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Posts from the ‘Miranda’ Category

Aug 30

4 Comments

Miranda & Brittany: offline and offroad

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Brittany Vandeputte in person. As one of the original members of the Studio Mothers community (evidenced here) I’ve come to think of Brittany as a friend — but sometimes I wonder if it’s an odd thing to think of your “virtual” relationships as friendships. Now that we’ve met in person, I can attest to the fact that it doesn’t matter whether connections are made on cyberspace or face to face. A friend is a friend.

Brittany generously allowed me to stop in on my drive home from Ithaca, New York. I was in the last leg of a 12-hour round-trip drive to return my oldest son to college, and I was grateful to have a short break with Brittany, her husband Tom, and those two little guys you’ve all read about — Sam and John — in their charming new home.  I should add that I had invited myself over, and the visit occurred smack in the middle of what would have been the bedtime routine — so that just goes to show you the strength of Brittany’s Southern hospitality.

Thanks again, Brittany — see you in October!

Aug 10

15 Comments

The First-Ever Studio Mothers Giveaway!

And now for something completely different. The very first Studio Mothers giveaway!

Studio Mothers is — and will remain — an ad-free blog. But when Mindy at WishStudio (a beautiful resource mentioned at Studio Mothers in these posts) sent me an e-mail about a new online course she was offering, I started doing cartwheels. I signed up for the class immediately, and am thrilled to offer a free giveaway slot to the Studio Mothers community.

As creative mothers, we benefit from blending the lines between creativity and motherhood. Especially when our children are young and finding time for solo creativity is a scientifically proven impossibility often a challenge, keeping the creative flames alive by being creative with our children is often a surprisingly satisfying interim strategy. Even for me — a writer — I find that making something artful with my children keeps me from feeling like I’ve abandoned my creative self, even if I haven’t actually written anything for weeks or months.

Enter Wish Play Create, a 5-week online art playgroup with fabulous guest teachers: Tracey Clark, Stephanie Lee, Pixie Campbell, Mindy Tsonas, and Shona Cole (who’s book The Artistic Mother will be quite familiar to regular visitors of the Studio Mothers Facebook page). The course begins on August 30, and I’ll be blogging about the process at Studio Mothers. It would be great fun to have friends from the Studio Mothers community join me! The course description:

online – 5 weeks {$48}

this fall, carve out some juicy creative time for you and your little ones…join our mom and child online art playgroup! every monday, a new 1 hour project will be presented by a fabulous guest teacher encouraging you to play and create in a variety of different mediums throughout the weeks. our virtual open studio allows you to work from home, at your own pace, and when it’s most convenient for you. along with all the artsy fun you’ll enjoy connecting with other moms and sharing your work and creative time in our private playgroup flickr pool. all projects are designed to be inspiring and engaging for both mom and child – this is not simply just for kids! supply lists will be provided in advance for you to gather everything you’ll need for each project. once you register, your email confirmation will be sent to you within the following day.

Click here for the schedule of workshops and registration.

So, how to win a free spot for yourself and your kid(s)? Simply post a comment below. On Monday, August 16, Studio Mothers will randomly select one respondent for the free spot. Good luck!

Aug 6

5 Comments

Miranda: The measure of a summer

Time for a little accountability check. In mid-June, I blogged about my vision for the summer. My vision encompassed 18 areas where I wanted to focus my attention — and intention — in order to mindfully make the most of our fleeting summer weeks. Since the summer is just past the halfway mark, in the interest of accountability I thought I should review my list and see where things stand. Warning: this is a long post, so skimming is recommended 🙂

