Happy Friday to you.

My friend Teri is such a lovely person. When we get on the phone, I feel…comforted. We talk a long time and say more than people usually say and it’s comfortable because she’s unconditional. I just wanted you to know that.

On Fridays, Teri has Favorite Quote Fridays on her site Keeping It Personal. She asked me to share one of my favorite quotes this week over there and I was so honored. You can head over to Keeping It Personal to read my quote and why I chose it–how it’s the one that encompasses so much of how I want to live. (Rilke will do that.)

What’s one of your favorite quotes? And why do you love it? 

she says uh oh, so soft. her first words. ones that aren’t dada or mama, how she says those all the time because she’s asked to but doesn’t seem to know who they apply to and we laugh.

now it’s just constant uh oh
and that suits her
our little bull in a china shop
spitfire

Have you ever held fire close because it asks you to pull it in
slight tilt of the head
big eyes
engulfing?

We’ve been set on fire over here…

on my birthday, I felt sick inside
no explanation
something for a therapist’s couch.
The morning brought me pain down deep and when she woke up
and I walked into her room, there she stood
on fire
ablaze and I wept
I don’t know

she is a healing fire
God put her here for my soul

and the world’s…

anything she does brings the gift of feeling that fire
so she steps carefully now with soft
uh ohs
and we cheer and she grins
and pats her belly and goes back to looking
for a way to empty the entire water cooler all over the floor
or to find another window crank to shout
uh oh to while she shakes it back and forth

OPEN!

it’s like she’s doing the same to me

OPEN, Mama…

uh oh…

the best parts of you are walking around your house begging you to heal. 

:::::

Finally, I had time to sit with all of the submissions to the Use Your Words essay contest. With each and every one, my heart found touchpoints, the kind that mothers feel when we share our stories, the details of the beautiful mess. Reflections. She said, the lights were too bright in the hospital and she said she was scared on African soul, a new boy put in her arms, he’s yours now.

What do I do with him? Where do I start? Who will tell me what to do? 

:::

She said she was scared on a hospital bed, arms spread out in the operating room. My life is over and begun. 

Every word and every line and every essay, a theme. We are all so scared at the start–that enormous engulfing fear, like lava, she said, how she flew over a volcano and saw Mother Earth spit it forth–covering and engulfing. Swallowed.

Oh you Mamas. I loved your words and I sit with them and shake my head like how in the world will I choose one winner? Every single one holds such beauty. Thank you.

::::

It was just a garage sale but nothing is just anything and so it was there that I met mothers. Round bellied expectant ones and others redirecting their littles; Come back over here, stay by Mama. I want to reach out to every single one. Do just one kind thing because I know what they’re about to do and I know what they’re doing. And having words here with other mothers has confirmed my heart’s assumption that we are all the same and when we tell the truth of all the parts of this enormous job we find a connection that heals. It restores us to getting up to do it all again the next day, in whatever way that suits us.

So when she and I, we stood in front of my house and talked about a place for mothers, for women and others to come alive through creativity and life in person, Mother Earth stood still all around. This community, it needs this very thing, I wanted to scream it. It’ll be a workshop she said, for art. And mothers will be able to come with their kids, a place to hang out, little easels out in the sun for small hands to paint. My heart did all kinds of swell-y skipping fast around because for two years now I’ve been trying to figure it out. We need this place. Where should it be? What should it be? Who should do it? These questions have been pressing down hard on me and then she described it. Standing right there while she bought tables from my driveway to paint gray for the workshop.

Nothing is just anything. Everything is something and the miracle is showing up to watch the something unfold.

(Learn more about the Make. Do. Workshop on facebook.)

:::::

This is the 36th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.}  I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. Then please link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?

Earlier today I shared some tips on how to make your garage sale a success. (To get people to your sale and to make some money!) And now I’m sharing some little tips that make life easier as you plan and prepare for a sale. (Yes. I’m doing two garage sale posts in one day, as if I have nothing else to do…What can I say? Typing relaxes me.)

1. Don’t put a garage sale on your calendar, place ads and then start to get ready. No matter how well organized you are, having a sale is obviously still a lot of work, so it’s best to not leave that work to the last minute. A garage sale is one of the only things I do that doesn’t involve procrastination. I have a lot of anxiety in general. I don’t need to be schlepping stuff around my garage at 2 a.m. the night before a sale. NOT. FUN. So, if I know I’m having a sale in the middle of May, I start working my way through the house in March. This way I can spend nap time or an evening here or there setting aside boxes in our basement as I go through closets and drawers. This makes a lot of work feel like not much at all.

