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

Sacramental Sounds

Me in my Southern Baptist days.

Me in my Southern Baptist days.

I love music and the spiritual insight that music can provide. I still love many of the songs from my Southern Baptist days - despite leaving most of my ideas from that time behind. 

This is one of them.

 

He had me by the opening line.

“On the banks of the Tennessee River
In a small Kentucky town”

 

I knew that river and that town. Steven Curtis Chapman was born and raised in my hometown of Paducah, Kentucky. There is something special about a song that begins with your own geography.

However, that is not why I love this song. From the song’s quiet beginning on the banks of the Tennessee, the song’s tempo and fervency increases. It builds into an energetic and enthusiastic testimony to a faith and God that makes you DANCE. A God that himself dances. 

“The world beneath us spins in circles
And this life makes us twist and turn and sway
But we were made for more than rhythm with no reason
By the one who moves with passion and with grace
As He dances over all that He has made”

 

There’s only one problem. I was a Southern Baptist (at the time) and we didn’t dance and we certainly didn’t dance to songs about God. 

At this time in my life, faith was a heavy thing - a burdensome theology of sin and failing and fear. 

The soaring and joyful sound of Steven Curtis Chapman’s Lord of the Dance reminded me that faith didn’t have to be so heavy. Faith didn’t have to weigh you down. Faith could leave you light and full of movement.

Faith could make you dance. 

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5 Powerful People Who Keep Me Motivated

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It's that time of year. Time for resolutions and goals and reassessing what you do right and what you can do better. This is one of my favorite times of the year because I LOVE self-improvement. I'm a bit of a junkie if I'm being honest.

It probably all started in middle school when I read my first self-improvement book that recommended I list all the things I wanted to accomplish in my life. It was a comprehensive list that included Read the Bible (check!) and meet Dean Cain (still waiting...). 

From that very first list I was hooked and I'm always looking for big and small ways to improve my life. Over the years, I've found myself going back to the same experts over and over again when looking for inspiration. These are people that are also incredibly invested in the power of personal growth. These are people whose entire livelihood is based on their power to motivate. These people are my gurus. 

Gretchen Rubin 

In 2009, Rubin published her blockbuster bestseller The Happiness Project, which recounted her year long happiness experiment. For one year, she carefully examined and applied the science of happiness to see what stuck. I love this book so much that I re-read it every year month-by-corresponding-month. I have found that Rubin's approach of making small daily changes to impact your overall happiness incredibly useful and empowering. Not to mention, her honesty about her own weaknesses and challenges is completely refreshing. I read her blog religiously and can't wait for her new book on changing habits. 

Brené Brown 

When I first saw Brené Brown's TED Talk on The Power of Vulnerability I was completely overwhelmed by her authenticity, her insight, and her incredible compassion. I am a hard core devotee of her Daring Greatly style that embraces the idea that everything great in life involves overcoming fear and facing vulnerability. Every time she opens her mouth I learn a little bit more about myself and how to face all the emotions that come with being me. 

Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt is not for the faint of heart, but I promise you this - his positivity will wear. you. down. His goal is to "help you live with more passion, work with greater focus, and lead with extraordinary influence." He's not here to help you manage your emotions but help you manage your time and your work and your goals. He is my effeciency and productivity guru and I love his podcasts and blog for all the hardcore real-life tips he offers. 

Oprah

Duh.

Tara Sophia Mohr

I first found Tara Sophia Mohr through her 10 Rules for Brilliant Women. At first I thought she was your average inspire-business-women expert, but she has proven to be so much more. Better than almost anyone else she manages to address the socio-political AND emotional impact of being a woman in America today. She is the best combination of big picture insight and small picture advice. I absolutely love her. 

Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things

I fell in love with Elizabeth Gilbert in 2007 along with half of the female population. I read her blockbuster memoir Eat, Pray, Love and was swept away by her incredible personal struggles, wanderlust, and ultimate victory over heartbreak and self-doubt. I also loved her follow-up memoir on marriage Committed: A Love Story. When it was announced her next book would be a novel, I worried I wouldn't love Elizabeth's fiction as much as her reflections. 

How wrong I was.

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.

My Favorite Television of 2013

The year is rapidly coming to a close but before it's over I thought I'd share my favorite things from the small screen this year. We cancelled our cable two years ago and since then my television viewing has changed (and decreased) dramatically. If I'm going to go to the trouble to find something on the Internet or hunt it down on Netflix, it's got to be good. 

Here's what made the cut:

Why I don't cut my baby's hair

Griffin didn’t get his first haircut until he was almost two years old. Amos still hasn’t had one. I get questions daily about when I plan to cut his hair. My answer is always the same. 

I don’t. 

I only caved with Griffin because it was beginning to obstruct his vision. 

My babies don’t have luscious locks or golden curls. Griffin’s hair has a reddish sheen but that’s about it. I don’t have any attachment to a certain look and while I do have hippie-tendencies, there is no alternative lifestyle strategy at play in my decision to leave their hair long. 

It is a simple rule every mother should know. 

When you cut their hair, they’re not your baby anymore.

Like Sampson, only in reverse. Cutting a baby’s hair seems to make them stronger. Right before your very eyes your baby becomes a kid and I just hate it. Of course, I do want my children to grow up. I want them to become happy, healthy adults but DANG why does every step in the process have to hurt so much!?!

J.K. Rowling captured it perfectly (as is her way) in her latest novel The Casual Vacancy.

“How awful it was, thought Tessa, remembering Fats the toddler, the way tiny ghosts of your living children haunted your heart; they could never know, and would hate it if they did, how their growing was a constant bereavement.”

However, it’s not only that bittersweet mixture of sadness and gladness I experience at every milestone that keeps me clinging to every stage as it passes. It is also a desire to see both of my boys fully soak up the sunshine of childhood.  

It is the same reason I hate dressing babies in jeans or little boys in suits. It is the same reason Griffin hasn’t been to a movie yet and my kids probably won’t have jobs in high school. 

Childhood is short and I want both of my boys to enjoy it for as long as possible. It is a special and magical time that is over far too quickly. As my favorite holiday song says - if the fates allow, they will have many many more years as adults then they will as children.  

There will be plenty of time for work and neckties and haircuts then.

The online home of Sarah Stewart Holland