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Posts tagged ‘blogging’

Nov 29

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Kelly: What Shall You Do?

This little scrap of spelling list has been floating around the house for months. I find it here and there, and for some reason, I’ve just never thrown it away. Today I was thinking about everything that I have on my plate on right now, and when I came home, I saw this on the floor in the bedroom. Shall.

Sometimes things get so crazy that we lose track of all the things we said we shall do. The kids get sick (Olivia). You get sick (me). The cat goes on the lam again (Tink). You become over-committed, oftentimes because of things you cannot control (me, work). You stay sick because you’re over-committed (me, still). You follow through on obligations you make because you committed that you shall do them (me, participating in the Halifax Arts Festival even though I was still sick). You work one very demanding full-time job, one part-time job and try to manage a creative business, for a reason (you, um, I, want the part-time job to become the full-time job so you can have more time with your family and more time for creativity). So you keep going.  What shall you do to pull all this together?

Today, I shall try to remember that all things will fall into place where they shall, in their due time, as the Man above plans. And I shall be thankful that I got to get away for a brief 24 hours to reunite with my sorority sisters Saturday (45 of us), antibiotics and cough drops in hand (and a few beers to help battle the germs). And I shall decide that those custom orders can wait just a little while longer, and that will be okay. And I shall decide that I’ll get to my blog when I get to my blog, which obviously hasn’t been very often lately. And I shall sit on the couch and cuddle with my girls while watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and then lie in the bed and snuggle with DH while watching Antiques Roadshow. And I shall try not to worry about all those things I’ve been losing track of. And I shall decide that everything will be just fine. What shall you do today?

[cross-posted from Artful Happiness...pictures from the reunion there :-) ]

Aug 19

3 Comments

Kelly: What Does Authenticity Mean?

Well, the fog I described last week is lifting, but I continue to be a scattered-brained mess! :-) My house looks like a tornado hit, and as I sit here in my little office, I’m surrounded by fake dollar bills (the play kind, just so you Feds know, I’m not creating dollar bills here), an atlas, Ebay and Etsy receipts, three cameras, my new deposit slips, stamp and fancy checkbook for my business checking account, scribbled notes written while trying to find a hotel for our trip up to North Georgia later this week (thus the atlas mentioned earlier…who knew we’d be visiting Aunt Livy the same four days as a huge gospel fest AND softball tournament in the same area?), a few shells, baby lotion, kids shampoo, a large comb, innumerable blankets, quilts and scarves the girls have pulled out of their room to play with, and um, a reindeer that poops jelly beans. And that’s all just in my little 5’ x 5’ office nook! And that doesn’t include the “normal” office stuff that’s supposed to be here! The rest of my house is currently in a similar state. Oh well.

I made this necklace a couple weeks ago while my friend Dana was over for a play date. It’s now in my Etsy store here. That big piece of jade up front used to be in a different piece that I’ve had laying around for a while, so I reworked it for summer. Dana just finished Florence, and we were celebrating. Who is Florence, you ask? Florence is a mannequin Dana collaged from head to toe with all sorts of fabulous stuff. Took her two years! Serious dedication there! My only suggestion was that she change out Florence’s boring brown wig for a hot pink one. That was my contribution, and we both feel it was the finishing touch. Sorry, no pictures of Florence to share with you because Dana is thinking about starting a blog, and when I suggested that maybe it could be Florence’s blog, Dana’s face lit up. So I’m hoping she’ll follow through with that, and THEN Dana will share pictures of Florence with you.

When talking about Florence and her potential blog, Dana and I got on the subject of authenticity, which seems to be the biggest buzz word in blogging. We talked about what we think that means. What the heck does that mean anyway? Dana is a psychology instructor, and though we are very dear friends, we have very different approaches on life. Dana, God bless her, is a mega-analyzer. And I’m really, um, not. I’ll analyze temporarily, but then I’m over it; the old “it is what it is” motto I live by. Experience it, learn from it, move on. And while I certainly touch on my personal life here, I try my darndest not to dwell on issues I may be struggling with. Hashing out my problems, insecurities, fears, what have you, in a public forum is just not how I process things. Other people do, and if that works for them, I think that’s great! But just because someone chooses not to hash out those things on a blog, does that mean she is not being authentic? I certainly do not think so, and it’s that line of thinking that really bugs me about authenticity talk.

