The following guest post was written by Julie Frans, Co-owner of Dining Details, the featured gourmet caterer for the upcoming January 21st event, The 4th Annual Making The Most of Your Personal Strategy New Year Kickoff.  Julie also owns Chickpeas, which provides nutritious school lunches for growing children.  You can follow Julie on Twitter.

Julie is a member of Six Figure Moms Club.  I’m proud to know her and to have the opportunity to learn from her as another working mother following her dreams and working through the challenges every day.  Thank you Julie for sharing this wonderful post with us.  May you find everything you always wanted…that’s not already right in front of you.

You know you’re starving for a recharge when you drink it in like it’s a $5 Pulp Fiction milkshake.

I had so much work to do on my flight from San Diego to Houston but as a working mother doing double duty, I’d been jumping from one deadline to the next for weeks.  When I saw the in-flight movie preview, I felt a strong, undeniable pull to watch.  It seemed the best thing I could do for my sanity (and that of everyone around me) was pay some respect to work life balance, buy a headset, sit back and unwind.  After all, this is precious time on a plane, alone, no internet access, no cell phones allowed, no twitter (sorry friend).

This is the longest stretch I’ve ever gone without posting to my blog and I’ve missed you guys.  Where do I start?  Everyday I think about a blog post I’d like to write but time just passes by. What I need most is to clone myself.  I know you all know what I mean.  The days of a working mother are crazy during normal times but throw any wrench into the daily routine and everything goes haywire. We’ve had a few wrenches at my house in the past few weeks.

Again today, I am amazed at what you can reach if you just grasp for it. I don’t know why this continues to amaze me, since I continue to see it working in action, but I am still in awe of Law of Attraction.  I had my calender blocked yesterday to work on the January Six Figure Moms Club event.  My plan was to announce the upcoming “3rd Annual Making the Most of Your Personal Strategy New Year Kickoff”.  It’s scheduled for January 22 at a private residence in Fairbanks Ranch, Ca.

I’ve talked with women all over the US about the loss of identity that often occurs when professional women have children. This feeling seems to be common among executive women that I speak to who usually range in ages between 30 to 45.

For example, I once interviewed a woman who was previously a partner in a very large law firm in Washington DC making over $.5 Million per year. Prior to deciding to start a family, she was the major breadwinner for her family. Once she and her husband embarked upon becoming three, they decided her husband’s career would become the focus and hers would take the back seat.

I wanted to pass along a great opportunity to participate in a conference coming up in Orange county on October 16: The Next Generation of Work Flexibility: An Innovative Forum for Employers and The Flexible Work Force.

The goal of the event is to help promote an open dialog about flexibility in the workplace for the many professional mothers and fathers who struggle with work life balance and the employers competing for talent in today’s increasingly demanding work environment. You can read more specifics about the event at their web site but below are a few of the highlights of the conference:

I received great comments both online and in person regarding my previous post, “Is It Easier to Solve The Quadratic Equation or Work LIfe Balance?“so I thought it worthy of further discussion.  Specifically, Jen Potter posted an interesting comment.  We’ll investigate further but first let me tell you a little about Jen and how I know her.  I ran into Jen last weekend.  We probably hadn’t seen each other in over four years.  We used to work together in a large accounting department.  Jen is one of those people that sparkles.  She has an incredible personal compass, pizazz and a personal style that gets her noticed and liked wherever she goes.  She’s also been dealing with life threatening health issues since childhood but she doesn’t let that get in her way.  To the contrary, she uses it as motivation to be strong and live her life cherishing each moment.  When I ran into Jen last weekend she introduced me to her daughter and we talked about her current situation as a part time worker.  She said she told her employer she had to have part time work or resign.  That was the only option she could accept so now she’s working part time.  Jen is an accounts payable employee and she’s out there bellying up to the bar and making change for future generations.  She’s a pioneer in creating her best life and forging a path for flexible work because she’s asking for what she needs and designing a life outside of the box for herself and her family.   What an example for the rest of us?

As for me, I think I’ll take the quadratic equation any day. Not that I love algebra but at least I know it’s solvable. I’m not sure work life balance is. Perhaps it seemingly is one day and then the next day something goes haywire. Did you ever see that pinball machine called Haywire? If you hit a certain bumper, everything goes crazy? That’s what my life feels like when I’m living the facade of work life balance and then one little thing gets tipped. For example, my daughter gets a virus and I have to cancel all of my appointments, then she gives it to me, and I cancel more appointments. You know the drill. Everything goes haywire.