There’s nothing quite like a snow day. Especially when the storm falls on a weekday. I remember as a child of the 80’s, sitting in front of the radio listening to the list of school cancellations being read in alphabetical order. When Marshall was called, we would jump up and down and run around the house screaming “School’s cancelled! School’s cancelled!”
Tonight we got word that St Paul schools would be cancelled tomorrow due to a pre-Thanksgiving snow storm. There was no waiting by the radio, but I did receive a text message, email, and voicemail.
A snow day for the kids means staying up a little later, sitting by the window and watching the snow fall by candle light. During the day off, there will be movies, board games, blanket forts in the living room, freshly baked cookies, family time, playing in the snow, and shoveling. Lots and lots of shoveling.
During a rare April snow day in 2018, the kids made an epic snow fort. The fort was modeled after a similar fort that my brothers and sisters and I made growing up. I am still in search of a photograph of the original. The fort was made from bricks of snow stacked in rows about 6-8 high with the word “HONK” written on the front with food coloring.
The kids had a blast jumping out from behind the wall and cheering when cars would honk
Whether you are dreading the coming winter or as excited as my kids, I hope you will find something to savor in this first snow day.
With four kids ranging from age 5 to 17, I have thrown my share of birthday parties. If you count one party a year for each of my kids, I have currently thrown 47 birthday parties. Can I say that again? 47 Parties!!
Here are my top 3 most memorable
Around the World Party We packed a dozen 1st graders into our basement laundry room in Minneapolis. Rows of folding chairs transformed the space into an airplane.
I was the stewardess who helped the guests board the plane and gave them a boxed snack to eat mid-flight. Mark was the pilot that guided us through the take off and landing, complete with sound effects.
Who Wants to be a Millionaire Party
when Ellie turned 9, one of our favorite TV shows to watch as a family was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Mark set up speakers in the basement and played host of the popular game show. All the prepared questions had to do with American Girl dolls. The volume of the theme song pouring out of the speakers seemed to shake the whole house. The kids each soaked up their moment of fame as a contestant in the hot seat.
Paint Fight Party
When Tabby turned 15, she asked for a paint fight party. I bought 12 large bottles of washable tempera paint and the kids all wore white. We walked to a grassy field near our house and the teenagers ran around and threw paint on each other for about 10 wild minutes. That’s as long as the paint lasted.
After the paint attack, back at the house, everyone attempted to wash off using the garden hose. It was SUCH a mess. An insane mess. The kids went home and told their parents that it was the best birthday party EVER! I still cannot believe that I allowed it.
Most of the other parties have been fairly tame compared to those three. We have went bowling, ate frozen yogurt, had a doll tea party, decorated cookies, solved secret codes, watched a movie, and smashed lots of piñatas.
The thing that makes parties worth giving is the excitement leading up to the big day. There’s nothing like hearing my kids’ squeals of delight as each guest walks from their car up to our front door with present in hand.
The kids talk about it for weeks beforehand and count the days and hours and minutes until the first friend arrives. It brings me great joy to see them grow with each year. I wonder how many more birthday parties there will be? I think I’ll just enjoy a few months off until the next one.
As a nurturing mother, oldest child, and natural born helper, I didn’t give self care much thought until about 5 years ago. I didn’t have a clear understanding of the word.
I thought Self care = Selfish and I had been taught clearly from childhood that being selfish was bad. I still remember clearly the Sunday School song:
“Put Jesus first and Others second and put Yourself at the end of the line, And you will find true Joy in your life through J-O-Y. I loved that song. I lived it with great pride.
Then, I spent 12 years as a full-time stay at home mom with no time to myself. Add a few major life challenges and finding out I was pregnant with baby #4, and I reached major burn-out.
Over time, the realization came that I was not feeling the least bit joyful. I resented never speaking up for myself and always giving up my needs for everyone else. Through some therapy, I realized that I had lived my life treating everyone else kindly, but not being kind to myself – At All.
I have begun thinking of this topic of self care as Self Kindness
Love is Kind. I cannot truly love the people in my life unless I love myself. I began giving myself permission to rest from always caring for the needs of others. I had to figure out what was restful and then make time for it”
As a young mom, I remember coming to the end of a day after the kids had finally fallen asleep and the house was quiet, and thinking “Now, I can FINALLY rest” . I’ve earned it!!” I defined rest as a small compartment reserved for when the work was done.
Life can be hard. Really hard. There were days and weeks and years when the urgent drowned out the important in my life, and the only break I got was 5 minutes in the bathroom with the door closed. Self care for me started with a decision. I would make a daily choice to be kind to myself and at times that would mean saying no to the demands of others.
I have been gradually adding daily practices that have helped me find rest. *Candle light *Journaling *Drinking coffee *Walking *Going outside in nature *Turning off my phone *Time with friends *Reading *Smiling and making funny faces at myself in the mirror.
