Sabrina and Kelly Last weekend I got to hang out with Sabrina and Kelly, two friends I don’t get to see enough now that we moved. I miss these girls. They are each so freaking fantastic in every way, they truly are. Every day I’m just in awe of the women in my life. Just saying. We went to a local art fair and snatched up some handmade goodies. And some mini donuts. I took just this one photo and then my camera battery said zzzzzz. Sometimes my camera is so lazy. Anyway. I’m leaving tomorrow morning, bright and early, for my trip to North Carolina to speak on a panel at the Type A Mom Conference. I need to do laundry and pack and do a whole lot of other Very Important life things like paperwork and the paying of the bills. I was aware of this to-do list both Monday and […]
All week I tried to prepare for speaking to my Minnesota blogging cronies. I tried and tried and felt more and more scattered and then more and more anxious due to the unpreparedness. I got in the elevator on Saturday morning with Minnesota JoY (who saved me in the parking lot by generously giving me the parking fee I neglected to remember to bring) and Matt Logelin and Chris Ann from LoveFeast Table. That was a really good start. I asked Matt if he wasready for his keynote.He said no.I felt better.(Did you notice how I just said that last thing Logelin-style?) (Am clever.)Check out the lovely place we were able to call home all day Saturday. (A big thank you to CoCo for allowing a bunch of Internet Geeks to take over their space.) Yeah, you betcha. I want to work there. The commute would be Uff Da Long, but the huge […]
Summer is chasing into Fall like its catalyst is a hurricane. And I’m off to the races right alongside it, leaving behind my peace these days.I’ve got to sign off for a while to try to grab a hold of some semblance of order, a connection with my boys, a plan for schooling I’ve yet to find, for writing, answering, listening, for the preparing for the speaking, and for embracing the days. I’m the kind of person that feels a heavy ache over disorder. The state of my home is the state of my head and heart and I’ve been thrown off, tired, in a funk. Sometimes I just need a break from the beautiful and overly engaging worldwide web. But you knew this…we all do. Take care of you, friends. I’ll see you soon. COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. I still really like you though. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in […]
{This post was written in the spirit of Letters From a Nut by Ted L. Nancy. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, there’s a small chance this could still be funny. This was written one night in the hotel room while at BlogHer, when Ellie and I were at our giddiest. You’re welcome.} ~~~~~~~~ Dear Blogging Conference, We wanted to write to you today to express some gratitude, opinions, questions and ideas. As your conference comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on our weekend and we are filled with many over-flowing emotions. Please give this letter to the highest of higher ups, so they can know about these emotions. We are the people. We are the bloggers. We are tired, and even so, we deserve to be heard, we the people-bloggers. As a side note, please be sure to consider our status in this subculture. We are known. […]
On Friday morning at BlogHer there was a 5K through Central Park, honoring Tanner of Tutus for Tanner. Tanner himself saw us off from the hotel lobby, and then as you can see, we sprinted the entire way. I am so in love with this picture. It is friendship and connection and it is spreading the word for a good cause. I have my hand on Allison, my fellow Minnesotan blog friend. She is one of the kindest people I’ve ever had the honor to know, so I’m really glad my hand is on her. Hopefully her goodness wore off, adhering itself to my palm a bit. ~~~~~ For the rest of this week through next Wednesday my family (extended and immediate) has the use of a cabin on a lake. We’ve already been making use of it this week. I have to show you some of the photos from out there because […]
and let’s not forget Maggie, who quit drinking the same day I did… So yeah. Yesterday I went on and on about some pretty ridiculous behavior I experienced on my trip, or heard about, or saw…but it’s over now and I’m letting it go, just.so.you.know. What I’m choosing to focus on coming away from the conference and the overall time in New York City is the deepening friendships with some amazing women I would not know without blogging. And also writing a book. I’m also trying to focus on that. But for now I want to share a couple of things I really think you might love to read: I often tell people that this blogging kinship thing feels like Meryl Streep’s (character’s) relationship with her pen pal in Julie and Julia. Through most of the movie you get the impression that this is a best kind of friendship, and then it’s revealed […]
