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Watching my beloved train for a marathon that is THIS WEEKEND! since April? May? means I’ve cheered, encouraged, cried in frustration, jumped up and down for joy, and been schooled in stamina and sacrifice. It also means I’ve learned to make space. Make space for him to do something he’d love, even though it’s not always been convenient or fun for me. Where’s the sacrifice and growth for me if it were easy for me to encourage and support him in his training? If it’s easy, I’m probably not learning much. And this past 5 months or so have not been easy for either of us, but we’ve both learned sooooooo much. AA has been a serious runner forever. As a middle schooler & high…
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What can I say? I was raised on Velveeta and Tastee bread. But I’ve come around to love real food. And love making it for my family. So much so that when we took a family-do-nothing-vacation, I relished the opportunity to cook–> photos back here. I used to blog a lot more about food so recipes & other items related to food & garden are here. I ran a meal planning linkup for a while, too, called WeekEats. I’ll even throw up food pics on instagram under #wholeparentingeats But now, I’m a slacker in this. Trying to get back into planning ahead. With three kids at home with me and always underfoot, I’ve finally figured out how to make dinner without crashing and burning. I make…
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It’s been a fascinating journey for me, to sew and create patterns, and sell the goods to friends and strangers alike at my shop, Whole Parenting Goods. I’ve learned so so so much about fabric and how forgiving or unforgiving it is, how long it takes me to do a job, and how much delight I feel when seeing babies kicking around in something I was able to make for them. Mostly, I’ve oscillated between humility and elation. My products have range from double layered blankets, bandit bibs, contoured burp cloths, leggings, skirts, caps, banners, washcloths, and then an assortment of washable wool knit blankets. I wrote a post a while back about tips to starting your etsy shop. Now I’m ticking off what I’ve…
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photo by the talented Emily Rumsey–more where this outtake came from! complete with my attempted replacement ones. Because I really really am working on being a better wife. And a more loving wife. And a more kind one, too. Because I could really use work on this, I thought about all the things I say to my husband that I really cringe when I hear them aloud. I read an excellent book called The Power of Habit. Part of breaking a habit and shifting your behavior is replacing versus simply stopping cold turkey. Here’s my swap-out list of phrases not to say combined with those which are perhaps a sufficient replacement. As a preface: My husband is a great guy. He’s a wonderful and present…
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This past week, I actually had an in-real-life moment that mirrored what I’m always encouraging other moms not to get worked up about little kids are just like this, right? At moms’ group, my daughter had a complete screaming fit while grabbing ahold of me, in front of everyone, while I was taking notes on the white board. I love cheering and encouraging the young mom on. I’m often thinking about the problems we face, and blabbing about it on Facebook. Or snapping a really real pic of my house’s messes and screaming kids for instagram just to say, hey, it’s okay, we are all in this hard time together. I had to cheer myself on a little bit. Because every now and then, be it at swim class…
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My junior high friend, Cynthia, has become one of my favorite adult mama Catholic world friends. She was actually Molly’s friend first, but I coopted her now as we go to the same parish, have kids around the same ages, and our husbands like to hang together too. We share of love of crafting and cooking, though I think she’s better at both than I am! Today I’m sharing with you about the vestments she’s hand-made for the little aspiring priests in your life. Of course, my mom bought three of these for her grandkids last year so I’m pretty partial to them, too. My oldest is five now and has had a serious hankering to become a priest since about 2. He’s fallen a bit…
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