2. Have tables of items all one price. This will only work if you have your sale alone, but it’s a great tip and something I have done in the past. This way, you don’t have to put a sticker on each and every item and it can make life easier for the shopper as well. This saves a ton of time. BUT, if you are having a sale with friends and family and you need to use stickers to know how to ring things up and keep the money separate…

3. Buy stickers with prices already printed on them and use a Bingo dobber (Yes, I said Bingo dobber, shut up!) to color code. You’ll need to go quickly through each sheet of tags to add your assigned color but then you’re done! The day of the sale, each person has a color and as people pay, the tags are saved on separate pieces of paper by color. This, my friends, means something so terribly rad: No standing putting stickers on each item and then writing the price and your initials!

THEN…

4. As people pay, put the tags from items on a plastic lid. What, Heather? What do you mean? Well, it can get kind of hurried and disorganized when pulling tags off items and adding (for me, quick addition is HARD) and then putting the tag on the right page by color for the keeping of the separate. So, with each person that comes up to pay, pull their tags off and apply them to a plastic storage container’s lid. Like a Tupperware food storage container. Then, after it slows down, remove the tags from the lid and put them on the right pages. This also solves the problem if there’s any confusion about what the total should be. If you haven’t put them on the separate pages with all the other tags, you can just add everything over again to double-check.

Speaking of tags (still)…

5. Mark your items as you pull them out for the sale and before you put them in storage for the sale. That sounds confusing and extreme, but what I mean is that once you’ve cleaned out one certain area of your home and have piles to put in boxes until the sale, mark your items (color-coding the tags if needed) as you put them in bins or boxes to be brought out to the garage. Then, in the nights before the sale, all you have to do is pull your sale items out and put them on tables. Woot! (Yes, I just said Woot! About garage sales!)

6. Stack your tables. No, not during the sale, ya silly head. As your prepare things in the nights before your sale, it can get crowded in the garage. You want to have a lot of the tables and furniture, etc outside on the day of the sale so people can see it driving by, but if that’s the case, most of the time you can’t fit all the tables, etc in the garage as you get ready. (Obviously you can’t “store” things out on your driveway or in your yard before the sale.) The solution? A tip straight from my friend Jenna–Table stacking: Do your folded clothing first. Lay it out in rows on as many tables as it takes. (Side Note: Don’t stack your clothes too high, it’s hard to shop that way and it also will make it hard to stack tables.) Now lay an empty table of the same size with it’s legs folded in on top your clothes! Now you can lay out more clothes that table and on the day of the sale, you simply lift off the top table and move it outside. (This takes two or three people since you have to pull down the legs of the table while holding it, but it’s very easy.) I LOVE THIS TIP.

7. Have two check-outs. If you have a well-advertised or large or otherwise popular sale, you must do this. Nobody wants long lines at a garage sale. It’s too stressful for you and too annoying to shoppers.  If you use tags, it takes awhile to pull them off and stay organized. It’s so much easier to have more than one person doing this.

8. Have a helpful Helpy Helperton. At the sale we just had, both my friend Jenna and my mom took part. So Jenna and I manned the check-outs and my mom helped answer questions and kept things cleaned up, etc. In the first hours of a sale, people really rifle through things and make a mess. It gets hard for the next shoppers to make sense of the madness so it’s best to have someone re-folding, etc.

9. Don’t forget the small things. Be sure to have your “bank” (small cash and coins for change) ready the day before the sale. Make a note to go to your bank to pick this up. I’ve been to sales where the person forgot and yeah…not good. The same is true for signs. We got a little disorganized with timing this year and I ended up having Ryan run around putting up more and more signs the morning of the sale. Normally I have the signs ready to go earlier in the day before the sale and we put them up the evening before. Done. It’s so much better to have that off your mind the day of the sale. I also recommend buying pre-printed signs. Now you can get them with Garage Sale printed on them and spaces with faint arrows to color in when you know which way the signs will be facing. Ryan actually took the black permanent marker with him and filled in the arrows as he got to each sign location. Not every sign needs to be huge and unique. Many are just a trail to the address. The signs on main streets are the ones that should be hand-made with details like appealing items that are for sale and words like EPIC and WONDERFANAWESOMETABULOUS. The rest can simply point to the address.