After intentionally trying to be more kind to myself for the past 5 years, I have noticed something. I call it a Brush with Self Care. Imagine a paint with water picture. The brush dipped in the water symbolizes self care. When you take the time to dip your brush and apply it to the pages of your life, you will begin to see colors emerge. The colors are the hidden talents, the things you never knew you loved, and the gifts that have been hiding in plain sight.
Hospitality: The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.
When I was a child, one of my earliest memories was going to my Grandma Shirley’s house where she always had a full cookie jar ready. There was also ice cream in the cold room, served with chocolate syrup and peanuts. If there was no ice cream in the house, Grandpa would say, “Shirley, we need to go to Dairy Queen and get some “gook” That was the code word for a pint of soft serve chocolate ice cream. We didn’t have a formal invite to go to Grandma’s house, we just always knew that if we rode our bikes over to their house, they would be home with treats ready.
My childhood home in Marshall, MN
The number of guests, visitors, and strangers my parents welcomed into my childhood home was many. One memory that stands out in my mind is when Dad brought some hitch-hikers home for supper. They were an older couple traveling through town and down on their luck. They joined us around the table for a meal. Afterwards, my siblings and I retreated upstairs to discuss the possibility that the hitch-hikers might have been kidnappers on the run. When we came back downstairs, my dad had invited the couple to spend the night on our pull out couch. I never saw them again after that night, but the way my parents welcomed the strangers with a meal and a place to sleep made an impression on me.
This photo was taken on move-in day in St Paul.
I have found hospitality as a practice. The more I invite people into my home, the better I get at it and the more natural it becomes. In my early years of marriage, I had a lot of negative self-talk that prevented me from inviting people over. These are some of the things I would say to myself.
What if people don’t like my house?
What if I don’t have the right food?
Where would everyone sit?
What if people don’t know what to talk about?
I still have these thoughts from time to time, but I have learned that most people don’t care what my house looks like or if my furniture matches. They are just happy to be invited.
My Motivation for Hospitality:
I want to create a place of belonging and a place to connect people who don’t yet know each other. I want my home to be full of laughter, learning, and listening to stories.
Neighborhood bonfire in the front yard.Party in the garage. How many teenagers can you fit in one room?
Whether it is planned in advance or spontaneous, the key is saying “YES!” to hospitality. Your way of showing hospitality will be different than mine. Be you! Join me in the friendly and generous reception of guests, visitors, and strangers.
In my last post I shared about the importance of waking up to our five senses. Today, I want to focus on one of these senses that we use every time we put something into our mouth…taste! Sometimes even looking at a picture of a particular food or smelling it cooking can cause our mouth to begin to water. Hot apple pie straight from the oven, soup that has been simmering all afternoon, freshly baked bread, sizzling bacon. Ok, you get the idea.
Are we hungry yet?
When I got engaged, my roommates threw me a bridal shower and gave me a jar of spaghetti sauce and some frozen pizzas as a joke gift. In my early years of marriage, my lack of knowledge in the kitchen was quite embarrassing. My husband, Mark, knew even less than I did, and was used to a steady diet of turkey sandwiches and apple juice. I worked at Burger King and Mark worked at Pizza Hut. Between fast food, cold sandwiches, and microwavable food, we survived.
Fast forward to having kids, I don’t think things improved all that much. I had some mom friends that passed along their recipes and gave me a few tips (thanks Brooke and Christa), but we were still in survival mode, eating to live, not living to eat. Our regular rotation was tacos, pasta, pizza, waffles, and chicken. Somewhere along the line, I started paying attention when I was around people who were cooking and asking them questions.
We graduated from beef tacos to other kinds of tacos!
My lack of confidence in cooking had nothing to do with a lack of interest in food. It had to do with my fear of failure. I didn’t want to work hard to preparing a special meal, and then have it end up in the garbage.
A few years ago, I realized that I really do enjoy cooking. I decided to make something that I wanted to make for myself one day a week. Once I got past my need for approval, I found myself really enjoying the time in the kitchen.
I can tell when my confidence in cooking started to grow because that’s when I started taking pictures of meals I made
I am still a pretty “safe eater” that gets into a rut when it comes to grocery shopping and cooking. I decided to challenge myself this month with a simple idea, and I hope you will join me.
The challenge is this:
Eat at least one thing you have never tasted each week during the month of November.
For the adventurous eaters, you may need to try a new combination of foods or a new spice mix. For me, it will be no problem to find new foods. I could probably fill a whole cart in every aisle with the things I have not tried.
Grab a friend and try a new food together. If you are already having a get together in November, tell everyone its “New Food November”
I would love to see what’s in your grocery cart. Hopefully, we will all find some delicious new flavors this month and our taste buds will thank us!
Mashed potato martini. A beautiful plate prepared by my friend, Lynn Benson
