Being Sick Sucks

I have a bunch of HR topics I could write about today like employee engagement, job-search attitude, credibility, compliance coaching, and buying "likes" but I can't.

I haven't had a chance to consider my message or my delivery because I spent the last week fighting off a strep-mono-pneumonia-influenza-whooping cough-like germ. I was down for the count. I cancelled out of my wine tour 60 minutes before I was to leave the house for my rendezvous with the girls.

I should have seen it coming for weeks and now know my "run it off" approach wasn't the best one to take. There wasn't any need to discourage me from working during my sick time, because it just wasn't happening. The Blackberry held no appeal for me and I couldn't focus long enough to make a difference if it did.

I was bad enough off that the sympathies came out. The kid got her craft on and made me these gifts one of the first nights:

There's always learning in life and here's what I am taking away from the last week:

• Being sick s***ks
• I am a much better sick person now than I was in college
• Health stations in grocery stores on Sunday mornings are useless
• Everything seems so much better with a sympathetic ear from an LPN with a sweet voice and a lollipop colored uniform

The silver lining? If I could run a 60 minute 5 mi run with pneumonia on a hot Saturday morning, I should be able get that closer to 50 minutes when I am well! I'd like to be lacing up my shoes now but the body is just not up to it - yet. I'll take the rest of the week to catch up from being our last week and wellness at home as I give my body the time it needs to heal.

Stay well!

Back-to-School Shopping: A Day in the Life Sunday

As the Sunday papers expand with back-to-school ads, I begin to plan for school shopping now as I flashed back to my own school shopping days.

We had a school shopping day where we headed out to make the rounds and we likely didn't stop until the last item was in the bag. There were the necessary items we picked up from Genovese drug store like notebooks, pens and a pencil or two (I don't remember having the long lists the kids have now) . . . and then there were the clothes.

One of 3 kids from a single parent home, we had food on the table, a roof over our head and there was not room for extras and one school shopping day, that's where the needs and wants of a teenage girl clashed.

Raise your hand if you remember selecting your designer jeans by the stitching on the pockets. Raise it higher if you were glued to the TV whenever the New York Rangers danced to Ooh la La Sassoon.

While the car was headed for the Long Island discount stores, the pull of the Jordache Look was too much for this girl to resist - even if it meant blowing the budget on 2 pairs of designer jeans when I could have had 5 others with cash to spare.

I don't remember what our back-to-school budget was then but I know it was more than just a bit shy of the $500 sixty-three percent of consumers plan to spend up to on back-to-school today. Take a look at this Back to School 2012 infographic shared by David Erickson at e-Strategy Trends.

I need your help. I have been rather fortunate that I've been able to get by with buying most of the kid's clothes for her in the past but with some of the items I purchased last year still hanging in the closet - unworn - that has come to an end.

Any tips for shopping with tween who has a mind of her own and and no money to go with it?