I make a damn good cup of coffee. I make oatmeal with the perfect ratio of oats – walnuts – cinnamon – nutmeg. Nobody cleans a cat box like I do. You’d be amazed at how quickly I can fold a laundry basket full of clean clothes. I even find all the socks, almost every time.
And some days, that’s the best I can come up with when trying to cheer myself up and get out of the funk.
When staring at the too-bright laptop screen at 5:15 a.m., my eyes are blurry – not from being tired, but from fussing over the pages of the book I’m trying to finish.
I bounce over to Twitter to get some inspiration and find a few laughs or a couple good posts to read. The distraction takes my mind off the fact that I doubt myself.
I doubt my abilities as a mom. Continue reading →
I’m contemplating treating myself to a day at the spa.
“Mom! Can I do that thing like Cinderella? Can I scrub the floor with a brush and a bucket like Cinderella?”
I took this picture four summers ago. We’d gone camping a month after we’d moved out of their dad’s house. I often wonder what Will was thinking while he was sitting and waiting for the ‘big one’ to land on his line. I hope he was thinking like any other boy doing what he was doing – that he was thinking about fishing.
I had my finger on the button to take the 113th black and white of Devil’s Tower, when I heard a bossy voice say, “Here… give me your camera. I’ll get a shot of you and your kids.”
Whoever said, “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” didn’t have a bumper crop of these growing in her backyard.
I’m plugging along, making sure my shoe laces are tied, minding my manners, remembering to cross my t’s and dot my i’s, when suddenly Mark swoops in and screws up my happy parade. For a long time, Mark had me convinced that my little parade didn’t matter. My parade was simply the precursor to his main event.
It usually takes about 36 hours.
he’d quit insisting that it’s about wanting to see the kids more, and just admit that he wants to funnel less of his money in our direction.
Because it’s Saturday morning. Because my friend just sent these to me. Because these bring a smile to my face, and hopefully to your face, too. But mostly because I’m a mom who is over-the-top proud of absolutely everything her kids create.
I’m not debating whether creativity comes from struggle or whether we are simply a tool to give voice to creativity. I believe we are all born with creative talent. Most of us forget that.
We get older. We lack encouragement. We forget how fun it is to create. We compare what comes from our minds and hands to others and we feel that we come up short. We become too critical of ourselves.
Creativity thrives in an environment where someone (Mark) isn’t telling us that the sun is always yellow, the grass is always green, trees always have leaves and we must always stay in the lines.
I do know that creating something is a healthy way to temporarily escape the stresses and difficulties that life may put in front of us. When we paint or draw or sing or write, our brains get a chance to quit stewing about issues. When we create, we allow our brains a little vacation from being grown-up and responsible. 
What are we doing here?
