I recently took a personality test (16personalities.com) and discovered that I am a Defender. Most of the qualities rang true, but the one that stuck out was “creates order from chaos”. This has described me in most of my life experiences.

I’ve worn many hats: waitress, teacher, tutor, wife, mom, homeschooler, nanny, essay scorer, moms group president, internet assessor, house manager…In all of these areas, I have felt a sense of accomplishment by creating order to the (however big or small) chaos.

I’m a planner, a list maker, a superb budgeter, and a creative thinker. I’m a fixer and I find a sense of pride in taking a project and making it work better for everyone. I like to build structure where there is instability. Examples would include taking a newly formed classroom and making it an organized learning space with implemented plans and guidelines. Or turning a social group that was struggling with enrollment and activities and giving it a strong foundation with policies and a variety of activities. I find it to be one of my strengths to know where and who to go to for the assistance I may need to make a project reach its potential.

Throughout these experiences, what I learned about myself is that I work best from home. I embrace the flexibility to be home when there is a day off of school, or run an errand, or even just have all the laundry going while I work from the next room. I have always been great at balancing my time (down to the minute!), and this ability became even more developed once I became a parent. While some people work better away from the distractions of home, I have a more focused mentality, knowing I have this flexibility rather than being distracted at work thinking about everything I need to get done after 5pm.

I’ve also learned that I work best with a variety of projects. When I made a list of all of the skills I have gained from my jobs and life experiences, I realized my skills could be valuable to others.

What better career is there for me than a Virtual Assistant?

I both love and hate packing school lunches. I love that feeling of providing a nutritious, but fun lunch that fits perfectly inside an EasyLunchbox. I imagine in my head that the teachers and other students envy the freshly sliced fruit salad or the homemade broccoli cheese soup. I think of my child every day at noon, enjoying my 7am creations and it gives me immense satisfaction..but I hate waking up early to make this happen.

Humble brag off of my social media page: spinach burger with feta and ranch, sweet potato fries, and apple straws that my child brought for lunch

Oh sure, I could make lunches the night before, but some things just don’t taste the same prepared 16 hours before eating them.

I could have my kid prepare her own lunch. This is true. I could also just toss the entire bag of veggie straws in her back pack because let’s be honest, that would be the equivalent.

Amid all of my woes, the one part I love is leaving notes taped to her lunchbox. I’m sure this stems from the nostalgia of my own mom writing notes for my lunches in elementary school, before it became uncool. It makes a difference in a child’s day. This precious joy of mine is used to seeing mom all day everyday and now she’s thrown into the world (albeit a safe and nurturing school). How can she survive without me constantly reminding her of my love? 😉

The lunchbox note. That’s how.

Here’s where planning takes a key role. I already loathe waking up before dawn to prepare a lunch for someone else, and there is absolutely no way “morning me” is in the right mentality to write a sweet, thoughtful note.

So when I have a solid half hour downtime, I spend it Googling easy to read (because elementary school) and meaningful lunch notes, as well as little kid friendly jokes (because love notes are great, but my kid likes to be the funny one in the room). Then I use my remedial drawing skills to draw relevant pictures. Then after preparing her lunch, I pick a card out of the pile and tape it on. Easy peasy.

It’s a good feeling knowing my daughter has a good lunch and a reminder of my love, and I will keep doing this for her…for as long as it’s still cool to get love notes from mom.