HaveHeart Magazine

So big news, not only did I get to launch a great new collaboration with Fairy Wings and Dinosaurs, I am officially a contributing writer to the awesome new magazine, HaveHeart Magazine. If you haven’t already checked it out, is a fairly traditional women’s magazine in many ways. It talks love, family, fashion, fitness, recipes, and more. Here’s the twist: This women’s mag actually celebrates women. And I mean all of them. All ages, all sizes, all women. If that isn’t crazy enough, there is a very strict no-photoshop policy in place. Not a single flyaway is smoothed back into place. That’s pretty damn awesome.

So anyway, they are graciously allowing me to share my words. Actually, not even just my words. My words, photos and some super special printables to help out my article as well. My only downside in this whole wonderful experience was looking at my laptop, seeing something I was proud of creating and not getting to share it here. My original article (find it here), is the launch to me being the party girl. I get to share all of my best tips on planning, budgeting, decorating for every event, party or holiday. It includes a downloadable event planning checklist. You have to head over to HaveHeart for the full article, put here’s a peak at the checklist!

 

Push Creativity

A couple of weeks ago I had the incredible opportunity to attend a workshop on creativity and design thinking. One of the most memorable tings discussed was the instructor’s retelling of an experiment conducted. I can’t remember exactly how it went or where it was conducted, but the basis went something like this: an art professor was teaching a pottery class for a semester and split the class into two halves. The first half was told that their overall class grade would be based on the quality of a single piece. Those students made only one, or very few pottery pieces and put painstaking effort into their works. The second half of the class was told their grade would only be based on how many finished projects they could complete in the semester. Every piece counted no matter what it looked like. Att he end of the semester, the professor (and I) were surprised to find that the latter half of the class had significantly better work to exhibit than the former.

This story weighs so heavily on my mind. I know I fall somewhere in the middle — Which is worse because that means I am neither mass producing and continuously practicing my arts nor am I working diligently at one  masterpiece. I just truck along, never fulling pushing myself. Rarely bettering my arts. Maybe it gave be a bit of a high, but I have changed my tune and probably waaaayy over estimated my artistic talent. I am trudging along weight for a breakthrough. Creativity is creativity. I think (hope) that pushing myself creatively in a way unlike I have have ever done previously, will spill over onto other creative efforts.

I joined an Art Challenge with the local art co-op in my town. I paid my $30, picked up my 15 canvases and committed to covering one each day in art. Any medium I choose. The scary part is that after the 15 days is up, I have to bring them all back to the art co-op. And then they host a showing. And THEN they go on sale to the public on Small Business Saturday. Eek. I happened to see some of the other participants’ names when I picked up my canvas and let me tell you, I am so friggin’ far out of my league, it’s rather embarrassing. I am making up shit everyday and spewing it onto a canvas. Monday I almost started crying. After “Art Time” I was pretty sure I really liked S’s watercolor better than mine. I have a feeling if a 3-year-old has more skills than, I can only cross my fingers that they have the decency to not place my “art” near that of the talented women with M.A.’s in  Art History…

Yet, creativity-building this experience is. I am writing more. Thinking more and feeling more inspired. I will take nice photos of my work sometime soonish, but in the meantime, if you care to follow along on my overshot art challenge, follow me on instagram (search ellesmith104).

There is no way I can commit to writing everyday on top of doing this art challenge, but I would like too. I hope that making time to be creative will become habit, no matter the creative outlet. As we have all heard, being creative is not a hobby, it’s a lifestyle, and that is how I want to style my life.

 

 

Resolution Time

Happy 2013. We’ve been at it for a full week now and I hope it’s treatin’ ya well. So far it’s been good at the Smith home—unless my resolution had been to change outta my pajamas and brush my hair every day, in which case this year would already be an epic fail. I would not have even scored a 50%. Welcome to winter break. It’s delightful.

The children have been to daycare only once since December 21. We cook, clean, craft, read, play and watch Yo Gabba Gabba. Not to say they never stress me out. They do. But I like that in a way. It means we are together.

So about the New Year. Resolutions are ridiculous. I guess I thought they were a punch line, not so much a  real thing at this stage in life. I mean if I were going to drop 40 lbs. and be thin and glamorous, it probably would have happened by now. But the whole concept got me thinking about me, where I wanna be and how I wanna be. I considered those primary portions of myself—the Mrs., the mama and just Elle.

As for me as a Mrs. Let’s be clear, I may not discuss my marriage on here a lot, but that’s to keep from jinxing a good thing. My marriage is rockin’. My husband –though not perfect—is kind, sexy, hard-working, responsible,  empowering, loving and fun, and takes all my thoughts, dreams and desires into consideration in all things.  So I resolve not to fuck up a good thing. Also I resolve to thank him for being so good and wonderful by acknowledging that it’s time for the ugly, pregnancy “granny-panties” to go. It’s been long enough. At some point I realized I put significantly more consideration into my undergarments as a high school virgin than I do now as a woman married to a total hottie. Time’s up. I fully resolve to part ways with the embarrassingly unattractive underwear I have been wearing. Not to say it will be lacy black thongs on a daily basis. But decent, cute, hand-selected panties (the opposite of Fruit of the Loom clearance packs)—that’s not exactly shooting for the moon. I forgot, but it’s actually rather fun to buy pretty under things. And conveniently enough, Victoria’s Secret just kicked off their semi-annual sale.