10. Have a goal. Maybe your goal is to raise money for something specific–to donate or to go on a trip, etc. Whatever the reason, even if it’s simply to downsize, minimalize and refresh your home, keep reminding yourself of that goal because sales are a lot of work and it’s not going to be fun at all unless you’re doing something that matters to you.

If you have more tips for me, I’d love to hear them. You know, I like to keep it simple.

Now go forth and sell.

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

All last week I was slowly and sporadically preparing for a garage sale. (In other words, for five minutes here and there while juggling children (literally, in the air) I went through closets and put price tags on things that we haven’t used. That always adds up to a lot.) Then a friend of mine came over the day before the sale and couldn’t believe how giddy I was.  She said she could see how happy I was to be having a garage sale in my face.

Yes. I’m a giddy garage sale-having big nerd.

It’s a combination of things, my friends. Purging. Cash. Purging. And the psychology of garage sales. You know, the fascinating people and conversations you have that can only come about because of strangers entering your yard, driveway and/or garage to peruse for your “trash” to become their “treasures”.

We’ve hosted many a garage sale in the eight (whoa, almost nine…this last year went so fast) years we’ve been married. The one we had yesterday was by far the biggest and best yet. I feel sort of expert-ish now. Especially since I had the garage sale yesterday with my dear friend Jenna and learned cool new tricks. (Many of those tricks were related to making a big endeavor like a garage sale easier, and I’ll share those tips in another post. Good stuff. You know, for those of you who are big garage sale nerds like me.)

For now, I’ll give you my top ten tips for making the time and effort worth your while: 

1. Have your sale with friends and/or family: In the months before you plan to have a sale, invite many people to join you. The bigger, the better (if you have good space, of course). This makes your advertisements and signs more appealing and brings in unique items people may be looking for specifically. And of course, the more people you have, the more items you have and a loaded garage and driveway causes the passer-by gawker slow down followed by the quick pull to the curb and the hop out. (I know you’re with me.) (If you’re a nerd.)

2. Advertise like your life depends on it. Or, at least in as many ways as possible in your area. I utilize Craigslist, Facebook and our local paper. This is enough for our area since we’re out here in a small town, but so many options are available for listing sales and they differ in different cities. Most are free options so make the time to sit down and add your sale to all of them. Speaking of sitting down to write up your ads…

3. Make your advertisements as good as your sale. Even if you have to pay extra per line in your paper, describe your sale with many specifics and use language that pulls people in. No lie, I used the word EPIC in my ads this year. Because seriously, this sale was EPIC. So I said so. Of course I included that the sale was BIG and multi-family. We all know how people like that. Beyond that, I did not only list the usual categories of items, but also specifics. For example, I said that there were many crafting items and included things that people usually end up spending a lot on at the retail price. Like Creative Memories and Sizzix.

Basically, what I’m saying is that there’s a big difference between,

“Garage sale this Saturday: many items, clothing, decor, misc. (address) (time)”

and,

“GINORMOUS GARAGE SALE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS. SAT ONLY SO DON’T MISS IT!! Multi-family! Furniture (Antique table, office chair, IKEA, etc) Clothing (sizes and sexes), Baby Gear (swing, Bumbo, double stroller, etc) Toys, Crafting (CM and Sizzix and more), Tools (rotator saw and much misc) TOO MUCH TO LIST. (address) (time)”

4. Put up many signs: It’s tempting to only put signs in the highest traffic areas because it’s time-consuming to make them and put them out and then pick them up the next day, but STILL…put up more signs  in more places. I guarantee it brings in more traffic if you place them strategically to point people in your direction. (More on this in my next garage sale tip post on time-saving.)

5. What you write on your signs matters. Just like your ads, your signs need to lure people in with specifics and epic words. Like EPIC. Some of the signs can be generic, for people to follow the trail to the pot at the end of the rummage rainbow, but for the big ones in high traffic areas, list appealing items!

6. Have a lot of appealing items in the driveway for curb appeal. Screeeeeech. (That’s a car coming to a halt because the people inside spotted your armoire at the end of the driveway next to your bike trailer that’s next to the antique chairs…or something like that.) (You get the idea.) (Because you’re smart.) After our sale started yesterday, we caught our breath about two hours later (but only for a moment. It was so busy!) and we moved a big dining table to the end of the driveway because we finally had room to do so. People immediately started to stop to ask about the table. There actually ended up being a bit of a bidding war on that thing. Word.