  1. Having picnics. Eating outside is just plain fun. I want to enjoy al fresco dining as much as we can during the warm months, whether that means packing up dinner and eating on a big blanket on the grass at our local park, or just eating out in our own backyard. Halfway mark: Aside from serving the little kids a lunch or two on the Little Tikes picnic table, we haven’t yet had an outdoor family meal.
  2. Doing art projects with the kids. With more time at our disposal, I hope to get through some of the craft projects I’ve been thinking about. Of course, doing something creative with the little guys is a great way to satisfy my own creative itch without needing solitude. Halfway mark: We haven’t had a full-on craft extravaganza, but we’ve done a few smaller projects. Several mosaic collages with the 1-inch-square hole puncher. (The result of yesterday’s multimedia project appears at right.)
  3. Meditating. I’m trying to meditate every morning. It doesn’t always happen, but my plan is to still get up before the little guys do, and start my day with mediation and coffee before “momming” begins. Halfway mark: The boys started getting up earlier and I started getting up later, which meant that my intended window disappeared. I’m having difficulty nailing down a regular meditation time. I think I have an opportunity if I go back upstairs at 7:00 every morning, after my husband has already done his sitting and can take over with the little guys.
  4. Eating mindfully. I’ve been reading a lot about mindful eating, from Geneen Roth to Jan Chozen Bays to Thich Nhat Hanh. The Buddhist perspective on compulsive eating has opened new doors for me, and I need to stay in touch with this learning on a daily basis. (Guess what? I put my scale away about six weeks ago — something I never, ever thought I’d be able to do.) Halfway mark: Yes, yes, yes. I just got on the scale after about three months and discovered I’m exactly where I thought I was — a couple of pounds lighter, even, than the last time I weighed myself. I did not, in fact, gain 20 pounds without the scale to wag its finger at me every morning. Who knew? I’m also having a much easier time with food cravings and compulsive eating now that I’ve completely given up wheat. It’s been about a month and I’m never going back.
  5. Running. I’m running 4-5 miles three or four times a week, and liking it, a lot. I’m getting faster, too, which — after nearly 15 years of running at about the same pace — is quite satisfying. Halfway mark: Yes. Been running regularly, getting faster and feeling stronger. This week I attended a small-group track workout with the pro trainer Kristina Pinto, aka the Marathon Mama. The day after….well, let’s just say I was crying into a fistful of ibuprofen slightly uncomfortable.
  6. Doing art projects for myself. I have a few painting and collage ideas percolating that I’d like to explore. I have such a steep learning curve in this department that it’s hard for me to tune out the inner critic. “What? What are you doing? This is the most hideous thing anyone has ever created!” <sigh> Halfway mark: Yes, although the only thing I created was a strange little shadow box, put together when the kids were done with their own art project and I was cleaning up the bits and pieces. But sometimes making something from leftovers is the most fun of all.
  7. Writing. It’s been a few months since I’ve worked on my novel, and even longer since I worked on my nonfiction project. I’m getting itchy to return to both. This probably won’t happen unless I schedule the writing time. Halfway mark: Yes. I’ve been working on a personal essay and it’s going well. Also trying to compose bits of poetry in my head when I can’t get to the page.
  8. Going to the beach. It’s time at the beach that makes summer so memorable, isn’t it? I plan to take full advantage, from our local watering hole to our beautiful New England coastline. Halfway mark: Haven’t hit the beach yet, but next week we’ll be visiting Cape Cod. Beach in my near future.
  9. Baking with the kids. We already bake on a fairly regular basis, but I want to keep at it this summer — especially with my oldest son at home from college to help eat the end results before *I* do (see item #4 above, lol). Halfway mark: Yes, but not a ton. Something about the 90/95-degree heat has made me less interested in firing up the oven.
  10. Gardening. I love working in the garden, and this year I’m able to do so while the little boys play outside. I still have to keep an eye on them, of course, but I don’t have to worry quite so much about the youngest one eating ants or crawling into the rose bushes. Halfway mark: Yes. The flower beds aren’t what they might be, and this year I decided I didn’t have the bandwidth to plant my two raised veggie beds, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time weeding, mulching, edging, and creating new flower beds. The little boys love to “help” by messing up my freshly smoothed mulch layers and throwing rocks at each other.
  11. Going out with my husband. We miss having a regular date night, and this summer I’m going to rope the teenagers into helping out each Thursday night. They only have to take care of the little guys for an hour before bedtime, so it’s not a hardship — oh, and I pay them, anyway. My husband and I really need this regular connection time and I’m looking forward to a “regular” date night. Halfway mark: Yes! We’ve had quite a few dates while the teenagers were babysitting and even had *two* days and nights at home with the older kids while the two little boys packed off to Grandma’s. My husband and I slept late on both mornings (7:30 a.m.! imagine!), went kayaking, watched movies, ate out, and found ourselves beautifully reconnected.
  12. Reading. Been reading a lot lately, both fiction and nonfiction, and I want to keep it up. Halfway mark: Yes. Not at a voracious pace, but I think I’ve finished three books in these summer months. I try to spend some amount of time every morning and every evening reading my current book.
  13. Doing yoga. I haven’t done yoga in years — aside from the occasional DVD session at home — but with my meditation practice and Buddhist study, I feel like yoga practice is a natural addition. I have yet to find the right class at a convenient time and place (ha ha) but I’m optimistic. Halfway mark: No. Haven’t even figured out where to go yet.
  14. Connecting with teens. I haven’t been spending enough one-on-one time with my three older children (ages 19, 16, and 14). Tuesday evenings this summer are now reserved for time with my teens in rotation — whether that means going out for a decaf cappucino at Starbucks with the oldest, a music-blasting joy ride with my 16-year-old, or staying in for pedicures and a movie with my daughter. Halfway mark: This is the best success of the list. I’ve had time with the older kids and am savoring every minute. Well, not every minute. Sometimes they are grumpy and rude and thoughtless and often ignore the few chores they have until I breathe down their necks. But it’s all good.
  15. Taking pictures. I love photography, but I don’t know enough about the finer points and I feel like my lack of technical knowledge is holding me back. I’d like to make some time to begin reading through an excellent guidebook that my husband bought for me a couple of years ago. Halfway mark: Taking lots of pictures, but still haven’t done the homework that I want to do.
  16. Keeping house. Don’t laugh. I actually like a lot of things related to domestic chores. In addition to mindfully enjoying the regular, daily tasks, I’d like to get to a few of the things on my household project list. Halfway mark: Yes. Staying on top of the domestic scene. Managing not to feel overwhelmed by the house, although a well-balanced veggie-based dinner is not a nightly accomplishment. Frozen organic pizza, anyone?
  17. Studying Buddhism. I find that I need to take notes from the books I’m reading, which usually means reading the book once through while making a few notes in the margins and then going back through the whole book again, page by page, to put all the pieces together. I also find that writing out notes longhand helps me “learn” and remember more effectively. Halfway mark: Not really. I haven’t picked up my notebook in a while, and it’s overdue. That said, I just started a new blog about my Buddhist practice, which I’d love to share with anyone who’s interested 🙂
  18. Blogging. I hope to get back to writing at least one personal blog post a week, in addition to posting the usual items from our wonderful community of creative mothers and sharing at our Facebook page. Halfway mark: The Studio Mothers Facebook page is thriving — we’re up to about 250 fans. Blog posts here at Studio Mothers have been sporadic this summer, but I’ve been going with the flow rather than worrying about a rigid post schedule. It is what it is. It will be easier for me to manage when the fall schedule resumes.

The sum total is that I could be doing better, but I could be doing worse. The summer has been overfull, and will continue to be so. In all areas, I’m trying to navigate a blend of surrender and mindful intention.

How is your summer shaping up? Is it what you’d envisioned, or are the usual array of surprises giving you a run for your money?

