Women are tough! I am inspired every day by the challenges that women overcome and take on in both their professional and personal lives.
 
When I was a child, my mother had a plaque that someone had given to her that sat on our kitchen windowsill. It read, "Wonder Woman Works Here." I always noticed it for some reason, and admired my mother for being exactly that in my eyes – Wonder Woman. She was beautiful, strong, smart, active, busy, funny, well-liked and yet envied, and so many other things that I never realized.
 
As I grew up, I watched my mother (mom to me and two older brothers) go through many jobs – she worked at a racquet ball club, a newspaper, Mary Kay, a hospital and more. She went to church and attended all of our school functions, was in community theatre and very active in endurance racing (on horses). She cooked and cleaned and entertained. Although she inspired me, I never quite realized just how busy she was – and how working mothers really are wonder women. When I had my own children – two boys – I discovered an entirely new appreciation for her and for women in general - and especially working mothers, as I strove to balance motherhood and marriage with a career and business ownership.
 
I found that the balance wasn't just about the things other people see: your time at the office and your time at home, attendance of school activities and attendance of work events, or your attention to your spouse and to your children. Striking balance – which is a daily challenge, not an absolute – also consists of internal challenges: guilt about working, guilt about not working hard enough. Taking the kids to the doctor or attending the big board meeting. Breast feeding or not. Having a second or a third child … and still working, or not. Making such tough choices is something working women grapple with every day.
 
Not only are women much harder on themselves for working than men are, we also bear the uncomfortable situation of pregnancy (while working, many in jobs on their feet all day), as well as the pain of childbirth – further testament to the fact that women keep going in tough situations, while many men I know won't even go to the doctor or dentist for fear of needles or pain. Men get a cold and act as though the world has ended, while women – especially  mothers – plow through it in order to pack the lunches, lay out the clothes, ensure the homework is done, check the backpacks, fill out school paperwork, make breakfast, and get the kids off to school – and then scramble to get to work themselves. Sure, some men do both – but in most households, women continue to lead the majority of the day to day child rearing – jobs or not.
 
I've seen my working mother friends go through the most challenging of situations – and not only keep working, but keep the household running, including:

• Battling cancer
• Divorce
• Taking care of special needs children
• Losing their job, searching for and landing a new one
• Supporting their husbands who lost their job
• Losing their home to fire
• Managing the transition of life for their aging parents

And many more. I am reminded of how tough women are every single day. We don't have invisible planes or bullet-reflecting wrist cuffs. We may not have golden lassos or cool crowns, but working mothers are a group of the toughest women I know. And so, I'm glad to be here as a new blogger, sharing my experiences, learning from other tough women and always striving to be "perfect" - or at least pretty darn good enough – at both work and at home.