A Mom's Year

Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time

DIY Chalkboard Buffet Labels

Liz Stanley at Say Yes to Hoboken has posted a great DIY chalkboard buffet labels project. We had a Fall Soup Party years ago and I’m thinking of hosting another one just so I can use these labels. What I like most about Liz’s clever and creative projects is they’re simple enough that I can actually do them. You can find directions here.

Here are some links for the weekend. Have a great one and I hope to see you back on Monday!

Well-Meaning Parenting Strategies

When I was writing about people trying to take away our awesome, it reminded me of something that happened years ago when Andrew was a toddler.

The instructor of a parenting class I was attending told us to be careful not to compliment our children too much because they could get overly dependent on praise and feel pressured to keep doing a good job just to keep us happy. This would, of course, screw them up for life. Great.

So for a while I dutifully twisted myself into knots trying to keep from overtly praising Andrew. Did you enjoy building that train track? Boy, you sure used a lot of tracks today. How did that make you feel?

One day he built something really creative out of blocks and, before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “That’s so cool!” Well. After that, I went back to my old ways. And, I mean, if you can’t count on your own mother to tell you how fabulously wonderful you are, then who can you count on?

By the way, I’ve heard through the grapevine that our instructor has become a mother herself. And I’ll bet you anything she’s slipped up and said, “Just look at that amazing pudding art! You’re a genius!”

Getting Back Your Awesome (or How Not to Lose it in the First Place)

Before you read any further, please go check out this post: Waking Up Awesome. It’ll only take a minute. I’ll wait right here.

Welcome back. What did you think? Are you loving the little girl in the photo? Do you remember ever feeling like that yourself?

Can we try something here? Dig through your old photos and find the craziest, least self-conscious one you can. One from a time before you cared about how much you weighed, or whether you were smart enough or good-looking enough, or what the opposite sex thought about you.

Do you have a photo in hand? Or at least a mental image of one, or even a memory from when you were feeling totally awesome? My photo is from when I was about seven, all dressed up in my mom’s clothes and feeling fabulous. I didn’t know yet what a calorie was or that people with certain face shapes shouldn’t wear hats or how messy life can be. I was just happy to be me.

[Read more…] about Getting Back Your Awesome (or How Not to Lose it in the First Place)

Gift for a Book Lover

If you’re looking for a gift for a book lover in your life, this set of Penguin postcards might be just the thing. The set contains 100 different and iconic Penguin book jackets, all tucked into a nice little box that looks like a book. The list price is $25, but there seem to be plenty of online stores offering the postcards at a discount.

The package contains a brief introduction to Penguin Books that goes something like this: While waiting at the Exeter railway station one day in 1934 after a visit with Agatha Christie, Allen Lane looked in vain for a good book to read during the trip to London. Disappointed in the poor selection of paperbacks available, he decided to start Penguin Books. Penguin became the first imprint to mass produce quality books at cheap prices. Lane believed that “good design is no more expensive than bad,” so Penguin covers have always had a very distinctive, easily recognizable look.

There are lots of ways to use these postcards. You could send meeting reminders or birthday greetings to your book club members. You could frame some for your office or classroom. You could make a collage of The Big Sleep, Tender is the Night, and A Room of One’s Own and hang it over your bed. Or you could give a set to your favorite engaged bookworms to use in place of a guestbook at their wedding.

Or you could keep them all for yourself and hang a postcard up each time you read one of the books. You’d have a full wall (and brain) eventually!