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The Art I Made The Day I Weaned My Last Baby
Coming back to Creativity I’ve always enjoyed making things. When I was young, I painted, knitted and gardened. I was the only quilting teen I knew. I wrote stories during my summers off as a teacher. I taught myself to crochet after my twins were born. Many times, as a busy parent, I found it so much easier to veg out on Facebook than to actually make something beautiful, but over use of social media wasn’t as restorative to my soul as making something. Creativity Makes My Heart Feel Better On the day I weaned my youngest baby, my heart was sad because I knew I would never nurse another…
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How Does Your Creative Work Benefit Your Kids?
Do you feel guilty working on your creative hobbies because it takes time away from family time? You shouldn’t! It’s important to recognize that while your creative work gives you enjoyment it also sets a great example for your kids. Here are a few benefits I have noticed in my own creative life. You are Modeling an Active Hobby In the age of screen time, sometimes it’s hard to compete with Netflix or video games. When a parent picks up a paint brush or starts carving wood, kids see other options for free time activities. They will see you put your Google News down and fully engage in something just…
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Nailing the Basics in Everyday Life
Matt Dixon coaches professional triathletes to prepare them for international competition. In his Purple Patch podcast, which discusses maximizing performance in sport and life, he talks about the importance of “nailing the basics.” For his triathlon team, that means the athletes should eat well, hydrate well, and sleep well before they worry about trying new supplements or the latest training fad. Most of performance success comes from doing the simple foundational steps on a consistent basis. This concept got me thinking about what “nailing the basics” might mean in relation to living a full-color life. What are the key components of intentional living that we should focus on? If we…
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Just do one thing
The other evening, I was cooking a meal for dinner. I was fiddling with my phone to set up my favorite podcast. Then I needed to google the recipe. Kids pass by and ask me questions. Eventually, I found that instead of pork and beans, I have made vegetarian pork and beans. I had to chop up some ham and add it at the end. I have many roles in life – mom, interpreter, wife, child, home manager, daughter, etc. During COVID, I play all of those roles from my house. Most of the time, there is a strong temptation to several things at once. I check my work messages…
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A Model of the Creative Life
When I started running a few years ago, I did it for myself, but it has had a side benefit of making my kids interested in trying fitness too. They see me go for a run or a bike ride and they want to come too. They are all under 10 years old and three out of four have already run a 5k race, which wasn’t something I could do when I was younger. My youngest daughter wanted her own set of hand weights because she likes to do yoga and strength work on the mat with me. You often hear about how it’s important to model healthy eating and…
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Planning for the First Days of School
Here in California, we will be doing distance learning for the foreseeable future. Andy and I will have four kids home and learning, which in the spring time was very stressful and haphazard. As the first day of school approaches, I am looking back to my time as a teacher and instructional coach to plan out for a successful beginning of the school year. When I was a teacher, the rule of thumb that was thrown around was “Don’t teach anything the first month.” Of course, teaching and learning was happening every day, but the phrase was a reminder that the first month of school the reading and math are…