Lori mentioned something similar on her blog a while back, and she has the exact same outlook on life that I do (one of the many reasons I love you Lori!). No one’s life is perfect. Bad things happen to everyone, regardless of whether you are a stay at home mom or working mom, regardless of your income or lack thereof, regardless of your marital status, regardless of where you live and whether you have a river in your backyard or not, regardless of what you choose to share and choose not to share. Bad stuff just happens. That’s just life. The one thing that we all have in common is that we all have the choice regarding how we react to that bad stuff. We all have the choice of whether or not to choose happiness or dwell on the negative. 99 times out of 100, I choose to be happy. Am I Pollyanna-ish enough to think that I’m, therefore, going to be happy every single second of every single day? Heck no! I have my moments. But when I’m not in a happy place, I typically choose not to share that with the world. That’s what works for me. That is the “authentic” me, take ‘er or leave ‘er. And I eat lots of chocolate and lick batter directly out of the brownie batter bowl.

[cross-posted from Artful Happiness]

Mar 8

3 Comments

Your blog post here

Blogging mamas! A quick note to sound the horn for cross-posts. Do you have something tasty in your archives that merits a fresh posting here at Studio Mothers? I’m sure that many of you have written with frequency on the topics of motherhood and creativity (and those topics need not be intertwined within the same post). Our audience grows every day, and sharing your personal blogs is a gift to everyone. You don’t need to be an ongoing Studio Mothers contributor, either.

If you don’t have a WordPress account, or you don’t want to fuss with yet another content management system, I’m happy to grab your posts myself and post them here. If you have something in mind, send a link — or better yet, a list of links! — to creativereality@live.com. Alternatively, if you’re already a Studio Mothers contributor, you can post your piece to the WordPress CMS and let me know that it’s ready. Don’t forget to include a link back to your personal blog!

Jan 7

13 Comments

Cathy: Moms Who Blog

crosspost from musings in mayhem

Moms Who Blog: It sounds like a support group for mother’s who can’t help themselves from blogging, a twelve-step program.

But it’s a growing population of those of us who need to tell our stories, lament the woes and record the triumphs of our day in and day out, a way to be creative when we feel we have no mental space for thinking more deeply in order to write our great american novels or capture the image of our masterpieces, like in the days before we had children and we still had brains capable of more than routine tasks and singing Old MacDonald for the 300,000th time, or reading Tikki-Tikki-Tembo until we are blue in the face.

It seems from where I sit anyway, that there are more of us in the blogosphere than most, and fathers too, recording the amazing and most common thing humanity shares, the raising of our children.

Some of us are special needs moms, some are moms of teens, tweens or small children, some moms of blended families, some young moms, some who waited until later in life, and some of us are all of the above. And yes, I am talking about me in that last group. :)

We share a lot, with each other and of ourselves with the world at large. I think, besides the outlet for creativity, we do so to say, like the Whos on Horton’s dustpeck, We are here! We are here! We are here! To say, we matter, I am doing something with my life, and it’s important. We do it to say, I am not alone, are you out there, can you hear me? I want to hear your story, too!

The old trotted out line that it takes a village to raise a child is very true, and one of those reasons is to keep the mother who is caring for her kids from feelings of desperate isolation. It may be the mother who is running from work to home and racing to the store for dinner in between, who is lacking a serious connection with her friends she used to see all the time or stay up all night talking on the phone. It may be the mother who is going mental thinking the last time she had a conversation that didn’t involve diapers and their contents in graphic detail was she can’t remember when. It may be the mother who seems to have moments of sheer joy at the developmental milestone her child just sailed past, who wants to call out, Hey! Did you see that?! It may be the mother who found a moment of quiet and beauty with her child that cracked her open like an egg to the wonders of the universe.

Some people, even in this day and age, still have their coffee klatches and playdates, some of us don’t. In the twenty-first century, we have our blogs. Our neighborhood is the whole world and whoever happens to click in and say hello, I see you, and that sounds just like me! Sometimes readers click in, and if you use a tracker on your blog, you can see them and know you’ve been visited from Brazil, Ireland, Russian, Japan, or across the the US or even from the next town. I feel validated when I see my tracker or when people, I still haven’t met but who feel like friends comment. I feel like what I’m doing matters. That sometimes talking about the tougher stuff helps someone else, or sharing a joy lifts someone’s spirit. But mostly I feel like the fact that I am parenting matters. That I’m not doing it in a void. That doing what I can for my kids is the best thing I can do.

I’ll just write the great american novel later. When I’ve had some more sleep.