[Please see original post for mosaic photo credits.]

Aug 4

7 Comments

Miranda: Life, art, and friendship–the sequel

In August 2009, I had the pleasure of hosting two of this blog’s writers, Cathy Coley and Mary Duquette, at my home in Massachusetts. We posted photos and a re-cap of 2009 here. Last week, Cathy made her annual trek north again, and we had another reunion, which hopefully will become an annual event. We were joined by Jenn Rivers, who has also posted a dozen times at Studio Mothers.

Left to right: Mary, Cathy with Baby C (aka Toots), Miranda, and Jenn

For some reason I thought that this time around, with all of our children being a year older, we’d have *more* time to sit and chat and relax. What was I thinking?? This year was even more manic than last, and I can’t remember getting more than two sentences out of my mouth in any coherent order. What I most remember is Cathy and Mary discovering that some kind of animal had decided to use our sandbox as a litter box, and quite thoughtfully taking the littlest kids into the house to wash hands. Yes, I’m afraid that feral cat poop and our usual discussion of allergies sort of dominated the afternoon. Not exactly the inspiring conversation about creativity and life design that I’d had in mind, but it was wonderful to see the faces of my dear friends and hear the excited voices of the children as they ran around like true hooligans and enjoyed themselves fully.

Until next year, friends. And with any luck, maybe we can lure Brittany over to visit with us too. I’m already planning for a more satisfying conversation — and less cat poop. Everyone in?

Jun 14

11 Comments

Miranda: Summer Vision

Summer 2010

As of next week, all of my kids will be out of school and summer will begin “for real” at our house. I’ll no longer need to get up at 5:45 every morning (although I may still do so). Schedules will open and priorities will shift. The prospect is tantalizing.

Summer tends to fly by, of course, and I’m sure this year will be no different. That said, now that my youngest has turned 2, our bandwidth has definitely increased. We’re doing more — and sleeping more, thankfully — than we were last June. To make the most of my increased capacity, I wanted to focus my hopes and framework for the summer. (OK, so I’m a sucker for any excuse to make a list.) What kinds of memories do I want to create for my family this summer? Where can I invest in family relationships? In what ways can I further my personal growth? In what ways can I work toward my bigger goals, without getting stressed about deadlines and “shoulds”?

I sat down to think about all the things I wanted to do this summer, and areas where I have an opportunity to focus on my family, my creativity, and myself. I came up with a list of 18 things that I want to be mindful about and enjoy fully. Some of these activities are things that I’m already doing — and some are new. Some of these things will surely stay on the list well into next season and beyond. In total, the list represents all the “cylinders” I’d like to hit in the coming months in order to feel balanced (as much as I don’t like that word) and good about how I’m using my time.

Then I decided to turn my list into a vision board (above — click on the mosaic for a larger view). Each photo in the mosaic represents one item on my list. Some of the photos are mine, and some are from Creative Commons (photo credits noted). From top to bottom, left to right, the images/activities are:

  1. Having picnics. Eating outside is just plain fun. I want to enjoy al fresco dining as much as we can during the warm months, whether that means packing up dinner and eating on a big blanket on the grass at our local park, or just eating out in our own backyard. (Photo credit.)
  2. Doing art projects with the kids. With more time at our disposal, I hope to get through some of the craft projects I’ve been thinking about. Of course, doing something creative with the little guys is a great way to satisfy my own creative itch without needing solitude. (Photo credit.)
  3. Meditating. I’m trying to meditate every morning. It doesn’t always happen, but my plan is to still get up before the little guys do, and start my day with mediation and coffee before “momming” begins. (The photo is of my zafu and zabuton, where I practice in my bedroom.)
  4. Eating mindfully. I’ve been reading a lot about mindful eating, from Geneen Roth to Jan Chozen Bays to Thich Nhat Hanh. The Buddhist perspective on compulsive eating has opened new doors for me, and I need to stay in touch with this learning on a daily basis. (Guess what? I put my scale away about six weeks ago — something I never, ever, ever, ever thought I’d be able to do.) (Photo credit.)
  5. Running. I’m running 4-5 miles three or four times a week, and liking it, a lot. I’m getting faster, too, which — after nearly 15 years of running at about the same pace — is quite satisfying. (Photo credit.)
  6. Doing art projects for myself. I have a few painting and collage ideas percolating that I’d like to explore. I have such a steep learning curve in this department that it’s hard for me to tune out the inner critic. “What? What are you doing? This is the most hideous thing anyone has ever created!” <sigh> (Photo credit.)
  7. Writing. It’s been a few months since I’ve worked on my novel, and even longer since I worked on my nonfiction project. I’m getting itchy to return to both. This probably won’t happen unless I schedule the writing time. (Funnily enough, unless I commit to a writing session, I tend to find a million other things that need doing instead.)
  8. Going to the beach. It’s time at the beach that makes summer so memorable, isn’t it? I plan to take full advantage, from our local watering hole to our beautiful New England coastline.
  9. Baking with the kids. We already bake on a fairly regular basis, but I want to keep at it this summer — especially with my oldest son at home from college to help eat the end results before *I* do (see item #4 above, lol).
  10. Gardening. I love working in the garden, and this year I’m able to do so while the little boys play outside. I still have to keep an eye on them, of course, but I don’t have to worry quite so much about the youngest one eating ants or crawling into the rose bushes.
  11. Going out with my husband. We miss having a regular date night, and this summer I’m going to rope the teenagers into helping out each Thursday night. They only have to take care of the little guys for an hour before bedtime, so it’s not a hardship — oh, and I pay them, anyway. My husband and I really need this regular connection time and I’m looking forward to a “regular” date night, even if much of the time we end up doing something on a shoestring, like browsing at Barnes & Noble and chatting for an hour or two. (Photo credit.)
  12. Reading. Been reading a lot lately, both fiction and nonfiction, and I want to keep it up.
  13. Doing yoga. I haven’t done yoga in years — aside from the occasional DVD session at home — but with my meditation practice and Buddhist study, I feel like yoga practice is a natural addition. I have yet to find the right class at a convenient time and place (ha ha) but I’m optimistic. (Photo credit.)
  14. Connecting with teens. I haven’t been spending enough one-on-one time with my three older children (ages 19, 16, and 14). Tuesday evenings this summer are now reserved for time with my teens in rotation — whether that means going out for a decaf cappucino at Starbucks with the oldest, a music-blasting joy ride with my 16-year-old, or staying in for pedicures and a movie with my daughter. (Photo credit.)
  15. Taking pictures. I love photography, but I don’t know enough about the finer points and I feel like my lack of technical knowledge is holding me back. I’d like to make some time to begin reading through an excellent guidebook that my husband bought for me a couple of years ago. (Photo credit.)
  16. Keeping house. Don’t laugh. I actually like a lot of things related to domestic chores. In addition to mindfully enjoying the regular, daily tasks, I’d like to get to a few of the things on my household project list.
  17. Studying Buddhism. I find that I need to take notes from the books I’m reading, which usually means reading the book once through while making a few notes in the margins and then going back through the whole book again, page by page, to put all the pieces together. I also find that writing out notes longhand helps me “learn” and remember more effectively. (Photo credit.)
  18. Blogging. I hope to get back to writing at least one personal blog post a week, in addition to posting the usual items from our wonderful community of creative mothers and sharing at our Facebook page.