7. If you happen to have some on hand, have adorable children out in full view serving treats and drinks. My boys had a table with brownies and muffins and iced drinks for the hot day. They had a great time and they made a little money and learned that when someone gives you a dollar, you give them two quarters back if something costs 50 cents. The appeal for people traveling past is that the “lemonade stand” brings a friendly feeling and kids are cute and people like to see cute things. You’re welcome.

8. Have your sale for one day only.  I don’t know that everyone will agree with me, but there are a few positives about having a sale for only one day. Firstly, when people know it’s only one day, the are more apt to “hurry on over”. Secondly, you don’t have to spend your whole weekend having the sale which will probably cause you to make the most of your ONE chance. Thirdly, as you well know, the second day of a sale is usually pretty lame because if people know there was a first day they assume all the good stuff is gone.

9. Do not over-price your items. Here’s part of the psychology of garage sales. It’s not shocking but it seems that a lot of people that have sales are confused about it. Your prices should not be similar to clearance prices at the store–they should be far less. I don’t care if your items are in good shape and the best of the best most expensive things on the planet–they should be no more than 20-30% of the original price and even better, should stay around 10-15% (or even lower) of the original cost. WHY HEATHER? HOW WILL THAT MAKE ME SOME COLD HARD CASH AND NOT HAVE ME WASTING MY PRECIOUS TIME??? you ask? Well. If someone walks up to your sale and starts to look over a Pottery Barn crib bedding set and sees “All for $50!” they will most likely walk away. People don’t want to spend $50 at a garage sale. BUT, if you mark this same thing at $15, the person will most likely snatch it right up, knowing what a deal they’re getting. This means you made $15 rather than zero. And since I’m reading your mind, you may be wondering HOW it’s worth having the sale if everything is marked so low. You will. Because people get a little crazy and their arms get loaded and almost everything GOES when they’re at a sale with great deals. (For we minimalists, this is awesome.) Also. This means that you end up making MORE money by the end of the sale because all the small amounts obviously add up and up and up instead of over-priced items sitting there with sad faces at 3pm. Lastly, it’s like my friend Megan said, even if you have great stuff that’s tempting to price high, it’s still used stuff…in the shopper’s eyes it’s still stuff that was in someone else’s house.

10. Make your set-up appealing and comfortable. People don’t want to stay somewhere crowded (this is pretty obvious but important–have your sale in a big enough garage or someplace where people can easily maneuver through while it also doesn’t appear sparse) People also don’t want to stay somewhere that they are being pressured to buy things. It’s a garage sale after all, there shouldn’t be any pressure. Be available to answer questions (this means having enough help on-hand!) but don’t confront someone who is quietly browsing with a barrage of information that makes them feel awkward. If you do, most likely you’ll watch them do the nonchalant saunter-off back to their car to avoid you. Lastly, even though it is just a garage sale, go the extra mile. For example, a woman was shopping our sale with a newborn in one arm while trying to pile up items in her other arm. We provided space for people to hold items while they shopped so we set things aside for her, but I also offered this young Mama a baby sling from in the house. This got us talking and she ended up taking my Ergo’s newborn insert home free of charge. Later that day, she came back for more shopping. (We liked each other, what can I say?)

Later today (Seriously. TWO garage sale posts in one day…I’m insane.) I’m going to share some tips for making it easier to have a garage sale. I have a lot of practice and so does my friend Jenna, who hosted with me this year. She taught me some great tricks and I just have to share them with the garage sale loving world. I know you can’t even stand to wait.

P.S. It was no problem watching Elsie during the sale…we just put her over in the bushes so she could pay with twigs. KIDDING, of course…but what a cute picture…

Do you like having sales? Do you have any tips for making your sales a success? (I really want to know because I’m not even kidding, we might have another one later this summer.)

a note to my children:

cartoons were just on Saturday mornings
with Froot Loops
and the whole family couldn’t miss
Cosby or Simon and Simon.
We would sit there
together
with no reality.

I got the first Nintendo
and it was Christmas
and Cousin Angie and Mama
played Mario for a week straight
and then your Bapa and me,
we would play every evening
while Nanny and Auntie Shelly
rolled their eyes.

Mario came in a cartridge and we never bought more games.
We just saved the princess over and over
and then tried to do it without losing even one life
or other rules we made up.

Guess what
we didn’t have computers
until I was a teen and then there was still NO INTERNET.

When Grandpa Glenn’s dog died that I loved he had two choices
call me
write me
not an email, but a letter
and so he did, it was easier for him.
I got off the bus and got the mail and walked
the gravel drive while opening the letter
and I knew before I read the words
paper in hand
with beloved handwriting
and I was so sad and held it to my chest.