Dec 17

1 Comment

Another mother writer’s NaNoWriMo win

Stephanie Stambaugh, a blogger and writer living in Colorado, is a friend of Studio Mothers via Twitter. I had noted that Stephanie — also a mother of two — successfully completed NaNoWriMo, and I asked her how she pulled off that feat. Stephanie recently posted a blog-post response, which you may enjoy: Finally, My Post-NaNoWriMo Debriefing. Stephanie’s process actually involved her oldest child, and was facilitated by the younger one. I love the concept of working with your children around, rather than working around your children, as in, circumventing an obstracle. The more we can blend creativity and motherhood the more likely we are to feel “whole”; less compartmentalized. This strategy wouldn’t quite translate to parenting toddlers, but at least it gives the mothers of little ones something to look forward to.

An excerpt from Stephanie’s post:

Over the course of the writing month and over the past few weeks I have been asked by numerous people, “How’d you do it? How did you find time to write a novel?” First, It would be easy enough to answer those questions by simply saying I made time to write it because that’s what writers do, they give up their ideas of being in the so called “real world” to sit and hold words in their mind’s eye and in the palm of their hands for hours on end. That’s our job and so that’s what I did, to a point.

What I actually did was give myself permission to do what I wanted to do instead of sabotaging myself by that nagging voice that plagues all writers. You know what it says? It screams out daily at you too, right? It says, ”What’s the point? I’ve got better things to do, don’t I? Besides, it’ll never be published anyway.” Now I am not saying that voice wasn’t lurking out there just outside my door, waiting for me to invite it in. What I am saying is that I nodded my head to its shrill little demanding attitude and then told it politely to go to hell. I made a conscience choice not to let the dirty bugger into my office on November 1st and now that it is December 14th it won’t ever show its sick little face here again if it knows what’s good for it.

But there was also three other things that helped me “do it.” The first was that I had the greatest motivation any writer can have and that motivation was from my teenage son who did NaNoWriMo right along with me. I did not have to force him to do it as I am lucky enough to have given birth to not just one but two kiddos who have a wonderful passion for stories. But when my oldest said he wanted to do NaNoWriMo with me, it gave me more backbone than I knew I had because I stood a little taller and prouder just by his commitment to do it.

Secondly, I could not have done it without the support of my youngest child who kept busy for hours writing his own comic books and playing quietly until his brother and I were finished writing for the day. Then right along with him was my husband who actually didn’t knock on my office door for once. I think he saw that determined look in my eye and actually liked it or maybe he just feared it too like the way the dirty little nagging voice of doubt feared it.

Read the full post here. Congratulations on your accomplishment, Stephanie! We look forward to hearing more from you in future.

Dec 9

1 Comment

Studio Mothers on the town

A roundup of recent mentions of Studio Mothers on the interwebs!

  1. Kate at Simply Mother blogged about the article on time management that I posted last week. Kate credits the find to Tara, The Organic Sister, who tweeted about our post. Thanks to both Kate and Tara! These are two bloggers that you don’t want to miss. Seriously.
  2. Christine McCombe at Spaces Between blogged about Alison Wells’s post on 5 ways to be a writer when you’re not writing. Christine’s blog is another lovely find.
  3. Alison’s post was also mentioned by our friend Liz Massey at Write Livelihood, in the context of a terrific roundup of writing and editing links. Thanks, Liz!
  4. And this is very cool…Studio Mothers has been featured in an academic paper about blogging! The author is Cathy Coley’s niece. She also posted us on Tumblr. Thanks for including us, Libby!

New friends = lots more blog reading to catch up on! :-)

Dec 7

3 Comments

Help a writer out: No Haikus

Our friend Debra Bellon, a writer and filmmaker who lives in Toulouse, has a two-year-old son and a brand-new baby girl. Debra has been creatively percolating during the past couple of years, as many of us do while we’re otherwise occupied caring for little ones. To that end, Debra just launched a new blog site for her poetry: No Haikus. Debra says, “I’m going to see if I can write a poem a day, with each poem using a word from the last, if that makes any sense.” She has asked for support and encouragement from the Studio Mothers community — so please visit Debra’s blog from time to time. You know how having an audience helps to keep us honest and committed!

Félicitations, Debra! We much look forward to seeing more of your work.

Nov 25

1 Comment

More from the creative mama interwebs

The latest installment of cool creative mom blogs and websites worth a visit!

Creative Mums: An Australian site providing networking, support, and business resources to creative mothers.

Maternal Spark: Inspiration and support for creative mamas of all types.

She Writes: An extensive network and forum for writers.

