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

Safety, risk, and leaving children unattended

Earlier this week, Salon published a personal essay by Kim Brooks entitled ”The day I left my son in the car”. Almost immediately, I had friends sharing the article with me on Facebook.

The description read, “I made a split-second decision to run into the store. I had no idea it would consume the next years of my life.” When I first read that, I assumed the article would be another scary story about how one small decision as a parent can leave your child injured or worse.

Nope. Brooks left her 4-year-old son in the car while she ran into buy headphones and when she returned a few minutes later her son was perfectly fine. The reason that decision changed her life was because a bystander filmed her leaving her son in the car and then turned her into the police. As a result, she spent the next two years in court and had to do 100 hours of community service and take parenting classes.

First, let me be clear. I have left my children in the car. I don’t know if it qualifies as unattended because my rule is I have to see the van the entire time, but I’ve done it. (I don’t do it anymore because Griffin can now get out of his seat and a child in a car seat is a very different thing than a child loose in the vehicle.)  In fact, I’d be lying if I said I haven't done it a few times when I can’t see the van.

Not only have I done it but I refuse to make excuses about why I did it and the reason is simple. I don’t think I did anything wrong and I don’t think Brooks did anything wrong either.

Why I hate public playgrounds

Let’s have a chat about public playgrounds shall we?

A year or so ago Paducah FINALLY got one of those awesome indoor playgrounds in our mall. Lined with comfy seats and filled with padded playground equipment it is perfect for a rainy day when the kids need to jump and play and Mommy needs to sit and drink her latte.

When they first started building it, I couldn’t WAIT for it to open and we would go a couple of times a month – more in the winter months when outside play really isn’t an option. I absolutely loved it. Despite the hand sanitizer stations (which I loathe), the playground is well-designed for me to sit and read while keeping an eye on the boys.

However, recently I’ve come to dread going to the playground.

It all started a couple of months ago. I saw Amos and a little girl about his age wagging their fingers in each other’s faces. She seemed to be giving as good as she got so I didn’t worry too much about it. Next thing I know the little girl’s father is standing over me.

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Things I don't do

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Three years ago, I wrote a post on Salt & Nectar sharing the tasks I don’t do as a mom. I was relieving myself of the guilt by announcing to the world “I don’t do these things and I don’t feel bad about it!” At the time, my list included cleaning my kitchen floors (because really that is a Sisyphean task if there ever was one), gardening, cooking, playing with my kids, and scrapbooking. 

The list has largely remained the same. I still don’t clean my floors. I still don’t scrapbook  or cook. I still don’t play with my kids. I have taken up yard work AND composting thanks to the generous help of family friends and a partnership with Ryobi (posts on that to come!).  However, overall, I continue to NOT do those things and have added to the list since adding another kid and a growing business to my life.

So, here’s my UPDATED things I don’t do list.

Why marriage (not weddings) deserves to be celebrated

Our vow renewal was recently featured in Paducah Life's The Wedding Book and, as we approach wedding season, I thought I'd share the reflections I shared in the magazine.

Ten years ago I was a blushing bride. A young girl who knew a lot about weddings and receptions and bridal gowns - but very little about marriage. I spent months on Save the Date cards and out-of-town guest baskets and floral arrangements. I obsessed over song selection and reading selection and appetizer selection.

Ten years later, as my husband and I discussed how to celebrate a decade of marriage, I knew my bridal days were over. Now, instead of a wedding to plan, I had a family to run. Two boys. Two careers. A home. I wanted to skip the obsessing and stress and expectations that had overtaken my life ten years ago.

Week in the Life 2014

Big celebrations are fun. Christmas. Anniversaries. They all deserve their day. However, the everyday is where we live our lives and deserves to be celebrated as well. 

Every year to celebrate and document my family's everyday lives I participate in Ali Edwards' A Week in the Life. For one week, I take photos every where we go and of every thing we do. I keep receipts, make notes of our schedule, and generally document every little detail. 

This is my FIFTH week in the life. I can't believe how much our lives have changed since July 2010 when Griffin was just a baby, but I am so so glad I have A Week in the Life to help me reflect on all those changes every year. We're technically doing another one before an entire year has passed but I wanted to capture the spring and our lives with two little ones in preschool so 9 months was close enough!

Here are photos from a week in our lives. 

TEN Outdoor Games in 15 minutes or less!

This week is National Backyard Games Week. It's been GORGEOUS here in Kentucky and is supposed to remain gorgeous the rest of this week. That means there's no excuse not to get outside and have a little fun. Not to mention, things have been a smidge serious around these parts and we (as in the kids AND adults) could use a little silly.

I went and rounded up some awesome backyard games that involve MINIMAL effort (I'm looking disapprovingly at you giant Jenga/Chess/Checkers sets).

So, go outside, engage your competitive side, and have some fun!

"I'm your mother, not your friend."

I'm on the Huffington Post Parents blog sharing the valuable lessons my mom taught me about parenting. 

My mother has told me the story a million times. I was only a couple of days old and asleep in my room. Laying in her own bed, my mother was worried about how quiet I was. What if I had stopped breathing?

Then she decided that if I had died, she would need her rest to deal with it. She rolled over and went back to sleep.

My mother was clear from the beginning. I might have been an important planet, but I was not the entirety of her universe. As an only child and the eldest grandchild, there were many adults in my life that doted on me and catered to my every whim.

My mother was not one of them.

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