The list is long, but I have to keep in mind that I’m already doing a bunch of these things. I’m grateful for that; grateful for being able to do so many things that I enjoy and spending so much time with my family. This summer feels like an unprecedented opportunity in many different ways.

How about you? Have you thought about your summer in macro and micro terms? Are your “plans” as simple as “relax and enjoy” or do you have something more elaborate in mind? If anyone has created or intends to create a list — or even a vision board, digital or handmade — please share.

May 20

9 Comments

Miranda: Breathe in, breathe out

Late May and June seem to overflow with spring sports, end-of-school trips, rehearsals, recitals, and events. Like many of you, I drive from baseball practice to the dance studio and then back again, arriving at home far too late to get a decent dinner onto the table. The options are: plan carefully and cook dinner in that narrow window between work and the chauffeur routine, or get pizza (again).

It’s easy to be swallowed up by the 1,358 details and pressures of daily life. Last week I retrieved my college son during a two-day road trip to Ithaca, NY, just in time to come home and help my husband rip out an asphalt driveway. Major DIY landscaping projects loom, woven in between graduations, shopping for teacher gifts, T-ball tournaments, and driver’s ed. Normally, the added tasks and activity of this time of year would turn me into a raving bee-atch stress muffin. But this year things are a little different. I’m not a sea of tranquility — not by a longshot — but I’m not fantasizing about my escape to Mexico, either. What’s changed?

I’m running around, but my recent efforts to do less and reduce stress have actually begun to work. I’ve stopped taking on new client projects (the existing clients are more than sufficient) and I no longer need to work nights in order to stave off the panic attacks. I continue to refine my custom planner, which I still love. In the big-picture thinking about moving closer to what makes me happy, the answer seems to live in “just being.” Being, as opposed to doing.

A lot of different threads have come together for me during the past few months as my husband and I began to seriously study and practice Buddhism. Now that I’ve done more than just dip my toe in (I’m probably up to the ankle) I wonder why I didn’t embrace this practice a long time ago. I’d read many Buddhist-inspired books over the years, but I never before connected all the dots. Mediation and mindfulness speak directly to my long-time desire to live in the moment, appreciating my children — how fleeting this time is! — and embrace creativity as much as possible without all the self-flagellation when it doesn’t happen. Somehow Buddhism always seemed to me like something that other people — crunchy, poser Westerners — took to in order to check out of life. But I was wrong. It’s not about checking out, it’s about checking in. You don’t need to be Tibetan in order to practice Buddhism, and it’s already helping me become a better mother. (One of my favorite books in this category: Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn.)

I’m also running again, eating better, and protecting my 7+ hours of sleep a night. And I’m reading, almost every night. What am I NOT doing? Well, I’m not watching any TV, but I don’t miss it. I’m also not doing very much personal writing. But I’m trying not to obsess. Obsessing means losing out on the opportunity of RIGHT NOW. Remember our discussion of someday is today? Well, today brings whatever today brings. I’m down with that. Yes, there are many things that I’d like to make happen. I’d like to finish my novel. My nonfiction book. Heck, just my creative nonfiction essay. I’d like to ensure at least three posts to this blog every week. And I will do all of those things, in time. But I won’t do them at the expense of this beautiful moment, or my children. (It was quite affirming to look out the window just now and see a hummingbird skimming through the sprinkler in my front yard!)

Summer looms, and with it the perennial promise of slower days and a bit of relaxation. (When the weather is fair — for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere — it does seem easier to embrace the moment, doesn’t it? Of course, this is the very reason why my husband argues that we should move to a warmer part of the country 🙂 ) How are YOU feeling during the end-of-year crunch? Are you able to enjoy the beauty outside? Have you developed strategies to stave off the stress? Are there certain items in the self-care category that you refuse to give up, come hell or high water (a nightly bath, journal writing, a weekly yoga class, a photo a day)? And if creativity gets put on hold for a while, do you trust in a cycle that will bring it back? Please share….

Mar 29

13 Comments

Miranda: I want to do NOTHING. Meow.

