Politics, Stories
Sarah Holland
Campaign Update: March

"How's the campaign going?"

It's the question I get most often. It's also the question I'm never quite sure how to answer.

Good? ... Great! ... Your guess is as good as mine. ... We'll see May 17th!

The truth - I suppose - all depends on what you're measuring. 

Campaign Update: March
Celebrations
Sarah Holland
Felix's Winter ONE-derland

This weekend we hosted a Winter ONE-derland party in honor of Felix's first birthday. Considering this child was born during a snow, it seemed like an appropriate theme. Well, the weather had other plans and it was 70 and sunny! I could have hosted the dang party outside! 

Felix's Winter ONE-derland
Stories
Sarah Holland
Ruby

For my 30th birthday, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to do. One was to write a historical fiction short story. This is the story and as Ruby keeps calling to me here lately. I thought I'd share it here. 

Ruby
Food
Sarah Holland
Nicholas's Freezer to Crockpot Meals

One of Nicholas's New Year's resolutions was to try freezer meals. He'd prepped meals for the week on and off through 2015 and wanted to see how it would work to prepare an entire month's worth. Then, we could just pull a meal from the deep freeze, throw it in the crockpot, and on a busy day dinner would be waiting for us.

Nicholas's Freezer to Crockpot Meals
What I Learned
Sarah Holland
5 things I learned in January

Dear 2016, Slow. Up. I just picked my word for the year and finished off my New Year's Eve champagne like five minutes ago and now it's two days until February!

Whew.

5 things I learned in January

Stories

12 Pieces of Great Advice

So, here's the thing. Lena Dunham is my favorite person. Ok, not favorite as in FAVORITE of all time. She's my favorite person who I don't actually know.

I'm officially unseating Oprah. That's how much I love Lena.

She has a new book Not That Kind of Girl (which I have obviously already pre-ordered) coming out and to promote it she did this awesome series of advice videos that are not to be missed. Everything I love about her is present in these videos - her intelligence, her sense of humor, her empathy. 

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How I learned to love my pale skin

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I don’t remember when being pale wasn’t a problem. 

When I was younger, the threat of sunburn was forever hanging over my head. My mother was always coaxing me out of the pool for more sunscreen or - even worse - making me wear a t-shirt over my bathing suit. 

As I grew up, it wasn’t only that being pale was a problem but NOT being tan was a curse. 

How do you want to be buried?

Recently, I came upon an article in Fast Company that left me pondering an issue I've already thought a lot about.

What do I want to happen to my body when I die?

“With her Urban Death Project, designer Katrina Spade has been working on a greener alternative for the last three years. Along with the environmental issues, the design also considers the problem of space—cemeteries in the U.S. take up about a million acres of land, and as populations grow, even more space is needed. Spade wanted to find an answer that would allow people to be buried in cities.

The design uses composting to turn bodies into soil-building material for nearby farms and community gardens, so people literally become part of the city they once lived in. A four-story building, which Spade envisions being built in neighborhoods across a city, would serve both as composter and a place for ritual, where family members could see the deceased person for the last time. The composting process would take about thirty days.”
— How Do You Feel About Being Turned Into Compost When You Die?

I have always been bothered by the idea of my body being pumped full of toxic chemicals then placed in the ground in big metal box. However, I also think it's important for my family to have a place to go and feel my presence if they chose to.

I have to admit this idea appeals to me.

What do you think? What do you want to happen to your body when you die?

Featured
The past, the present, and the future
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Gray hair
My word for 2017
Running for office as a woman
"Boys will be boys."
Exit the Echo Chamber: Bipartisanship As An Act of Faith
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My little secret to staying Calm
How to quit yelling at your kids
How to quit yelling at your kids
My newest podcast obsession
Floating: My 90 minutes of bliss

My Most Popular Personal Posts of the Year

I had a plan to post my favorite or most popular post of the year but I was having trouble choosing just one. THEN, I realized it's my blog and I don't have to! So, here are several of my most popular person posts of the year. 

It was an intense year. I went through one of the toughest experiences of my life, an experience I wouldn't have survived without being able to share how I was feeling with all of you. These weren't easy posts to write but they were the most important. 

Click any photo to be taken to the post.

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What you need to know about pancreatic cancer

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My friend Donna died this morning. I met Donna at a Halloween party. She had bright red cheeks and kept cracking jokes about hot flashes. Her vivacity and energy absolutely filled the room and I spent the rest of the evening glued to her side. 

We talked about husbands and children and travel and food. We bonded instantly over our shared passion for all things party. By the end of the evening, we were planning a zombie prom for the next year. We roped the cohost of the current party we were attending in joining our zombie prom efforts and were already discussing venues and invitation ideas as people began heading for home. 

Over the course of the next year, I got to know Donna better. We joined a book club together. She welcomed me into her home for holiday parties and baby showers and book club dinners always with barrels full of laughter and generosity. 

A year after our first meeting, a few weeks before our Zombie Prom, Donna was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. All I knew about pancreatic cancer was what I had gleaned from Randy Pausch and his last lecture.  All I knew was that it was a death sentence. I was terrified that she would be gone by Christmas. 

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12 Years A Slave and my family's history with slavery

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12 Years A Slave is an amazing film. Well-acted, well-directed, well-written, it is a testament to the craft of film-making and worthy of the Academy Award for Best Picture. More than that, 12 Years A Slave is an important film. The true story of Solomon Northup – a free man who was kidnapped and forced into slavery over a hundred years ago – forces all of us to see the reality of American slavery stripped of the usual Hollywood tropes of happy slaves singing in the field (see Gone with the Wind) or the white savior (see Amistad, Lincoln).

This film has started a discussion – a discussion that for far too long we as a society have avoided.  This film has started a discussion about the brutality of the slave system and the repercussions of that system that we still feel to this day – in part because that system still exists in many parts of the world.

I am not an academic. I am not an expert. However, slavery is a part of my own story and it is a story I feel that I should share in an effort to continue the discussion that 12 Years A Slave began. 

My Word for 2014

Every year I pick a word. A word to focus on as I move through the year. It's not a resolution. It's not a goal. The word is my north star for the next 365 days. A positive idea or concept. Something I want more of in my life.

It's a practice I learned from Ali Edwards and last year was the first year I chose a word with great intention and focused on it throughout 2013. My word was simplicity. I know some of you who know me well will chuckle at the thought of me and simplicity inhabiting the same sentence. 

I tend to complicate my life at every turn. I tend to say yes at every opportunity. I tend to add instead of subtract. However, despite all that, I do feel like focusing on simplicity last year was beneficial to me. I'm never going to be a different person. No word can change who I am but focusing on simplicity helped me to see the basic foundation of happiness in my life. It helped me to strip away the complications in several areas until I was left with the simple things that make my life so wonderful. 

This year my word is growth.

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I'm thankful for Facebook

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For the third year in a row, I'm participating in the Month of Thankfulness challenge on Facebook. For the month of November, you post a status every day on someone, something, some place for which you are thankful.

I absolutely love it.

First because it helps me be truly mindful of all the things in my life for which I am grateful. In my experience, it takes about a week to cover children, spouses, family members we already spend a lot of conscious time appreciating. Then, you have to move beyond the round of the obvious and start paying attention every day to the things that bring you joy.

Second, there are so few opportunities to tell the people in our lives how important they are to us, especially in a public way. It's a wonderful thing to proclaim how much you love your best friend or how our life is better because a certain person is in it.

I've enjoyed it so much this year it got me thinking how much I truly love the social media platform that made it all possible.

That's right I'm thankful for Facebook.

The online home of Sarah Stewart Holland