We didn’t find out anything on facebook or twitter.

On car trips we played I Spy
read books
talked
did Mad Libs
played M.A.S.H.
listened to Wilson Phillips on a tape.

what’s a tape?
I’ll show you sometime.

Even in college when someone needed to talk to me
they left a message on my answering machine
and that was like voicemail.
I got it when I got it and called back when I called back
because when I was out I was out.

I think this is why I say no to a DS
and send you outside
and tell you to shut off the TV
and why we play I Spy
and maybe even why we have chickens
and why I run through the sprinkler with you.

Because I’m sorry you missed the old days.

:::::

Another note to my children: Please

A robin was looking right back at me when I looked up. An orange breast just staring at me from a branch next to the kitchen window. I said HI out loud because when you live in the land of mostly cold weather, seeing a robin sends a flood of renewal through your toes and fingertips.

I set down the dirty dish I was about to put in the dishwasher and I went out back to let out the chickens and then to watch them. There is heat in the morning air and there is a new kind of first light I wear flip flops or no shoes and see longer grass every morning.

The boys are sprinkler jumping and bubble blowing and Elsie is sitting in the grass and taking it all in. She’s new here, to spring, and I think she likes it. Especially the grass and the chickens. The chickens make her whole self jump around with the sight of them.

I needed renewal and I needed to put some things down and step outside.

:::::

This is the 35th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.}  I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. Then please link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?

As mothers, we do our best to maintain a home and schedules and meet all the needs of our children and still remain even a little bit focused on the things we do outside of being a mother, whether that’s paid work or hobbies. 

I’m a mother that has chosen to work part-time from home. I have some paid writing gigs and I do some speaking and the Serenity Suite at BlogHer. I’m juggling a lot. Whether or not it feels like there’s too much on my plate has less to do with what’s on that plate and more to do with whether or not someone is helping me hold it, so to speak. And what I’m learning is that even finding a paid childcare provider that suits our family’s needs is difficult. 

My parents have shown our family an invaluable amount of support and we’re so incredibly grateful. We are basically totally wearing them out while we do the great nanny search of 2012. The last thing I want to do in the meantime is take advantage of the time my parents are giving us, which is already a lot, so I do my best not to call unless I have to. 

The reality is, if I’m going to do what I love and remain a writing mother, I need help with my kids. I’m not expecting a perfect balance to magically become attainable when that’s the case because I believe motherhood is all about accepting imbalance in a million ways, but still, needing help is needing help. 

For now, my sister (Thank you, Auntie Slushy!) comes on Mondays and my parents help out when I’m under pressure and need to get something done.This is good and so appreciated, but things today are so fast-paced and friends and family are so busy, a mother needs to find other avenues of support in order to not upset the balance within her relationships while trying to find some balance! 

When we’ve had childcare in the past, I was the most peaceful mother I had been in a long time. Having time to write and then go back to face time with my kids was just what I needed to be more of the mother I want to be. It wasn’t easy financially, but I believe it was worth it. I don’t expect a perfect balance, but as I walk the tightrope between family life and work and creativity, the closest I can come to the middle is with help. 

This is a mother’s day and it has been a mothering year. We warrior mothers, we pass the thousands of hours in years and mark them with the birthdays of our children, not our own.  Today we’re marked and celebrated with messy kid-handled pancakes and syrupy kisses and handmade cards with scrawls and artist’s drawings of ourselves with the skinniest of frames and huge eyes. They’re beautiful, and the pancakes are the best we’ve ever had.

Yesterday morning I had that half of the day entirely to myself and I drove around a beautiful lake and stopped at beautiful homes for an annual garage sale extravaganza. It wasn’t about stuff as much as it was about a treasure hunt and treasures I found. More than in garages, I found laughter with my own mother and a gulping of the most beautiful weather God could have lended the day. I sucked it in and said, I can smell the lake. The perfectly still lake, sun glimmering and sparkly.

I found a tiny little vintage chair, all mid-century modern green and totally rad. Just Elsie’s size and I couldn’t wait to see her in it. $2.

Thoughts of the Time Magazine attachment parenting article controversy bounced around my head while I drove, slow and careful around the curvy and busy with treasure-hunters roads.  I’m a mother, I had to give it all just a little thought. The thin and beautiful blogging mother on the cover, her three year old son attached to her breast and forever attached to the Internet and the cover of that grab-your-attention-for-sales magazine. When he is twenty his friends will learn that he was the boy on the boob back then. And then there’s the ridiculous title of the article, screaming to irritate any mother right before Mother’s Day with, ARE YOU MOM ENOUGH?

