MamaManagement

This post is going out to all of the tired moms out there. Because I am one of those tired moms this week. I was wallowing in my own little puddle of misery this morning. Feeling tired and overwhelmed and lonely and blue. (My husband is traveling all week, our new puppy is high maintenance, the puppy and the kids keep getting me up all night long so I'm getting no sleep, etc...) Then I thought I'd add a layer of guilt to that by reminding myself how lucky I am and how charmed my life is and how I have no business whatsoever feeling any of these things because, comparatively, I live on Easy Street. Then I added a layer of failure on top of the guilt because I'm "supposed" to be living in the moment and being mindful and if I was being mindful I wouldn't be dwelling on all of this junk and I'd feel better. Then I remembered that I'm not "supposed" to be having "supposed to" thoughts, because it's irrational, unhealthy t

This book should be read by every mother and her teenage daughter. Moms will remember what it's like to be a teenage girl, and daughters will get just a tiny glimpse into the minefield of motherhood...how easy it is to do everything all wrong when you're trying so hard to do everything right. This book reminded me that if we can all always approach everyone we encounter with the idea that they're probably doing the very best they can with what they've got to work with at that very moment...well, life will be a little easier and we'll all be lovelier people. This book took me back to being a young woman...to being young and in love, and oh so naive about love and boys...a nativity of the heart that never really went away...I just simply got lucky and eventually found the right guy.  But, oh, the heartache every time it wasn't the right guy. Oh, the heartache. This book made me feel (remember) the amazing purity, the clarity of true friendship. The factu

Is it bad that I like the KidzBop versions of a lot of today's popular songs better than the originals? Not so much the vocals, but the lyrics. I realized this yesterday when driving around with my kids listening to the Kidzbop station on SiriusXM. I caught that moment in a song where they've noticeably changed the words. And I felt...relieved to not hear whatever degrading line had been altered...and not just because my kids were in the car. I realized that I didn't want to hear that junk either. And that realization got me thinking, and then asking: Does liking KidzBop versions of some songs better than the originals mean that I've lost my edge? Or does it mean that I've wizened to the impact of the words we spout freely to the rhythm of fun dance music. As I see it, the beauty of KidzBop is that they remove the misogyny without removing the fun dance beat. As I get older I find myself offended and disappointed on a regular basis by the lyrics in popular

I've been a little off my game here on the blog lately. I think it's been the end of summer/beginning of the school year switch-over that's had me out of whack. No time to write. But honestly, I haven't known what to write about either. I'm not much of a planner on here. I tend to just write about whatever is on my mind at the moment. And I guess I didn't think you'd have much interest in hearing about summer's last hurrahs and back to school shopping and fall activity/schedule planning. But, there's always space in my world to talk about books...even if I don't have new absolute-must-reads to share. So, today I thought I'd share with you what I've been reading lately and give you a little peek into what's up next in the TBR pile on my nightstand. So here we go... What I've Been Reading: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton This one was a loaner from my mother. I can't say that I loved the book. Though I didn't hate it