{This post is sprinkled with photos of women who are The Real Deal. Just so you know. Links to them are at the end of the post.} All around the bloggiverse, posts are being written about BlogHer ’10. Posts that are filled with excitement and joy and fear and disappointment. Posts that are filled with feelings. loads of feelings. If I’m being honest, I’m hesitant to raise and add my voice to this current choir. Maybe because I’m afraid it won’t be heard and I want to believe it matters. Or maybe because I know many of my readers aren’t bloggers so blogging about a blogging conference and all of its strange nuances would, for them, be too foreign to understand. I don’t know. I guess I’m posting this because what I have to say is universal, and maybe it’ll shed some light on what is currently a mostly unknown subculture of good […]
I feel like I just got home from summer camp. I want to pontificate on my many layered feelings about the BlogHer “camp” experience, but I don’t know that any of us can truly articulate what it was like. And some of us are going to avoid sharing our true feelings in their entirety because let’s face it, everything in life, even beautiful things, have their share of yuck. I returned home last night exhausted, with nothing left but a need to decompress.Ryan wanted to hear about the weekend and I started to tell him stories and then I just stopped and said I was too tired of thinking about it all, even if most of it was absolutely good. There’s just too much to say.For now, let me just tell you the story of Wednesday, the day I flew in to New York City, hopped in a cab and 50 bucks later, […]
Today I need to go pick up my tutu. It has black netting and with a neon bright color underneath. The color is a surprise. I will run through Central Park with my tutu on this coming Friday for the BlogHer 5k, raising money and awareness for Tutus for Tanner, a let’s-kick-muscular-dystrophy’s-ass organization. I’m really excited. Also. I plan to run like Phoebe in that episode of Friends, where she runs through Central Park with such wild abandon, flailing all over the place. And then Ellie, who will be with me, will have to play the part of Rachel in that episode and give my Free Limb style of running a chance. And then people will take pictures of us and I will crop them and put only a flailing Ellie’s photograph on this here blog after chopping myself out of the picture. {evil laugh} I have no time to be writing this. […]
Hi, my name is Heather and I’m here because I have a story to tell. Actually, pretty much everything I’m experiencing as of late is coming alive with what my friend Ann calls a fireworks display of story-telling. I feel like a bit of a spectator to myself, while I watch doors opening like I never even once dreamed they would. Click, the locks are turned and the creak of the swinging door blasts through my ears while I wait for the BANG! It’s exhilarating and shocking and terrifying. I sit dumbfounded at the chance to share my entire story, all that my heart-gut leads me to tell, through a book. I will meet with an agent in New York City while I am there for the BlogHer conference. I will sign my name. And then I will surrender to the chaos of life as I juggle writing, motherhood, being a wife, blogging […]
How can something be so meaningless and so meaningful at the same time? facebook.youtube.flickr.whrrl.blogging.twitter.linkedin… Neither good nor bad in their entirety, but always both good and bad.My life is here, in flesh and blood, poured out in cups of juice and sealed over with Snoopy band-aids. I am here in whispered prayers and meaningful conversation, many of my words are never put to paper or blog. I am across the table from a friend of nearly twenty years, watching the way her long brown hair still falls around her face the same way it did when she was 19. We are using the same knife to spin cream through our coffee, and we are pouring out words and laughter that is left unblogged. I am on the phone with my Aunt and then a friend and then another friend, and then off with my boys to meet my parents for dinner. I am […]
Obviously, I could not think of a title for this post. Allison called me to let me know. (Because she is so often my brain and has figured out by now that I would most likely be oblivious if left on my own without her brain.) Her message said, You’ve been nominated in two categories for a BlogLuxe Award. I just wanted you to know they have your link wrong on the site. Congratulations! (Of course, her lovely humility prevented her from also telling me that she herself is nominated in 2 categories.) (GO ALLISON!) All I heard was, “You’ve been nominated.” And then I was just completely confused. Me? Huh? Wha? I found out my (also nominated-for Rage Against the Minivan) friend Kristen (thank you, lady) is one of the people who nominated The Extraordinary Ordinary for this lovely thing~ (this is a picture I stole from the very deservingly nominated, Casey […]
