Living the Fall Life

This has potential to be a long post. Partly because it has been so long since I posted. Partly because a lot has happened that I need to catch up on. Partly because I am sitting in a hotel lobby, sans children and laundry and Daily Responsibilities for the next 36 HOURS and honestly, the whole world feels possible at the moment. So I will hammer out some thoughts, and share a few Halloween pictures of our crew from last night.

The rule about blogging, and lots of super-smart-this-is-how-to-successfully-do-business-people will tell you, that if you can't blog well, and frequently, and relevantly, that you should maybe not blog at all. That your efforts should be spent elswhere. Because a neglected blog is not all that interesting to anyone, and in fact may be a detriment to your business image.

Probably they are right.

But I am breaking that rule anyway. I have lots of kids, and a busy husband, and a busy house, and a busy community, and a busy business and for the most part, just a whole number of things going on. So 'updating blog' tends to be on the mind more than it is actually on the List of Completion.

I am okay with that. What I put here, are little records of where I am at and where I want to go, with a smattering of cute kid and scenery pictures thrown in. I am going to find that to be good enough. In front of God and everyone, I am just saying, that the activity on this blog (nearly non-existent) and the activity in my life (nearly non-stop) have no reflection on one another, but I am going to do BOTH, with as much love as I have to offer each one. Are we good with that? Does that sound workable to everyone?


I think so.

The Fall has been delicious. Warm and balmy and leafy and crunchy and full of school sports and soup suppers and Fall Festivals and birthdays and just goodness all around. I have spent a bit of time thinking about parenting lately, and the enormity of that role and impact, and just feeling overwhelmed, in a good, good way, with this amazing journey. There are all these great kids in my life and I just love it. Love spending time with them, laughing, talking, bantering, learning. It is such a gift. A gift that takes great chunks of time and sometimes it seems like there is plenty of Other Stuff NOT getting done that could be. But THIS thing that is getting done, watching these babies grow right in front of my eyes. I am pretty sure it will be the best possible use of all the time I could find to throw at it.


So much business news. From the last 12 months even so much to share. A new fundraising program that is knocking my socks off and is a major dream come true for me. A new catalog in PDF format that you can downlaod and print. Some new fragrances and flavors that are making me incredibly happy - it is a really delicious line-up right now. Being awarded with The Yum-Yum Shoppe trademark I had to sort-of fight for. Great wholesale accounts I love working with. An artist collaboration in the new catalog, to benefit a local non-profit.

For this Fall, kismet brought together 4 sales consultants to work with me on ironing out a "Yum as home party" plan and we are in the middle of creating and tweaking and trying and seeing. I am very excited about this potential and direction. I have always had a Bigger Picture in mind with this company, and a Big Part of that Big Picture is being able to give back, and give more. This fits into my desire for that perfectly, and more announcements on it will be forthcoming as we get things rolling smoothly and ready to grow.

See what I mean? That is a lot of cool stuff! So much that I am avalanched with announcing it all at one, but it feels ridiculous to just shove it all together in the middle of this one ginormous post.

But there it is. Now I have the freedom to piece it out in future posts and facebook tidbits and expand on each new thing.


It's a good day.
A good life.
We have an amazing opportunity every day to do good in the world.
Thanks for sharing the journey.

Summer Dreams

This summer has been a bit of a whirling dervish. All told, I have spent about a month 'on the road' - some of it with my people, and some of it just on my own, or with my mom. I truly love traveling alone when the opportunity arises. I love being agenda free - with nothing to do but absorb the sights, sounds and people along the way.

Alone, but not really.

I got to do a little bit of this,


and this,


with her,


in Portland - a city I have wanted to visit nearly my whole life. My brother was born there, and from as young as I can remember, I was woo'ed by the mossy, oceany photos in our albums.

I spent some time in Deadwood - in the Black Hills of my youth, visiting with my parents and cousins and having late night laughs and 'remember whens'.

I spent some time traipsing the Midwest - Reid behind the wheel and children in tow - through Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming & back again. Reid and I retraced our early steps together - the church we got married at in Nebraska, the hills in Wyoming where he asked me to marry him, the road in-between that we tore up traveling between first laying eyes on each other in Colorado and our wedding day 5 monthslater.

We decided it has been good. 16 years later, we can look back and say that it has been so, so good.

We got to see some of this,

and this,


and this.

We have spent time at ball games, spent time playing with fireworks, time waiting for heat and time desperately trying to escape the heat. Time with friends, with icy drinks on the porch, time celebrating Life through really good food.

Time watching the gardens grow,

And the children grow.

Cousin Time. Grandparent time. Aunt & Uncle time. Hanging Out With People Who Love You kind of time.

I took the time to turn 37, and my baby took the time to turn 5 - meaning that time for a new season in my mommy life is right around the corner.

