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
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Guest Post: Holiday Safety Made Simple

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My favorite child safety expert Pattie Fitzgerald is back with a new book, a giveaway, and tips to keep your child safe this holiday!

Every holiday season I get lots of inquiries from parents, usually with two concerns:

“How do I manage all those tasks and errands with kids in tow?”  

“How do I deal with those big family gatherings where there are so many friends, relatives, and kids running around – especially if there’s that one relative I’m not so sure about?!”

When my 16 year old daughter was much younger, I was faced with the same concerns that every parent with young kids thinks about.  There’s a lot to distract us (and our kids!) whether we’re at the mall, the airport, or Auntie Barbara’s house for her annual holiday bash.  

Here’s what I did – and it worked.  

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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.

21 Days to a Peaceful Holiday

Two years ago, Nicholas lost his job right before Thanksgiving. Suddenly, I was facing a very different holiday season than I had always experienced. Gone were the fancy Christmas cards and giant trees. Gone were the piles of presents and big holiday parties. Instead, stripped away and laid bare, I had to decide what it was that I loved so much about this holiday. 

I found that while I love the sparkle and the celebrations, Christmas has so much to offer in the way of quiet magic and peace.

My night in Venice with a rich older man

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about stories. How important stories are. How we each have a collection of stories - stories we tell ourselves, stories we trot out at dinner parties, stories that become a part of who we are. 

I have stories. Stories I love that I tell over and over again. I decided it was probably time to record those stories. 

This story is probably my first story. I’d had traumas and upheavals and just general drama in my life at this point. I’d had fun and fallen in love and had a couple crazy adventures. And yet, I knew this was different. This was the first thing that happened to me that I remember thinking - now THIS is a story. It’s a story I love to tell and as a result, a story some in my life are tired of hearing. 

But too bad for them… because here it goes.

In the summer of 2000, I went to Italy. I had just finished my first year of college and had begged my parents to send me on a study abroad for the summer. A group from my school was going for five weeks to Rome, Florence, and Venice and I convinced my parents I had to go despite the fact I had just returned from a month in Europe the summer before. 

The brutal truth was I had spent all winter and spring trying desperately to extricate myself from a terrible relationship and I needed to get away. 

Fall mantle with chalkboard art

Marriage Isn't For You: A Rebuttal

My husband and I have been married for ten years. Not long enough to get to the really good anniversary presents but long enough I wouldn't feel ludicrous offering marriage advice.

And long enough I couldn't help but slightly roll my eyes at the opening sentence of the latest viral post Marriage Isn’t for You by Seth Adams Smith.

Having been married only a year and a half, I've recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn't for me.

Mr. Smith goes on to elaborate that marriage is for the other person. It is a commitment to your spouse – to make them happy, to meet their needs. This commitment is also about your future family and children and creating the best possible environment for them by loving unselfishly and unconditionally.

To that I say, “Bless your heart! Let's check back in five years.”

The online home of Sarah Stewart Holland