I’m Courtney. Also called Mom. I am a mom to three rambunctious, charismatic, energetic, and strong personality wielding tweens. Since March of 2020, they have been schooling from home. Those first few months were tough, since I had to be their teacher and give them their assignments, check their work, and help when they got stuck. It was a trial to push my brain to remember that far back to elementary school curriculums. Luckily, the summer gave them a little more autonomy and the welcomed ability to sleep late and play outside.
September rolled around and we still weren’t in a position to have in person school safely. So, alas, they were back to schooling from home. But, I was prepared, or so I thought. We stationed ourselves along the four sides of the dining room table with science fair boards containing everyone and headphones to contain the sounds of everyone’s meetings. Unfortunately, being the tweens they are, it didn’t take long before the sound of one’s chewing or the outstretched leg of another or the unconscious pencil tapping of another drove everyone to different corners of the house.
With no end in sight for this pandemic, it was time to invest in long term solutions. Desks for everyone! That solved much of the conflict and has created a level of peace during the day.
I’m Courtney. Full-time Manufacturing Operations employee for a large aerospace company. Since March of 2020, I have been working from home. I spend my days juggling Zoom meetings, sending emails, performing virtual supplier audits and analyzing capacity and manufacturing data for suppliers around the world. I just got a promotion too, yay. That means I have additional responsibilities included in my day-to-day endeavors. Thank heavens for the Zoom mute button so my colleagues and suppliers aren’t distracted by the sometimes loudness of arguing tweens or random requests, stories, and updates from my kids throughout the day and especially during the late afternoon hours when school is over.
I haven’t been able to travel over this last year and have found new ways to be effective at my job while not being able to physically be present in shops and in the office. It’s been a joy. (I say that with the utmost sarcasm)
I’m Courtney. Wife and homemaker. Feeding and caring for 5 humans and a dog is a challenge on a normal day. But, over the last year, there have been few breaks. I pretty much spend 24/7 with the kids and dog with breaks for store runs here and there. So much so that if I leave the house alone for more than an hour, they call wondering where I am. I have never cooked so much as I have in the last year. Who knew that humans needed so many meals?! Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack, snack, snack seem to be required to get them through each day. While my gas bill has been light with the lack of driving, the grocery bill has skyrocketed in efforts to keep more food in the house. Honestly, I’m running out of meal ideas.
I’m Courtney. Part-time small business owner. In what’s left of the free-time, I make and sell candles. Something that, pre-pandemic, was relegated to local fairs on the weekends has had to be transitioned into an online business to remain sustainable. Over the last year, I’ve had to quickly learn a lot about e-commerce, ad management, product photography, social media management, supply chain management (luckily, I have professional experience there), fulfillment, and extra extra customer service. A few things happened over this pandemic: A lot of people realized they need candles to smell up the homes they’re spending a heck of a lot more time in and a lot of other people decided to start making candles and thus bought up all the supplies. So, weekends and evenings are relegated to running a business.
I’m Courtney. Black woman. This year has been an insane time to be Black in America. We’ve watch person after person be murdered at the hands of police officers. We’ve seen racism in outward display like we haven’t seen in my lifetime at the mere mention of Black Lives Matter. But, we’ve also seen Corporate Responsibility like never before that has had companies around the world taking a stand and reflecting inwardly at how their systems and culture exacerbate the racial inequalities we see and feel. And while all of this is great, it has been exhausting being a Black woman asked countless times to educate my white counterparts or offer solutions to the inequity and systemic racism we face daily. These conversations, while they need to be had, have been exhausting and painful.
I’m Courtney. Tired. Burned out. Still pushing.