I was thinking about how many things I bring up in this space, never to revisit them again (ahem, thoughts of homeschooling? Wanting another baby? Other stuff I can’t think of right now?) And then I thought about how writing about recovery and sobriety and addiction has sort of taken over my blog. So that means that the tone is often…heavy, man. Then I thought, I hardly ever update on Asher’s health anymore and I rarely do “From the Mouth of Miles” posts these days. The thing is, it all happened naturally. Asher is doing really well, and when Miles talks about things that I want to share with the world, I censor myself a bit more because I don’t want him to look back on these pages and wonder why I made every stinking little thing public knowledge, you know?There’s a huge difference in life these days. When I compare last year […]
(Grandma, I’m about to make no sense to you. So please don’t feel bad if you don’t get what I’m talking about. I love you!)~~~~~ “Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside-down, now I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I’ll tell you how I became The Prince….” Oh wait…I love that song, but it’s just (sadly) not my story… Actually, this is a story all about how The Serenity Suite at BlogHer ’10 came to be. It’s actually more exciting than “shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school…”Maggie and I were talking about BlogHer ’10 on the phone one night right after we quit drinking, “when a couple of guys who were up to no good, started makin’ trouble in my neighborhood….”Or wait….okay, um…we started talking about how Maggie is speaking at the conference this year and then I was being […]
But sometimes, when you take two ordinary things and put them together at the same time and in the same place, there’s nothing ordinary about them at all. – Charlotte’s WebI thought I was most likely the only person in my particular type of recovery while at the Casual Blogger Conference. I was surrounded by my Mormon friends, who I figured didn’t struggle with alcoholism since part of their faith requires abstinence from booze. Of course that’s a naive thing to think, and it’s not that I believe all Mormons are the same, I don’t. It’s just that in my insecurity, I assumed I was the only one completely tuned into the fact that there was no alcohol being served at the conference events. Of course, this was good for me and I’m not drinking, so why think about it? Well, because I’m an alcoholic and part of my brain is always rolling […]
*written on Sunday* I’m sitting in a hotel room by myself. Melissa and Kristen had earlier flights today and so they’re gone. (sad face) There’s an ad on TV right now for a bracelet you can wear that will solve all your problems. Seriously, I need one. According to the riveting infomercial this bracelet makes you feel happy and sleep soundly and also keeps you from tipping over when someone pulls really hard on your arm. When I pushed the ‘on’ button on the television I realized that this is the first time the zone-out box has been on in this room the entire time we were here. And just look at what we’ve been missing! (sarcasm) It’s really good for me to do things like this. (Not the TV watching, but the attending of the blog conference.) What I mean by that is that it’s good to step out of my comfort […]
I’m home safe and sound. Or rather, I’m at my parent’s home safe and sound, currently. After 2 flights and a 2 hour drive home from the airport, I pulled in the driveway last night and wondered how in the world I was going to carry my bags inside the house…in my condition. My condition = utterly exhausted. I have so much to say. I can’t even begin to decide how to narrow it down. For now, I’ll just show you a group of some of my favorite people. We visited The LDS temple in Salt Lake City, taking a break from the Casual Blogger Conference to see some sites. * Then I made everyone leave right after we arrived because I was all paranoid I was going to be late for my keynote. Yes. I read one of my posts in front of everyone as a “keynote.” Who really knows what keynote […]
