May 4, 2020

Hello Everyone,

Happy Monday! You'll notice that I'm writing this email from my Gmail account, as Friday was my last day at Omnilite, so hopefully this didn't land in your spam folder. All of my BOSLady correspondence will be going through this address moving forward so please update my information in your contacts. Thank you! 

Don't forget that next Tuesday the 12th is our May meeting. If you didn't receive the Zoom invite, please let me know and I'll forward it to you. If the word "Zoom" now fills you with dread, you can always join and then turn your camera off so it just feels like a phone call. 

One more piece of housekeeping, courtesy of Alexandra, that this Friday is the IALD webinar Work-Life Balance: Parenting in Lighting. Bonus: Brittany Lynch is on the panel! The event is free, just register ahead of time

The Weekly Three

1. Something from this month’s book: I am LOVING Daily Rituals: Women at Work and with almost every other entry I am resisting the urge to call someone to discuss. With that mindset, I’m limiting myself to the quote below from filmmaker Ida Lupino (1918-1995). Clever? Cringe inducing? Both?

“Men hate bossy females. You do not tell a man; you suggest to him. ‘Darlings, Mother has a problem. I’d love to do this. Can you do it? It sounds kooky, I know. But can you do this for Mother?’ And, they do it. That way I got more cooperation. I tried to never blow up. A woman cannot afford to do that. They’re waiting for it…As long as you keep your temper, the crew will go along with you. I loved being called Mother."

2. Something about lessons learned: “It’s my birthday. I’m 68. I feel like pulling up a rocking chair and dispensing advice to the young ‘uns. Here are 68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice which I offer as my birthday present to all of you.” This is a fun list. Some of it is purely for humor, some of it you’ve likely heard before, and some of it will give you pause. I like the Rule of 3 and the Rule of 7. Link shared in last week’s Friday Inspiration from Semi-Rad 3. Something about why taking things away can be good: Via Negative describes a “’negative’ way of improving one’s life; instead of concentrating on what you do, the focus turns to what you don’t do.” Art of Manliness posted this article back in 2015 after having Nassim Taleb on the podcast to discuss his book Antifragile. This idea of taking things away as a step to success rather than starting new habits strikes a chord with quarantine and the things we now can’t do vs. all of the advice we’re being given on what we should be starting. I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this. Have a wonderful week,

Amber

From Brittany Lynch

Hello BOS Ladies!

I want to encourage you all to register and watch the IALD Webinar this Friday from 12-1pm CDT – CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

I can guarantee you it's not like any webinar you've ever seen. It's not advice or yet another bullet point list of 5 things you need to do with children daily to make them (fill in the blank) because that is not helpful at the moment. We are voicing solidarity with parents everywhere! 

We will have webcams on and during our rehearsal yesterday, my son put on a magic show for the screen and my daughter had an epic meltdown that dad took away the sidewalk chalk. We are keeping it real my friends!

I am thankful for this platform that the lighting design community is giving to parents, and I think it's a great time to spread the message to all about how the culture of overwork in many industries is making it increasingly difficult to maintain a full time career while being a parent.

Please pass this along to other parents, colleagues, and friends who care, or anyone who would like a realistic view of parenting during the pandemic. You won't leave the talk feeling like you have more to do with your kids or family.

Miss you all and hope you can watch and ask great questions!

Brittany