This morning at 6:17 a.m., the girl asked to paint. Sometimes it’s hard even for me to muster the enthusiasm for creativity. But I know that it’s important, so we did it. Make Your Life Easier If you have a kid who wants to create at all hours, make it as easy as possible for […]
What “Mad Men” Can Teach You About the Creative Process
I have been a fan of “Mad Men” for a long time, for a lot of reasons, and while I haven’t been enjoying this season so much, I loved this week’s episode (706, “The Strategy”) in part because of the really accurate illustration of the creative process. In the pitch meeting, Peggy feels pretty good […]
Painting with Frozen Watercolors
The other weekend husband was going out of town, and it was one of those uncharacteristically hot spring weekends, so I wanted to have something fun and special planned that we could do in the heat. We didn’t need it then, because we stayed much longer at a birthday party than we probably should have, […]
How to Limit Your Expectations When Things are Super Busy
I know I’m not the only one with a to do list longer than the time allowed to do it right now. Lots of people in my world have been talking about being busy, needing to stop and take time to schedule things and feeling like things are falling through the cracks. I definitely know […]
On Re-Starting a Yoga Practice, for the 82nd Time
I started doing yoga again last week. I was still hurting Wednesday from the session I did on Monday. I’ve been practicing yoga on and off (mostly off, lately) since I rented a VHS yoga tape from Blockbuster the summer I worked in Oklahoma City, which was 1999. (I realize there are at least three […]
Accidentally Cool Watercolor Marker Art {Kid Craft}
The girl made this butterfly at school. Clearly it was coloring and cutting practice, because each part of the butterfly was supposed to be colored a certain way, then cut out and glued onto the tube. She loves it. So much, in fact, that she slept with it under her pillow a couple of nights. […]
How to Move Past a Work-Related Loss in Four Not-So-Easy Steps
Several friends of mine have been commenting on Facebook recently about losses and struggles at work, including one friend who recently saw a project shut down that she’d put a year of work into. I didn’t know how to respond when she asked what to do with that, but now I have a couple of […]