Lately I find myself staring wistfully at my cats. Sasha, curled up in her bed atop my desk, basking in the warmth of my desk lamp for hours on end. Mimi, stretched out on the back of the sofa, staring out the window at everything and nothing. They eat, they sleep, they wash, they run around a little bit, ask for affection when they want it,  and make their own fun — knocking over my water glass, eating Spanish moss out of the houseplants, chasing a long-lost chess pawn across the dining room floor. Sasha loves water; she bathes in the kitchen sink while we’re doing dishes and keeps the kids company in the bathroom during bath time. Then she goes off to find yet another cozy spot to take a snooze.

It’s a nice life.

Not that I would trade for a cat’s life permanently, but gee, a day or two would be awfully nice, wouldn’t it?

One sign that my stress level is getting way too high: I become resentful of my cats’ unencumbered lifestyles. My resentment is a helpful stress gauge because really, the insomnia, heart palpitations, and facial twitches aren’t clear enough indicators. Even though I’ve made recent progress editing my to-do list and scope in an attempt to focus on what really matters, each day is still about 10 hours too short. I used to think that I could just sleep less and steal “extra” hours while everyone else was tucked up in bed, but chronically working into the wee hours comes with a price — a price that I don’t want to keep paying. I’ve found that migraines and other health issues become frequent occurrences when I don’t get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I can feel myself aging. So I decided that sleep simply must become more of a priority. In the past few weeks since I started going to be earlier, I’m more clear-headed and healthier (although not, ironically, that much less tired).

Aside from the freedom to sleep at will, what I admire about the life of a cat is the license to do nothing. Dogs aren’t like that. Sure, dogs sleep a lot (at least mine does — she’s a Newfoundland), but dogs have more of an agenda than cats do. Dogs work. Dogs feel obliged to do this or that — greet you when you come home (even if that means waking from a deep sleep and rising from a warm bed), bark when the doorbell rings, try to eat the mailman — whatever. Cats may or may not try to eat the mailman, but you can be sure that it won’t happen on cue. A cat will only try to eat the mailman if she feels like it. No robotic force of habit at work. No slavish worship to “shoulds.” Because as we all know, dogs want to please their owners, and cats don’t give a damn.

Being agenda-free does have its appeal. Oh, to have nothing to do! The prospect is dazzling. The more I feel overwhelmed by my to-do list, the more that curling into a ball on a patch of sunny carpet — utterly without guilt or angst — seems like the obvious, appropriate response to any situation.

While I realize that I’ll never have the feline’s ability to simply suit myself — everyone else (husband and five kids) be damned — there are lessons to be learned from the cat. Doing nothing is a good thing, at least in small quantities. And I don’t mean vegging out; I mean studiously doing nothing and letting magic unfold where it might. No agenda. No shoulds.

Kids are good at showing us how “doing nothing” can turn into an adventure. On Sunday afternoon I followed my toddler (who is peg-legging around on a full leg cast) into the dining room, where he found a ball hiding under the piano bench. For at least 30 minutes, he entertained himself by climbing onto the piano bench (with a lot of help, as climbing onto a piano bench is life-threatening difficult in a full leg cast) and sitting down, throwing the ball across the room, getting back down, peg-legging over to fetch the ball, bringing it back to the piano bench, and repeating the process, with or without a little piano playing in between. As I sat there, helping him up and down, I took in the afternoon sunlight on the wood floor and realized that I was about as close to doing nothing as I can ever be. No electronics droning the background; just family noises and the scraping and thumping of my toddler’s cast dragging across the floor. OK, so that last part wasn’t so idyllic, but still.

Eventually my son made his way into the hallway and decided to go upstairs to where his brother was playing. We found ourselves loitering on the landing at the top of the staircase. I settled on the top step, serving as barricade. Before we knew it a family game had evolved — my toddler and 5-year-old throwing a small ball, a cloth Spiderman face mask, and a parachute guy off of the balcony down onto my husband, who returned the toys in long aerial passes, trying to avoid the hallway chandelier. The boys thought this was hysterical, especially when my husband missed and the ball or parachute guy ricocheted off the balusters. Good clean fun, which never seems to grow tiresome. (Well, my husband’s arm got a little tired after half an hour, but the boys were still enamored.)

On a Sunday afternoon, passing an hour or two doing almost nothing feels awfully nice. I try not to think of the frightening to-do list that looms over my head like a tidal wave. The work, the book (the one I’m writing), the house, the book (the other one I’m writing), the laundry, the book (the one I need to finish reading for book group), the impatient client, the empty fridge. The wave will always be there — but will never actually crash down on my head. (At least that’s what I tell myself as I try to live in the moment.) The moments of that Sunday afternoon, however, are fleeting. Doing “nothing” makes for memories that have long lives and crystalline edges.

Of course, I’m not the only person who thinks that doing nothing is good for you. Doing nothing is by extension part of the slow parenting movement (and the slow movement in general). The brain needs to be left to its own devices on occasion in order to stimulate creativity (and, I would add, well-being). By doing nothing, it turns out, you often end up “doing” wonderful things without even realizing it — because your focus was entirely on the moment and evolved into enjoying a process, rather than being focused on the outcome. (This is also why I’m a big fan of Montessori education. It’s all about the process rather than appending meaningless rewards to performance. The process itself is the reward.)

Phew. That’s way too much thinking for someone who was trying to do nothing. Now, about that nap….

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!

Mar 5

10 Comments

Miranda: What makes you happy?

Do you know — and can you list right now — the things that really make you happy?