We took some time on our road trip(s) to read aloud Little Britches by Ralph Moody. Beautiful book. Loved by all of us.



In Portland mom & I visited my Aunt and Uncle, newly settling in to an assisted living facility. I had a lot of time there - to ponder life and death and love and beauty and commitment. To ponder loss and love and hurt and forgiveness and bitterness and joy and how much those choices really create who we are in the long term.

Time, Time, Time. I spent it, cherished it, wasted it, longed for it and fell in love with it.

Maybe that is why they call it Summer Time.

A lot of traveling. Even for me, when I have never thought one could have too much travel.

It has made me realize a beautiful thing. That I love my home. That I love our habits and our rythym and the life we have created. When I am in the middle of it, I oftentimes think it is Not Right. That we should be Better and More Organized and I have moved often, with no regrets, having always felt like Home was wherever we happened to be. And it is. But for right now, Home is also a place. And I find myself surprised that I like it that way.

the Christmas Cards that should have been.

I love having supercreativetalented photographer friends. They are totally the kind of people that you want to go to the zoo with, or take a walk with, because you know at the end you will get to see your mundane life transformed into touched-up deliciousness with all the kid griping and stress edited out. :)

A good friend of mine here locally is Sarah Long, the talent behind Joyful Photo and one half of the amazing Red Barn Wedding Photography duo. This was the second photo shoot we have done with her, and I LOVE this girl. She hosts these 'mini-sessions', which seriously, as the overseer of a family of 6, totally rock my face off. They are 20 min. from start to finish - which means there are no meltdowns, no fussing, no threatening, none of that. You move relatively into position, have lighthearted conversation, smile periodically and she works her magic. BRILLIANT.

I have Christmas Card issues apparently, because we had photos done with her in 2008 that I never got made into cards. For 2009 I made those 2008 pictures into cards and then never actually addressed and sent them. For 2010, I was sending these beautiful pictures, which were then moved to a Valentine's Day goal, which still on March 10th haven't made their way into cards or even prints.

WHAT IS THE DEAL???

The internets are sucking the writtten word out of me I think, my old favorite hobby of pen on paper, stuck in the mail, has now become like the Most Difficult Task Ever.

Srsly. I need to get this together. I still don't think it is too late, but am trying to drum up a reason to send them. Happy Spring? Easter cards? 4th of July Greetings? Hmmph. If everyone would be on facebook it would eliminate the need for printed pictures, written greetings and any actual correspondence at all. Ha!

All that being the case, she posted some of our photos up on her blog back in Dec., and I am excited to share them. I love them so much, love her eye and her talent, and think she is the cat's pajamas in more ways than one.

If you are in need of a photographer in the Kansas City, Lawrence, Topeka area - then she is your girl.

Thank you, Sarah - for taking my scrappy lil' family and making us look magical!

How to make Green Eggs and Ham

I have tried this numerous times over the years, usually involving scrambled eggs with either a touch of food coloring or gratuitious amounts of spinach stirred in. The former is not so appetizing, the latter is not fooling anyone that eggs + spinach might have been what Dr. Suess was talking about.

A couple of mornings ago I was nudged awake by this toothless wonder, bright eyed and insistent that I must get up and make Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast RIGHT NOW.



I managed to help her understand they would taste better after the sun was up, and she trotted off, leaving her treasured 'recipe' folded and tucked under my arm.

Solving the dinner problem for later in the day, I used diced turkey kielbasa in place of ham and did NOT worry about dying it green. No one needs green ham anyway.

The recipe she gave me was quite clever, having you break the egg into a bowl, and then lightly stir green food coloring into the whites, while not breaking the yolks. I use paste food coloring*, so stirred a bit with some water and added it accordingly.

Then you fry up your green egg, sunny side up - or over easy as most of mine turned out. Super tasty, no EWWW factor and totally impressive to the children.

My little punkin-pie of the recipe request was impressed enough she found a special spot for it to hang, lest I forget how to make this most amazing of breakfasts. She prefers hers with syrup on top. Me - a dusting of freshly cracked pepper and some toast to soak up the yolks.

My green eggs did not turn out like the photo, but really, does anything in life actually look like the picture?


*Paste food coloring rules. I buy Wilton brand usually, it looks like this here. It is super concentrated, lasts for years and years and can make incredibly vibrant and fun colors!I get it at Hobby Lobby or cake decorating shops. Check out the incredible colors on that link! You need some! It really will fill a void in your life that you are barely even sure you have.

The perfect kind of day

The dreariness is getting to me. This winter is going to see me turning into either a vampire or bear if it does not morph into Spring very soon.

But a day like today....with hopefully the last big snowfall of the season blowing gently out our windows.