Panty Upgrade Resolution

As for me as a mama. As humans, I prefer that we all be ever-adapting, shifting and bettering ourselves. This is never truer than in the parenting arena. You have to be quick on your feet and ready to handle whatever is thrown at you—even if it’s a full cup of grape juice. So I could resolve to be a better mother. But frankly that should’ve been my resolution by at least Valentine’s Day 2010—the day I first became a mother. So as always, I want to continue learning and striving to be the best mama I can. My tiny little resolution in this aspect is to commit to “activities” outside the norm, at least weekly. This is part of a desire to establish and maintain an interactive relationship but it will also develop certain skills in my babes. This week S and I made a magic wand. She did so well with the wand she wanted more to paint. I gave her one of my wooden bangles and she painted it for me. It looks really cool and I love it. During this time, G also did some “craft work” and we let him loose with paper and markers and he rather got a kick out of the whole process.

Elle. Me. I want to write. Writing, like any art or skill, takes practice and consideration. So I resolved to read or write every single day this year. Lecture notes and textbooks do not count. This week has been phenomenal.  It had been far too long since I’d read anything that wasn’t assigned in school. In the first few days of the year I read The Hunger Games Trilogy. Oh it was so delicious to just get lost in some exciting books! Since then I began Eat, Pray, Love. It’s not so action-packed addictive (obviously), but it’s good. Really good. I find myself even reading with a purpose—highlighting, underlining meaningful or well-written lines. I love reading. Maybe that’s why I have not written in this past week or so even though I had the time. I spent that time reading instead.

My resolutions feel selfish. There is no resolve to starve or deprive myself in anyway. I am not forcing myself to do anything I do not want to do. I have resolved to be ok with that. Each resolution, while pleasurable for me, will benefit my family and/or future in some way. That’s a good thing and makes for resolutions I can keep.

School’s Out!

The only thing worse than yearning to write in a blog you don’t have is yearning to write in a blog you do have. I am sorry for my little absence, but such is the life of a student—particularly an English student who allows her writing assignments to pile up and then has no time for “fun writing”.

What a semester this was! I won’t say it was my worst ever because life itself was good and I really enjoyed being back on campus. Once I got my childcare situation worked out, I loved getting to go to class and knowing my little lovies were right there near me. I was able to go to the daycare between all my classes and breastfeed Baby G.

That said, I had some of the worst professors I have ever had. I am studying English and Business but this is the first semester I had many business classes in the classroom. My school likes to brag about their business division. They have their own commercials, events and advertising catch phrases. I was pretty excited to jump in and be part of all the excitement. The humanities division is great and all, but we don’t have any fancy wine fundraisers or whatnot. I now know this is because the humanities professors are more concerned with providing quality education than attempting to become local celebs like the business professors. I seriously have not seen such a bunch of washed-up has-beens since the last time I watched a Comedy Central Roast.

When the commercials highlight instructors with “real world experience”, what they mean is that they have a lovely collection of folks who failed in the real world but are here to brag about their few, small successes. And while they are at it, they will manage to “teach” the students in the most condescending manner they can conjure up. Awesome.  My Business Law class (which I dropped) was taught by a local ex-lawyer who looks something like Ken’s dad. By Ken I mean Barbie’s man. He raves about his successful law career—which he apparently left completely for a significant pay cut to teach law at a small state college. Sounds like a successful attorney, right?

Sometime I will tell the stories about the rest of business professors, for now I will just try to forget about it and pretend it was all just a bad dream. Thank goodness I did have one humanities class. It was a delight. The instructor had an actual doctorate and lectured in a way that was insightful, respectful and entertaining. I feel obligated to throw that in so you understand that I do like most of my professors. Some I love. It’s only rarely that I meet any I cannot stand. I happened to get more than one this semester for the first time ever.

This is finals week, but I had all my finals on Monday so this is the first day that the three of us—Miss S, Baby G and me—would have gone to school. We celebrated our freedom by heading to the bakery outlet for old bread and took it to feed the ducks. I think this was Miss S’s first time feeding the ducks that she was actually old enough to really understand and enjoy herself. The geese were taking over as usual and honking obnoxiously and she was baffled that the “big ducks say ‘ribbit’?”.

So for now I am breathing deep happy breaths. I get to spend wonderful time with my darlings. I do not have to fake interest to pass classes, and in fact I have no academic obligations whatsoever. All the while we are broke as a joke so I do have to figure something out. The trick is finding a job that would make childcare worth it… but that is a whole other discussion. For now, enjoy some glimpses of our duck/park day and check back soon—I have my first ever giveaway nearing!

Cheers!