I recently read Gretchen Rubin’s interesting bestseller The Happiness Project. In this self-described “stunt” book, Gretchen spends a year systematically working to become a happier person and to understand the nature of happiness. Gretchen frames her journey in a way that facilitates the reader’s self-reflection without becoming a workbook. At the end of the year, Gretchen decides that she is in fact happier — and perhaps, most importantly, has become more aligned with her #1 Personal Commandment to “Be Gretchen.”

In addition to her Twelve Personal Commandments and her secrets of adulthood, Gretchen arrives at Four Splendid Truths. The first Splendid Truths is: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

I gave this some thought. Gretchen points out that we often fall into the trap of subscribing to things that make other people happy, thinking that those things should make us happy, too. Many people love good food and dining out, for example. Gretchen doesn’t. Accepting this truth is important. Why invest hours in a doll collection that is “supposed” to make you feel happy when in fact nothing about dolls resonates with you? Or taking your kids to the zoo when you really hate zoos?

I enjoyed Gretchen’s book a lot, although I found myself frequently wondering how she managed to read as many books as she did and where her children were while she worked. Her older daughter was in elementary school, but her younger daughter seemed to be barely a toddler when Gretchen started her project — and while Gretchen spent many hours reading, researching, blogging, thinking, and writing, I never figured out where the little one was during that time. Babysitter? Daycare? Of course, as a blogging writer/mother, I was eager to know how these logistics were taken care of. At one point Gretchen decides to take her older daughter out for an occasional after-school one-on-one adventure, although she struggles internally with giving up the work time. So it sounds like there was fulltime coverage for the little one. Not sure why, but given the level of detail that Gretchen shares about how she accomplished her project, I couldn’t understand this oversight. (Maybe I just missed where Gretchen spoke to childcare — if you caught something, please share!)

Naturally, Gretchen’s story prompted me to think about my own desire to be happy. While I don’t seek happiness so much as contentment, I started thinking about what kinds of things really make me feel good, bad, and right, “in an atmosphere of growth.” The growth part is important, because sometimes you have to push outside your comfort zone in order to find something new that makes you happy. The trick is being able to figure out which initially uncomfortable pursuits lead you away from being yourself, and which might end up bringing you closer.

So, what makes me feel good? What are the things that I can actually DO that make me feel good? When I first sat down to make the list, I was a little taken aback when I could only come up with 3 or 4 things. Since then, however, the list has grown:

  • Reading books
  • Reading blogs about creativity and motherhood
  • Reading about time-management and domestic organization
  • Reading most anything (lol)
  • Taking photographs
  • Making things
  • Doing crossword puzzles
  • Writing poetry
  • Blogging
  • Being outside
  • Dancing
  • Baking
  • Doing right by my children
  • Reading aloud with my kids or my husband
  • Making connections between other people
  • Feeling prepared (planning, organizing, anticipating, thinking through the details)

I can’t help but notice that writing — as in, working on my novel and my nonfiction book project — isn’t on the list. What does that mean? Does that kind of writing just feel too much like “work” to make me feel good? I could say that it feels good when I’m writing and the words are really flowing and I’m not in control, but putting “visits from the muse” on my list seemed too far afield of anything actionable. You’ll also note that “running” isn’t on the list, even though I ran a half-marathon last year and subscribe to the transformative power of running. The truth is, I have never been excited about running, even though I have come to see it as a necessary evil.

What makes me feel bad?

  • Domestic chaos (this is a big one for me — chaos makes me very unhappy)
  • Being late (which I often am)
  • Feeling like I let my kids down
  • Being disconnected to my husband
  • Taking on more than I can handle (uhm, yeah)
  • Letting too much time elapse between creative stints
  • Eating sugar
  • Being overdue for exercise

When do I feel “right”?

  • Choosing to be vegetarian even though it isn’t always convenient or fun
  • Deciding not to share something gossipy even though the sharing might seem like connection-building
  • Biting my tongue when I’m confident that I’m “right” about something factual and the other person is wrong (no point in arguing about something unimportant, is there?)

What about you? What makes you feel good, bad, and right? Where do creativity and motherhood fit into your lists? Are you able to do those things on a daily basis?

I’ll be writing more about The Happiness Project, and about living a life of intention — which is my latest objective. I may not be able to control the way life unfolds, but I can apply my intentions to whatever happens. In the broadest sense, for me happiness lies in honoring my intentions. This requires real clarity on what those intentions are. (Hence my new planner.)

Learn more about Gretchen’s project at her blog. You can also start your own happiness project.

Feb 19

17 Comments

Miranda: The Creative Family Bathroom

Let’s face it. When you add up all the minutes, most of us spend quite a lot of time in the bathroom. Especially when you have young children who need help wiping and washing, the bathroom can be a busy place.

Here’s a glimpse of what our little half-bathroom looked like when we bought our house:

And this is what it looks like now:

When I stumbled across this wallpaper last year, I had to have it. And I don’t even like wallpaper. But the idea of being able to write on the walls — permanently — filled me with excitement. One wall of paper would do it. (I trash-picked the mirror hanging above the sink, so that added a few dollars to the budget.) Bright paint would go on the other walls. The only “rule” for writing on this wall is not to create anything obscene. (I have teenagers, so a rule like this is actually necessary.) Other than that, anything goes. I’ve added a few collage pieces, and I look forward to creating a few mini paintings. The wall has become something of a guest book, too. We encourage guests to add something to the wall as a remembrance of their visit. And of course, all ages are welcome to contribute. (Yesterday I overhead one of my 14-year-old daughter’s friends exclaim: “You mean you can just come in here and write on the walls any old time you feel like it??” And my daughter’s response — slightly smug — “Yup!”)

You’ll see that this little room features two of my recent acquisitions from Aimee Myers Dolich of Artsyville. I love her work — and I especially love how the “doodles” and black frames (inexpensive frames from Target) echo the intention and inspiration of our create-it-yourself wallpaper, as well as the color of the painted walls. (And per the doodle, there ARE stacks of books in this room too — well, a shelf full, anyway!) A beautiful fit.