Just my little guy and me, in a house still echoing from a bustling and busy weekend, bustling and busy month, bustling and busy life.

We get to slow way down, read some good books, usually find something to bake, take an afternoon snooze or snuggle with a movie. We spend mellow hours decorating the house. And by 'we' I mean he decorates, while I try to 'undecorate' the house of laundry and other remnants.



I think it is just the perfect kind of day.

My own Better After

I really enjoy looking at design blogs - esp. ones the involve makeovers of the thrift store variety. The ones that take some old treasure found on the side of the road and with a paintbrush and tenacity turn it into an awe inspiring wonder that looks amazing, makes you a better hostess and pays all the bills on time. Better After is one of my very favorite, partly because the writer is wildly hilarious and partly because it is such a great showcase of creativity.

There is always a fine line for me, because in my heart of hearts I WANT to be a super clever design blogger who is paint, paint, painting my way to shaplier hips and thighs - and to that end I take pictures of almost every project I do, and I also drag home a whole variety of crap to be turned into treasure. Except it is often NOT turned into anything but a pile in the basement, and I have never ONCE posted pictures of my projects. So far, I am not making so good on my career as a Super Design Blogger. Or Super Designer. But maybe I can work toward Super and leave it at that.

We moved out of a house recently, a house that we had poured a lot of love and work into. We took it from "frozen in time 1977" to updated and fresh and bright and new. It was our first real 'project house' and we cut our Project Teeth in a variety of ways on that house. We tore out carpet and laid tile and laminate and tore out walls and rebuilt walls and spent hours upon hours ripping down old nasty wallpaper and repairing the mess left behind.

We were there for 4 years, and it was a really HARD four years for me in lot of ways. We moved in when I was 1 week overdue with baby #4, and I came home from the hospital to a house full of boxes and a really raging battle with Post Partum Depression and all around imbalance that took nearly 3 of those 4 years to fully contend with. Overwhelmed was my word of choice nearly the entire time we lived there. Overwhelmed with the little people who needed me to be better. Overwhelmed with living in a community that never fully felt like home. Overwhelmed with how fast everything was happening and how slow all at once - I lived in a constant state of feeling like I was drowning in quicksand. So the house, and all the work, and all the change, even though I loved it in so many ways, also represented a very hard time, with a lot of raw edges, and a lot of imperfections, and whenever I looked, that is what I saw - overwhelmed, overwhelmed, overwhelmed.

We moved in August, due to a job change that was far enough away. We rented that house to this really amazing family, one that came into our life a number of years ago by accident and by divine Providence stayed there. They were going from a family of four with two little ones, to a family of six, by welcoming two teengage sisters into their home through adoption. Their story is beautiful, and these girls are amazing, and maybe the most miraculous thing about it all is that they never set out to find each other, to save each other but instead the opportunity arose and they took it. Unknowns and fears and all they took it and are living it out and I love them for that.

We stopped by the house over Christmas break and I was just struck and amazed at this cozy, wonderful home she has created. It felt so HOME to me, so much more than when it actually was my home. It felt so warm, and so loving, and the house itself felt so fresh and cute and cared for and all of these things that I MISSED seeing when we lived there. I was so over the top overwhelmed that I just missed so many small, good things. I tried very hard not to miss Big Things during that time, but small things can sure band together and become big when you are not looking.

And that is my own Better After.
No pictures to upload or stuff to haul home.
Just a huge paradigm shift.
Of the little mistakes that don't matter.
The paint drips that don't make or break a home.
The attitude of love and good fortune that does.

Dusting Things Off

(blowing the snow off the keys, the screen, the pictures hanging on the wall)

Hello again! 2 months -long time! Blog entries that are all about how long it has been since you last blogged are only tolerable when they are the exception and not the rule. So, let this be the exception - Happy 2011 and let the games begin!

I had decided a few years ago, that instead of making lists of resolutions I would just look at the years in terms of More and Less. I want More of this, and Less of that, in my personal habits, my family life, my business. I try to keep it simple, as I tend to be a complicated sort of girl who then exhausts myself out of a project due to all the parameters I put on it.
So, simply, this year - I want to pay attention More, and be distracted Less. The details of that - what I hope it looks like in practice - is to really listen More, and to let my mind wander Less. To really be decisive More, and be a mental flopping fish Less. We are off to a good start so far.

The other thing I am thinking a lot on, brought to me via facebook by a brilliant friend is this.

Love. Forgive. Repeat.

Doesn't that just sum it up? Ahhhhhh, it is really so difficult when you get down to it - FORGIVENESS is hard! Forgiveness stirred up with Love, and then done over and over and over again? This tiny sentiment is challenging me greatly at this point in my life, in a really terrific way.

What's in store for you? More and Less of What?
Happy 2011 - I have a feeling great things are in store.