As I told you recently, I’ve created two new Collections for the Curate for a Cause endeavor through ebay. Today I’m sharing more books from my #ImBornTo Read Collection. If you love to write, or love someone who loves to write, you’ll love this list of the 9 best books on writing! And while you’re there, you can curate your own Collection to take part in Curate for a Cause. Every Collection = $1 for March of Dimes. Hurry! The efforts will end tomorrow! (If you do so, please come back here and leave a link to your Collection in the comments.) Here are the nine best books on writing, in my humble opinion: 1. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott 2. Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon 3. On Writing by Stephen King 4. If You Want to Write by Brenda W 5. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield 6. Use Your Words by […]
Sooner or later a story is going to get to you. I don’t care where you hear it. You can’t predict where you might but one will get a hold of you, at an open-hearted moment. It’ll be like there’s an actual ear right there on your heart and you can put your pointer finger behind that ear and bend it close to the teller. And right then, just like that, you’ll get it. That thing, that you’ve never been able to understand, to feel, before. We hide from the chance of this softening because maybe it will hurt too much, the pain that comes with changes of heart. Openly listening removes the ruminating mind, and then what? Our hearts get all bruised up with the hurt of the world around us and in our homes and in people who we have taken part in hurting, and then we’re moved to help or […]
Recently I learned that ebay is partnering with March of Dimes by donating $1 for ever ebay Collection that is created with the Title and hashtag #ImBornTo Since I’m already curating Collections on ebay, of course it made sense to help! So, 2 of the new Collections I created as a part of Curate for a Cause are #ImBornTo MOTHER and #ImBornTo READ. If you know me at all, you’re not shocked. Mothering and reading; I’m born, yo. Here are some glimpses of the new Collections I curated… must read page turners… more from the #ImBornTo Read Collection…. Then I decided that because the March of Dimes does such great work for babies and because I love babies and have experienced three of my very own, I’d share the must-have items that a mama needs for her infant. I give you #ImBornTo Mother: Now you might be saying, but I don’t know how […]
We drove to a town not too far out of Austin. It’s called Wimberley. Isn’t that just the most perfect name for a Texan town? It’s motto is “A little bit of Heaven” and I suppose that’s true. From the paths that stretch out of your eye’s reach along a curving stream, to the tiny shops and restaurants. It’s pretty heavenly with its beauty and vibe. Toddlers can poop even in heavenly places though, as you well know. So she did. And we went hunting for wipes because moms and dads can even forget things when getting ready for a road trip, as you well know. There was this little grocery store that had the wipes and the dude bagging at the end of the counter said, “Whoa, wipes and water. What a party!” Yes sir, I said. BYOW, that’s me, nothing but a party mom. He rolled his eyes. Then a lady […]
Sometimes I just have to stop what I’m doing to write something, even if I don’t have any idea what it is that wants out. Or maybe nothing wants out, but my creative muscles need some yoga…or at least some stand up with arms straight up in the air tippy toe stretching. Lately I fire off words away from here, so I’m still stretching, or jogging, or some-such exercising analogy. Just not right here in this space. My directing/producing cohorts and I have been making the final very difficult decisions in casting this year’s Listen To Your Mother Austin show. There’s never going to be anything that feels good about sending the inevitable, “We sincerely appreciate your story and time, BUT…” responses. Ask pretty much any director/producer, and if they’ve got a heart at all they’ll say, Yeah, I hate that too. It’s awful. (I know, I know. Poooor us.) But really, if […]
The playroom is totally trashed again. Legos seem prone to the floor, all over, like a minefield. What is the Lego table for? I don’t know. To pile bricks on before tossing them to the floor. I told the boys it’s time to do another Big Cleaning and they fussed and whined. We still haven’t done it. Even though this is what my oldest wrote on the chalkboard right in that same room: Hey! Practice what you preach, kiddo! (I can hear God whispering that to me today, too.) The rules my child wrote seem to cover all the rules for life. We seem to desire clean bodies, our hearts and minds both. It feels best to have no hidden darknesses. We are good-intentioned like that, picking up all the bricks and putting them away, neat and tidy. Not destroying, but building. Not messy, but clean. We want it, but we’re finding […]
Before Asher and Elsie Jane came along, I was out with some friends and I was venting about a hard day with Miles. I was surrounded by mothers with more than one child and they rolled their eyes and sighed and looked at each other and started laughing. One of them said something to the other like, Do you even remember the last time you ever showered alone? Their reaction hurt a lot, as unintentional as that may have been. I got a message–they had it harder than I did–and in that moment I felt foolish for feeling tired or maybe even for having feelings. Today, just like that day around five years ago, two more kiddos later, I am exceptionally tired. Is it different than it was back then? Yes. Do I look back and see how much “easier” it was when there was just Miles and Miles alone? Sure. Does that change the hard day with […]
1, 2, fwee, 5, 1, 2, fwee, 6….9, 10!!! this is the counting of a two year old, for hide-n-seek. She laughs hysterically when you find her, or she finds you. I can remember, vividly, the exhilaration of the game, as a little girl. Maybe that’s why, at 38, I still love playing this seek and find game with my three little hide and seekers. My Dad made this game so exciting for my sister and I. He’d be down on his hands and knees, hiding behind something and when we got juuuust close enough, he’d pop out, growling and roaring, or so it seemed to me. And we’d take off running, laughing hysterically and squealing with our hearts beating extra fast. Now Elsie does this with her Daddy, and it brings it all back. I listen to Ryan ROAR and my little girl squeals and backs up, shrieks and giggles. Her eyes […]
A few weeks ago I was sitting next to a guy at Roaster’s Coffee who was leaving a voicemail and I thought he said, Hi, this is John from Mobile Blogs. Of course, my attention went away from my laptop to Did he say Mobile Blog? I wonder what that means….I should ask him…but that might be weird for him…I wasn’t eavesdropping…I was just….hearing. After he hung up, I asked him what he had said. (Not weird at all.) He didn’t appear scared of me and answered, Mobile Cloth. OH, okay. Gotcha. No, wait, I thought. I don’t get it. So I asked, What does that mean? I was about to leave to get the boys from school, but I have to tell you, he had me at, Cleans the screens of your mobile devices safely and wipes away 98% of germs. We talked about kids goobing up all the screens of all the devices, and […]
I’ve been away, in San Diego, where it rained cats and dogs, unexpectedly. Well, we didn’t expect that, anyway. Not in San Diego, where people go to escape all kinds of weather. But we (my friend Sarah, and I) still thought it was beautiful, while we also got mad at the rain. At one point, a palm tree fell just feet away from me, as the wind blew hard across and over the bay and into it. Boom, it said. And I gasped. The guy next to me, another conference attendee, said something about not seeing that every day. Or maybe it was just, Wow, I can’t remember. I came back to sit by Sarah with two coffees, wet clothes, and a story about a fallen palm tree. None of this really matters all that much, while it does, because it’s the sort of thing we’ll remember. But most of all, I think […]