Future owners of our house will either love the wall and embrace it for themselves, or rip it all off (and God forbid, return it to the original, boring off-white). I imagine that wherever I live, I’ll always want to have a wall like this somewhere in my house.

So there you have it — the creative family bathroom. Any of you who ever come for a visit are eagerly encouraged to add your creative signature to our bathroom wall!

Feb 17

6 Comments

Kreativ Blogger Award

In an unusually impressive display of bad blogging etiquette, it’s taken me more than two weeks to respond to the Kreativ Blogger award that Lisa Damian of Damian Daily kindly sent our way. Thank you, Lisa! (Read more about Lisa at our Breakfast interview.)

The Kreativ Blogger Award acceptance speech is supposed to include five random tidbits about the blogger so that readers can get to know her (or him) better. I will respond in personal terms, understanding that my acceptance is on behalf of the entire Studio Mothers community!

Did you know…

1. I was born on the 9th minute of the 9th hour of the 9th day of the 9th month in 1969. This means that I had the good fortune of turning 40 at 9:09 on 9/09/09. Any guesses as to my lucky number?

2. Each of my five children’s three given names — first, middle, and last — are comprised of two syllables. No one-syllable names, no three-syllable names. This is, perhaps, a frightening reflection of my love of symmetry.

3. My first home was a boat on the River Thames in London. I haven’t ever felt creatively depleted, but if a dry spell ever comes my way, I will remind myself of this poetic start to life and hopefully get on with it.

4. I loathe olives. Every now and then I talk myself into trying another one, but they’re almost as bad as Marmite. (Despite the British roots, I have yet to understand how Marmite is classified as a food substance.)

5. In 1989, I was an extra in David Lansky, which was rumored to be the first French TV mini series. The series starred Johnny Hallyday, who is kind of the French version of Rod Stewart. According to Wikipedia, he is “the biggest rock star you’ve never heard of” in English-speaking countries. My appearance in this mini series, dear friends, was one of the highlights of my professional acting career. Need I say more?

Now, for the part where I get to present others with a Kreativ Blogger Award. I tried to ensure that the awardees had not already won this award. (Note to recipients: All you have to do is copy the Kreativ Blogger badge and list five random things about yourself in a post.) And the award goes to…

Feb 10

22 Comments

Miranda: My new laptop doesn’t have a power cord — or then again, maybe it does

This weekend, instead of using my “off” morning time to work on my novel, I decided to immerse myself in a half-day motherhood retreat. Not a retreat from motherhood, but a retreat to motherhood. Better motherhood.

For some time — years — I’ve been moving closer to fitting all the pieces together. This process has been a conscious journey. If you’ve been reading these pages for a while, you may remember my struggles with living in the moment as a working mother with 5 kids and too many hats. There’s the vortex of caring for young children, our trouble with transitions, accepting that someday is today, problems with multi-tasking, and my recent love affair with fixed-schedule time management. I do have the occasional flash of successful mothering. But the sum total is a lot of focus on what I’m not doing, and angst about what it all means.

My frustration stemmed from feeling like when I’m doing my own creative thing I’m not being a mother, and when I’m being a mother I’m not really doing my own creative thing. Putting stakes down around my creative time often comes with a price. Yet I know that being actively creative raises my resistance to domestic disasters. I know that “blending” the two parts as much as possible is often the key to success, but there are limits to how much you can pursue your art without some amount of time and space “apart.” Aren’t there?

No more ‘shoulds’
A dear friend of mine is emerging from a potentially life-threatening illness — during which she resigned to stop living under the shroud of obligations. “No more ‘shoulds,'” she told me. She decided that living her life in terms of what she should or shouldn’t do hadn’t served her very well, and big changes were in store.

I thought about this a lot. I realized that it makes sense on so many levels. Even practical terms. I decided that I too wanted to live in the realm of “want to” and “have to” only. Those are the things that matter. I might tell myself at 5:00 that I “should” start dinner, but put it off until 5:45 when I really have to start dinner. Why muck everything up with the “shoulds”? Either you want to start dinner and you do, or you have to start dinner and you do. Either way, dinner gets cooked, and you don’t need to fret about it one way or the other. No more relationships that I “should” foster. If I don’t want to invest myself in someone, then I won’t. Why throw myself away like that, in the name of “should”?

What’s most interesting about this particular exercise is that when you remove the “should” factor, you realize that there is a lot more “want” than you thought there was. When I thought about pulling away from certain friendships, I realized that I really didn’t want to do that. Some of those relationships were actually not based on obligation as much as I thought they were. When I remove the cloud of “should,” suddenly everything is clear. There is commitment because it’s actually important to me. So all of a sudden nurturing those relationships feels like a gift, not a chore, because I’ve recognized their true value.

Putting the pieces back together
Strangely, I’ve finally figured out how broken my framework was, and the many ways in which I perpetuated that broken viewpoint. I used to think it was cliché to say “my kids come first.” Like, duh. None of us are going to let the kids burn up in a fire while we run to the studio to save the canvases. But with my new paradigm, I see beyond the cliché. It’s the kids. Creativity is important, but I can’t live my life thinking that my children are the barrier to my creativity, and I can’t live my life trying to come up with clever ways to convince myself that that isn’t the case.

Because really, it isn’t the case.

It turns out that I’ve totally missed the forest for the trees. You’ll have to bear with my slowness on some of this stuff. I’ve spent my entire adult life being a mother and some of my perspective was apparently truncated along with my youth. I was 21 when my first child is born — he’s a freshman in college now. Since there is a very wide age span between my children — the youngest is not yet 2 — I’m still in the trenches of parenting young children.