Dear Time Magazine, my feathers are not ruffled. They are otherwise occupied with very few mornings to myself and the covering of my three beautiful children. My heart and mind have no room for comparing to another mother because they are with Kristen’s words in response to the article, Where is the mommy-war for the motherless child?

I came home from sale-ing to nurse and rock my baby to sleep. I didn’t do that because I have the title of Attachment Parent or because I’m trying to keep up with any other mother. I did that because that’s what she needed in that moment. She was close and sleeping and I was looking at her and running my hand over her head and a picture came to mind of a boy from Haiti with hydrocephalus, what our very own Asher has, but the boy from Haiti is untreated. His head is enormous, his eyes bulging from the pressure in his brain. And I imagined him here, he was Elsie Jane and I was his mother and I was comforting his pain and I was holding him close and I was weeping.

I hope his face is always on the Internet, where I found him and was reminded again that I am a mother to more than just my children. I am holding them all if I allow myself to see them there in my arms and when I am then drawn to do something. They are the treasure. I am the mother.

I will sponsor you through Compassion and I will help break you free through International Justice Mission and I will remain open to whatever else I start to feel drawn to do for you and if I ever stop weeping for you I will know that something is wrong.

Today I share Mother’s Day with my husband on his birthday and my children and all of their needs and it is not a sacrifice even though each and every day I sacrifice as Mother Enough. My children have me, broken and messy Mama Heather. I’m right here, with them, and so they are so willing to share my heart with the orphaned, the un-mothered.

Yesterday I drove around a beautiful lake and I thought about what mothering means and I know for certain that it isn’t at all about what kind of title you give it. That is all just stuff. Maybe I fit under Attachment Parenting, but I am only there because I am following my own personal and private and intimate heart-gut guiding. That’s different for everyone. This life, overall, as a mother, is about a treasure hunt. Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary and discovering so very little is about me. It is about Love and being led by Love and that means it is about not forgetting the motherless children in the midst of our busy lives with our guilt-inducing over-thinking Mama brains that taunt us to compare or contrive drama for the sake of drama. We miss the treasures, in our lives and the treasure of the orphan-child, if we stay stuck there.

So, Time Magazine, I have no room for you. It is Mother’s Day and I am grateful and overwhelmed with so much good in my life–so much good I can hardly even take it all in without combusting. And yet, there will remain a part of my open heart that sees the sad reality of a media driven culture that has been conditioned to feel nothing when seeing the faces of the orphaned on magazine covers. Those faces are rarely there and covered instead with Kardashians and contrived stories of mothers pitting themselves against each other based on how they raise their children. It is attention grabbing and short-lived and shallow.

Let’s move on, on Mother’s Day. Where we stay in the syrupy kisses day and in Love, paying no mind to comparisons but only to honoring our mothering hearts–ones always big enough for the orphan coming home to us, in one way or another…

Compassion International
International Justice Mission
Foster Care
Adoption

Happy Mother’s Day, my friends.

That’s right, friends. Maggie and I are back to BlogHer this year in New York City to provide a low-key and relaxing space to take a break from all the beautiful conference madness–scheduling, sessions, socializing, parties and the busy New York City streets. This peaceful place? The Serenity Suite!

We’ll be located in a lovely BlogHer sponsored suite in the very hotel where the conference is taking place, and we’re working hard to provide a warm and inviting comfortable space to relax, rejuvenate, regroup and talk with friends, old and new. (This is a great place to set up that “let’s get together at BlogHer!” meeting with the blog friend you feel so connected to but haven’t yet had the chance to meet in person.)

Come and visit us at the Serenity Suite, have a cup of coffee or tea, a yummy dessert or three and say hello to the hosts who will be greeting you and making sure you feel welcome. Our hosts are bloggers, all of them willing to volunteer their time to be sure the Serenity Suite is all it’s meant to be, and we appreciate them so much. We’ll share a list of hosts with you just as soon as we can.

(The Serenity Suite is an alcohol free space but its purpose is not only to provide a safe zone for those of us in recovery–it’s also available to every conference attendee as a place to slow down and take a deep breath. All are welcome!)

As the conference nears we’ll be sharing more information about the suite with you right here, including the suite number so you can take note of it before you get to the conference. If you have any questions, or would like to volunteer as a host for a two hour shift in the suite, please send an email to heatheroftheeo at gmail dot com.