligation since I was nine years old. I am not Anne Sexton. I am not celebrating my uterus-no, not in the least. (You can find that poem here if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) What I'm actually doing is seeing how my monthly menstruation affects my productivity. Get the title? Cute, right?

If you don't know by now that I work from home, let me take this time to reiterate: I work from home. Now that you're caught up, let's move on. I recently put myself on a schedule to accommodate a few new responsibilities that I've acquired. Go me! For this schedule, I've set a certain number of tasks to do daily for each job. This way, I am constantly being productive and don't get behind in anything. This was a splendid plan until my period came on.

Today is Monday. As I was in the shower mapping out my list of things to do, I realized that I am a full day and a half behind schedule. Mind you it's only the eighth day of the month, so it's not too detrimental. The thing is, I was on schedule (even a little ahead in one area) until my period came on last week. Where did the time go? Well, most of it was spent curled up into a ball and the rest of the events that are coupled with that time of the month. The remainder of the time I was doing work...ever so slowly. Monumental Discovery: You really can't get a whole lot of work done in the fetal position!

Judging from all the Pamprin and Midol commercials, I'm not the only one whose period slows her down. All the tea, heating pads and ibuprofen in the world don't do a thing for me when 1) I feel like there's a monster trying to gnaw its way simultaneously through my stomach and back and 2) I'm convinced that I am hemorrhaging. So, I've come to a solid truth. I will fall behind at least once a month and have to make up for it the day after day 5 aka post-period day 1 aka p.p.day 1. Yes, I made those names up. You can use them or come up with your own if you would like.

How do you stay productive with Aunt Flow wreaking havoc? At this point, she has the upper hand on me. It could be worse though, I guess. I could be completely unproductive the entire five days. When I look at it like that, a day and a half isn't that bad.

Sporting my new last name

I became legitimate a couple weeks ago when I got my new social security card.(They have dates on them now. Did you know?)

I took my husband's last name. It was a big decision. Taking my husband's name wasn't the big decision. I knew I was going to do that. I didn't know what to do with my last name.

When I was in college (round 1), I took several gender/ feminist courses. At one point I even thought about making that a focal point of my studies. However, I was honest with myself. I was a little too wishy-washy. While I loved the idea of women's empowerment and all that comes with it, I was secretly coveting a traditional happily-ever-after.

All of the feminist theories I'd studied came flooding back at the exact moment the woman on the opposite side of my desk asked if I wanted to keep my last name and make it my middle name. At the time, my last name was my mother's maiden name. Keeping it would maintain the matriarchal thread. Sounds awesome, right? On the other hand, getting rid of my middle name would mean shedding a name that my mother actually chose for me. If you look at it like that, your last name is pretty much thrown upon you. So, is it really all that important?

I decided to keep my middle name and shed the last name that I'd sported for over a quarter of my life. What was the deciding factor? I love my middle name. That's pretty much it.Isn't the right to choose a pivotal component of women's rights? I chose.

How do I feel? I wasn't sure how I was going to feel at first. I feel like a new person. I feel like I can reinvent myself since I have a new name. It's exciting. All at once I feel independent and brand new while closer to my husband.

Wife vs. Linen...Let the ironing begin!

I'll cut to the chase. I lose the linen battle. It's not a small loss. It's one of those painful defeats you like to watch between your fingers. Yeah, it's just that bad.

My husband is always on the move, so I try to do little things to help him out like iron his work clothes. If I was any good at ironing, this wouldn't be that big of a deal. I give it a good try, so he never complains. I even looked up how to iron men's dress shirts on e-how. Those guys really do let you know how to do just about anything.

At any rate, I've greatly improved at ironing dress shirts. My most recent foe: linen pants. Yes, they look dashing. But, how do you really iron these? They laugh in the face of steam. Unfortunately, e-how tells me how to iron pants in general (not linen pants). After several website fails, I stumbled upon an AskMen.com post about linen.

So, you're apparently supposed to iron linen when it's damp. There's something my intuition never would have told me. And it should be ironed not once, but twice (once on each side). Yet again, that's just not something I would've known. Let's make a rule that retailers shouldn't be able to sell linen if they're not going to tell you how to care for it. It just may increase linen sales if you're not angrily ironing the linen garment that you purchased. Who would buy lots of linen garments if they're ferociously frustrated by them?

Are there any other linen tips or tricks? Who am I kidding? I'll take any ironing tips.