And what I have I realized? Being in the trenches, parenting young children, is exactly where I want to be. Because it’s where I am. No, I do not need to “try” to be a good mother while internally I’m just treading water until I can do what I really want to do. The relationship between creativity and motherhood is summed up beautifully in this post, which was just sent our way by Gale Pryor: “Your writing can always be revised; your children can’t.”

Creativity is a beautiful overlay to my existence, but not the reason for my existence. Motherhood isn’t the reason for my existence either. The point is just to be here and take it all in. Just be here. Breathing and enjoying and letting the magic happen instead of using a shoehorn to make it all “work.” But meanwhile, while I’m living in the moment, serving the people I love is surely the most important way to focus my time. By “serve” I don’t just mean feed, bathe, clothe, and chauffeur — although of course, those are parts of it — by serve I mean serve bring joy, bring peace, bring laughter. My job is to help everyone I live with wake up and feel excited to be alive. I am not responsible for their happiness in the largest sense, but my job is to help them along the path to self-actualization as much as possible. And that’s a job I really want.

Putting work in a box
The “job” of nurturing my family is certainly more meaningful than the one I get paid for, even though you wouldn’t know that based on how I’ve let my business consume my life like over-fertilized kudzu. Over and over again I let my professional work take precedence over everything else, and then come out on the other side thinking that I won’t let it happen again — only to crawl back under the same rock a few weeks or months later.

It’s taken nearly 15 years, but I’ve finally figured out why I keep getting overbooked. Last month I sat down and did a bunch of math to calculate my monthly quota, how much time I need to spend on my retainer clients, and how much time I need to spend on additional billables. This all sounds so obvious, but I had never figured it all out before, and as a result was double and triple booking my time — and short-changing my most loyal clients. No more. I now know exactly how many hours I have on hand to spend on “extra” work and I am not going to say yes to anything new that won’t fit inside this box. I’m just done with working day and night and ignoring my family and my creativity in the name of meeting some “important” deadline. What’s so important, exactly?

OK, so the work dragon has been slayed. I get it. It’s been two weeks since I won that battle and I feel like a new person. The drop in stress level is amazing. Suddenly I have the bandwidth to focus on all of the important things — the people — I’ve been putting in the backseat for so long. I realize that I am in the midst of a tangible gear shift as I begin to live more in accordance with my priorities. It’s an incredible sensation.

Me, in bed, with lots of books
So. Back to my motherhood retreat. (If I haven’t lost all of my readers yet!) I had just finished Jamie C. Martin’s Steady Days the night before, and was inspired build on her good advice and creative thinking about “professional mothering.” I wanted to assemble my new progress and thought patterns and capture them so that the “old” ways wouldn’t take over again. I could have slept in that morning, but I was too excited about the work ahead. So I made a cup of coffee and got into bed with a stack of relevant books, a notebook, and my laptop. My stack included a selection of trusted favorites with a few recent additions:

  1. Steady Days by Jamie C. Martin
  2. Busy But Balanced by Mimi Doe
  3. The Creative Family by Amanda Soule
  4. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
  5. What Happy Working Mothers Know by Cathy Greenberg & Barrett Avigdor
  6. Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield
  7. Take Time for Your Life by Cheryl Richardson
  8. The Family Manager’s Everyday Survival Guide by Kathy Peel
  9. The Toddler’s Busy Book by Trish Kuffner
  10. Things I Can Make by Sabine Lohf

This may not be sufficient indication, but I horde organization-related books. There are at least a dozen excellent other titles on my shelves, but these are the ones that jumped out at me that morning.

I wanted to figure out how to use my organizational resources to create a system that supported my priorities, rather than left me feeling like I had a million things to do and no time to do them. I also wanted to create a few good lists of projects and games that I can do with my 4-year-old AND my 21-month old — and figure out how to incorporate that creative time into our lives in a meaningful way. I pulled apart all of my various planning methods and organizational tools and recreated the elements into something new that actually speaks to what I believe in. Something that actually helps me live in alignment with what really matters, rather than helps me chase the dust bunnies of life.

The result is a binder. A binder that includes all of the essential building blocks, all in one place. Motherhood, domestic life, the big picture, work — it’s all here, in the planner to end all planners. I think of this as my new laptop. And now, instead of staring at a piece of equipment, I can reach for PAPER — that beautiful, evocative tool that leads me to creative paths in ways that my iPhone — much as I love it — and MacBook — much as I love that too — cannot. While my new planner is fed by various applications and digital tools, it ends up being a tangible thing that I can carry and flip through throughout the day — without the distractions of e-mail and internet, which so often pull me away from what’s important.

Peace
Some of our community members are already living in alignment with their priorities, and don’t seem to experience the struggles that I’ve touched on above. I applaud the strength of that inner compass, that “knowing” without having first spent years doing it all the wrong way. But if you don’t quite feel at peace with your life’s “balance,” take a few hours one evening or Sunday afternoon to think about your big-picture goals, your real mission, and hold that up against how you really live, you may find that there is a gap between the two. The next task is to figure out how to close that gap. The results are so exciting that I find myself leaping out of bed every morning because I cannot wait for the new day to begin. I feel like a new person, and I already see a remarkable difference in how my family and my relationships with my children are changing as a result.

The creativity part? I’m not worried about it. I have no shortage of inspiration, and I’m confident that I will finish at least one of my various writing projects. I will write when I write. Whether I write or not, I’m going to enjoy the process. Living life in this openness actually feels more creative than when I’m forcing myself to write because I “should.” I’m no longer going to let “shoulds” take the joy out of what I love, whether that’s a creative project, my husband, my children — or myself.

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