15th of August 2015
Dear Reader,
Allow me to tell you about myself. I'm Tin. I'm an overachiever perfectionist and a compulsive organizer. My fastidiousness has helped me in achieving academic excellence, awards, and recognitions when I was growing up with my young adult life culminated in a career with global consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble.
After almost 9 years with the company, I decided to trade in my corporate citizenship to become a full-time Mom. Little did I know that parenting would be the biggest challenge of my life yet, constantly testing my penchant for overachievement, perfectionism, and compulsion to organize. This experience is continually presenting opportunities for me to fine-tune what and, more importantly, WHO truly matters most in my life.
I was a unit sales manager for consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble for 9 loooooooong years, handling the biggest distributors and retail accounts in the country. I have always been a slightly temperamental overachiever perfectionist, and when I had to perform the dual role of climbing the corporate ladder and starting a new chapter in my life as a mom, I became miserable and guilt-ridden. My passion for achieving business results slowly shifted towards longing to spend more time with my daughter. My enjoyment for out-of-town conventions slowly transformed into counting down minutes until I can be home again with my daughter. And it sucked. Twice, I attempted to move to project management roles that required less travel and more regularity in schedule, but was consistently blocked in both instances by the company’s HR. And so in 2011, I decided to leave the corporate life to spend quality and quantity time with our 2 daughters.
I must admit, I was a bit lost and uneasy at first, not having to wake up to an alarm and having no work agenda to stress over. After a few months, I got pregnant with our third child. It was a breeze because our loyal like-family more-OC-than-me nanny and home manager Ate M., who’s celebrating her 20th year with our family tomorrow (16th of August 2015, as of this writing), was with me since our firstborn was 2 months old (I pirated her from my mom). But last summer, she filed for indefinite, but slightly permanent Grandma-ternity leave. Her family circumstances forced her to come home and take care of her 3-year-old grandchild and another one on the way. It coincided with our other household staff’s planned vacation and left me in a no-maid, no-nanny situation with my 3 kids aged 6, 4, 1+. I never got myself involved in the micromanagement of our household, and so my world topsy-turvied as I tried to figure out where kitchen utensils, baby essentials, and everything else were stashed. On top of having to wake up early to prepare breakfast, get the house cleaned up, laundry washed and hung before the kids wake up. These were activities I didn’t have to attend to when trusty Ate M. was here and running our household. My other household help eventually returned from her 5-month vacation (yes, seriously, 5 months!) and I found a new nanny who agreed to a one-year contract that ended just this May.
So here's to hoping for the best and keeping my sanity intact!
Yours truly,
#DomesticGoddessMNL