I wish I could show you Allison’s shoes and her cutest ever Gussy bag.And then maybe I would describe how fast Jessica Bern can type. (She’s doing that right next to me.)I wish I could tell you how curly in the most perfect way is the hair on my roomie’s pretty noggin.I wish I could put words to the rockin‘ bangs on Kristen Howerton, my other roommate. They are so swoopy and gleamy (see? no words). But even more than those very important things, I wish you could meet them (and the many of others I’ve come to know and love at this conference and online and at other conferences). I wish there were a way to wrap up a post in such a way that would make blogging/online relationships make sense in words. But these relationships that are based on words can’t be described with words. Oh, the irony. Let me just […]
You guys. I’m hopefully not slipping or sliding, but I am going away today! CBC ’10, here I come! (And I’m extra excited about the conference now because I’m part of a surprise and that is so fun and exciting but I can’t tell you because it’s a surprise and so you will know later-not now.) I kissed and hugged my boys like crazy last night and sent them to Nanny and Bapa’s house. I will not see them again until Sunday or maybe even Monday, if they’re in bed when I return on Sunday night. Weird. I’m quite in love with them and will miss them with my heart panging around. Here is one of them, the Asher variety, having some summer fun (which must always include water guns and Oreos, in my humble opinion)… The cheeks. La sigh…. Alright, Peeps. Lots of love to you. Can I tell you how glad […]
I am currently eating a bagel just as fast as I can. Dear Digestive System,please don’t be mad, I’m in a hurry.Love,Overwhelmed I leave for Utah in just 2 days. There I will be attending the Casual Blogger Conference and also doing a little speaking. Today I am kidless and working hard at preparing for the speaking and whitening my teeth. Because, you know, people might think my teeth are yellow while I’m waxing philosophical about blogging in front of them. Or something. I’ve printed out my itinerary and the conference agenda and tickets for this and tickets for that and apparently this is really happening. I shall now sit back and tell myself (burp) that everything is going to be just fine. Yesterday I went to get loads of groceries in an effort to continue my job as wife and mother while I’m away. I was starting to feel the stress of […]
Today has been a day of nothing. Really. It feels like nothing. I feel like nothing. I have floated through it numb and brimming over with tears and heartache at the same time. If that’s possible.Things have happened. Waking up and sipping coffee and walking around kinds of things. It’s the most beautifully perfect Midwestern spring day and I’m resisting it. I’m holing up inside the house while saying over and over that I need to get outside, for vitamin D and fresh air and fun. But I just can’t. It’s hard to describe it because I don’t even really understand it myself. And tomorrow will be different. I might spend all day outside, like yesterday when I sat with the sun on my skin and then put the boys in the stroller and ran and ran and felt so good. It’s like I spend all my energy in one day and then […]
A long long(ish) time ago, in a cyber-land (exactly) like this one, two young(ish) mothers of two came to know one another through their words. One is me, the other, Aidan Donnelly Rowley of Ivy League Insecurities. She left a comment or two, and I, in my usual eager curiosity to meet new friends, visited her space. And I was intimidated. (Aidan, stop laughing.) (It’s true. Your writing astounded me and also, you’re reeeaaal pretty.) Later, I would come to find out, through an email, that she had felt “like a rock star had visited” when I left my first comment. (This made me laugh and say WHY?) We simply admired one another’s writing (and I could not be more humbled by the fact that a woman with such a writing gift as Aidan’s would find my words appealing at all.) And today, friends, is a very good day. Because today is the […]
Numero Uno:Trust me. If you live near me, you want to come to the multiple-fabulous-women garage sale that I’m a part of this Saturday. Seriously. If I happened upon this sale instead of schlepping my own lovelies in it, I would FREAK. Email me for details if you’re interested. P.S. The hard thing about garage sales is that marking your things is a lot of work. But you knew that. Numero Dos:Ellie (gosh, I love that woman) sent me my sobriety necklace a number of days ago and I wear it every day. I’m in love with it. And the one day I did forget to wear it, Miles said, Oh Mommy, you forgot to put that necklace on you that reminds you to not drink wine. Oh my heart. (Yes, my 4 (almost 5) year old knows about my wine issue-in terms he can understand, of course.) Numero Tres:I was asked to […]