Nov 4

On Balancing Life and Writing

10-bannerOK, so many of this blog’s readers are too busy with NaNoWriMo to do much blog surfing — or anything else besides keeping chaos at bay while trying to bang out the daily word count. This month, the word “balance” is probably not in your vocabulary. That said, if you can find a minute or two between carpools or diaper changes — or while on your lunch break at the office — it’s worth your time to check out the collection of pieces on balancing life and writing featured this month at WOW, Women On Writing. As is often the case, the useful nuggets in this content can be applied to most any creative pursuit.

Here’s a tasty sound bite from Christina Katz: “Who says you have to choose between writing and family? You don’t! If I can do it, so can you!” Definitely read WOW’s terrific interview with Christina Katz, aka the Writer Mama.

Enjoy — and then, get back to work!

Oct 29

2 Comments

Wearing away the edges of illusion

wishstudio banner 3WishStudio is at it again with this beautiful, personal post on motherhood and creativity — with dreamy photographs by the author, Christina Rosalie Sbarro. I post an excerpt here, but do go read the entire post.

Before my sons, my life was full of busyness, and creativity was often pushed to the margins as my days became filled with commuting, commitments, consumption. I worried a lot about how things appeared, and about security and control. Living with two small boys has gradually worn away the edges of these illusions. I am learning that there is no such thing as control (the very fact that they are in my life at all proves this) or security for that matter. My sons teach me, with their buoyant little boy hearts, that the only moment we have is now.

This is the only one.

I used to squander my time. I pushed my creative self to the side because there was always time to go back and pick up the dropped stitches, staying up until 3am to pursue an illusive story. If I worked long hours at my job and felt drained, I could refill on the weekends with slow-start mornings and evenings listening to jazz in cafes or people watching in town. Because I had so much time, I often missed the value of each moment. I easily spent entire nights watching crappy television shows because there would always be another night; but more often than not these distractions became habits, and writing happened much less than it happens now.

Don’t miss Christina’s evocative work here, either. A treat. And if WishStudio isn’t on your regular blog itinerary, be sure to add this inspiring resource.

Oct 21

12 Comments

Creative Construction is now Studio Mothers!

I admit that I never really cared for the name Creative Construction. I think it was the alliteration that appealed to me as I struggled to find a WordPress name that was available. Last year, I purchased the domain name StudioMothers.com, knowing that I eventually wanted to migrate the blog to that URL. Turns out that the migration wasn’t difficult at all — and now we have a name that better describes who we are. I’m thrilled. Celebrate!

Oct 20

5 Comments

Now for the “real life” blogger moms

momswithoutblogsLast week I ranted about the mannequin-style approach at Mom Bloggers Club. Amy and Emma-Jane pointed out that the site’s header depicts women who are clearly NOT at home trying to bang out a blog post on an old laptop with a shift key that no longer works while the forgotten broccoli steams to mush on the stove and the kids pull each other’s hair out in front of a Disney DVD.

Many of you who shared the pain may be glad to hear about Moms without Blogs, a site for mother bloggers and non-bloggers who DON’T aspire to be the Martha Stewarts of the web. Moms without Blogs is “a team of super-cool chicas from around the country (both with and without blogs) who are committed to building this community of average supermoms by sharing our stories as real modern-day mamas. We each contribute an original, distinct flavor and style to this enterprise but together we are ‘MWOB.’” From the site’s about page:

Moms without Blogs is a place for moms and women to congregate together, support one another and gain strength in the knowledge that we are not alone when we feel oh so far from having it all together.

There’s a ton of information these days flying around at moms and moms-to-be about what we need to do or should be doing to be “good” moms.  So much in fact that sometimes it’s hard to hear the most important voice of all – our own.

This space in the blogosphere is made up of women who are working hard to embrace our feelings of inadequacy as mothers and to remind ourselves that it’s okay to have a bad day, it’s okay to not have an organic meal prepared for dinner, it’s okay to not have a blog where we write about our fabulous educational outings with our kids, it’s okay to not to have an innovative craft project planned for a Saturday afternoon, it’s okay to yell at our kids from time to time, it’s okay to have piles of dirty laundry in the hallway, it’s okay to feel buried by an avalanche of paper, it’s okay to not want to enroll our kids in a slew of classes to make sure they are “exceptional”, and it’s okay to admit that the happiest time of the day is the end of the day when the kids are finally asleep.

And most of all, our mission over here at MWOB is that, although there are external signs everywhere pointing us in all kinds of directions telling us what it means to be a supermom, we know that the real truth is…

“Being a supermom is simply a state of mind.” So get yourself in the right state of mind and spread the word.

Now THAT’S a little more like it, wouldn’t you say?

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