UPDATE: I fixed it-it’s full length now!Color me proud. Except now I’m not that proud becauseWOW, wait until you get to the end and I do a random and disturbing impression.Seriously. WHAT is wrong with me? I really can’t believe I did this. I’m so not a vlogger.You can tell by the horrible lighting and all the fidgeting.I must really love you.Here goes…nothin‘… Thank you from Heather King on Vimeo. I know. I know. That thing at the end. I don’t know…And what? You callin‘ me a sappy sapperton?Well…yeah.Word. The Maggie I speak of is Maggie Dammit, of course. Just sayin‘. And the post I speak of is here, at Missy’s place. The End. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
1. So, that One Room at a Time thing? We’re still doing that, it’s just that it’s taking a really long time to do one room at a time. We’ve been working on the dining room for a while now. I still plan to do some Big Reveals complete with riveting before and after pictures, but stuff keeps getting in the way. Like life. Silly life. 2. I’m really excited to be starting something new here on the ol’ blog. I’m going to be interviewing people, about their life stories and then writing about them here. You know, like I’m a jouranlist of my own making or something. I’m actually interviewing my friend Jen this very day about her journey with breast cancer, starting in her early twenties. She’s absolutely beautiful and a complete rock star and I can’t wait for you to meet her. I want to call this series something but […]
I finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller on Friday. Then on Saturday I went to pick up his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. As Anne Lamott says, “I love Donald Miller. He’s a man after my own heart.” I’m going to have to paraphrase a line from Blue Like Jazz because I’ve already given my copy of the book to a friend. There is no more powerful drug than the addiction to self. (Sorry, Don. I probably butchered that. That line I’m remembering was probably more poetic and profound and probably hilarious, because that’s just you.) Anyway. Of course I thought of this line on Saturday when there I was, with myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for myself’s profile pictures on the world wide web. Ouch. The thing is, I wasn’t taking those pictures because I think I’m hot. Actually, it’s more that I […]
Dear Fellow Mommyblogger,That title up there? Is that okay with you? Because it’s true. You know the Mary Kay lady stereotype well, right? The one a dear friend of mine deals with every day, since she’s a Mary Kay lady?Still makin’ people pretty? Do you drive a pink Cadillac? *wink wink* All the questions asked of her are tinged with that patronizing tone of humor, as if she’s pretending at something. As if she’s doing something cute and silly most likely because she can’t do anything else. My friend’s car is not pink but it did come from Mary Kay. She’s a total Mary Kay sell out. She doesn’t apologize for it, she loves it. She loves her job and the women she’s come to know because of it. She happens to care about moisturizing and color-matching and protecting skin from the sun. She happens to care about helping women feel just a […]
The posts that write themselves, in a flourish of creativity where fingers pound the keyboard like they have a mind of their own, are the best. I’m often confident about them in a way that escapes me most of the time. On the other hand, if I’m driving or taking a shower or making lunch for my boys and an idea strikes me, it rattles around in my mind and heart for too long. So when I sit down to reign it in, I’m lost, often pulling thoughts from a hundred light bulb moments that don’t add up. I’m editing and editing and second-guessing and insecure. I work and work here and there, and still feel I come up short. There needs to be a freedom in this, a gut level honesty of the moment, a kind of escape. That’s when the words reach out to other hearts and shake hands in agreement. […]
Recently, Carolyn Hax of the Washington Post received a question from someone who called herself Tacoma, WA. Tacoma wrote in to ask for advice on why her best friend, who is a stay at home mom, thinks she’s so busy. She said that when she asks her friend what she’s busy with, the stay at home mom lists daily errands that anyone does, including herself as a childless person. Tacoma was confused as to why her friend would seem so overwhelmed all the time, and questioned Carolyn on whether or not said friend is simply trying to appear busy as a competition. Carolyn Hax’s response is just plain brilliant. Around the same time that this article was being shared all over the internet, one of my favorite bloggers wrote a beautiful post about needing more hands and feet and time. Then she ended the post saying that she’d never want to quit her […]
