Posted by Posted in Uncategorized

The Artist’s Way

A Book Review of The Artist’s Way
by Julia Cameron

During a season of my life when I was deep in the weeds of mothering, I picked up this book, recommended to me by a friend. Little did I realize that I had an artist hiding inside me that needed to come out. Julia Cameron believes that everyone is born creative, but most neglect their artistic leanings as they get older and are told that making art doesn’t matter or should not be made a priority.


This book is unique in that it starts with a contract. The contract says “I ______________ understand that I am undertaking an intense guided encounter with my own creativity. I commit to weekly reading, daily morning pages and an artist date every week for the next 12 weeks. I ______________ commit to excellent self care, adequate sleep, diet, and exercise during the duration of the course.”

I signed the contract and decided to give it a try.

The Morning Pages. I was familiar with journaling, but never every single day, and never with the assurance that nobody else would read what I wrote. The pages were to be destroyed upon writing. There was a freedom in knowing that my thoughts didn’t need editing and didn’t need to pass through a people pleasing filter.

The Artist Date Cameron describes artist dates as a 2 hour chunk of time once a week spent pleasing your “inner artist child”. My artist dates included hiking, going to museums, thrift shopping, and cooking. The first few times, 2 hours seemed like a long time and felt extravagant and selfish. I was tempted to shorten my time and do something more “productive” like grocery shopping or errands. With time and practice, I realized that 2 hours is the perfect amount of time and occasionally a whole day is more fitting, depending on the activity.

Taking a drive to see wide open spaces and sky

I highly recommend the Artists Way. If you want to get the most out of it, try going through it with a group or asking one person to keep you accountable to the contract of morning pages and artist dates. It is harder than it sounds. I only did the morning pages about half the days and an artist date every 2-3 weeks, but the message of the book changed me, and I will be forever grateful to Julia Cameron for writing it.

Posted by Tagged with Christmas, family, Reflection Posted in Uncategorized

Memories of Appleton Christmas

When I was a child, Christmas did not involve gifts or Santa Claus. We didn’t even have a tree. We hung ornaments from the curtains. At the time, I didn’t think much of it except for when The nice cashier trying to make conversation at the store asked “What did Santa bring you this year?” While my classmates were getting Nintendos and giant LEGO sets, my siblings and I got tootsie roll banks and socks. Before you start feeling sorry for me, I will assure you that Christmas was THE best day of my year.

My most vivid memory was traveling to small town Appleton, MN. My Dad comes from a family of 11 children and Christmas was the one time that they all got together.

My Dad is on the top right.

Before any gifts were opened, everyone took turns performing a talent.
The talents were anything from playing Silent Night by blowing in pop bottles to flexibility tricks using a broom stick. I remember one of my uncles pretending to be an astronaut, lying upside down on a folding chair, making sound effects of a space ship.

There was always a lot of singing, guitar playing , and if we were lucky…Uncle Glen brought the banjo. Everyone always made a big deal of Grandma Evelyn’s harmonica solos. It was like someone famous entered the room when Grandma pulled out her harmonica.

My contribution to Christmas other than my attempt to play the violin was introducing a game called “Mrs Mumble”. The one rule was you couldn’t show your teeth and you couldn’t laugh or you were out of the game. The first person in the circle would say, “Have you seen Mrs. Mumble?” and then the person next to them would say “I don’t know? Let me ask my neighbor”. The game just got better and better as the question worked it’s way around the circle and the aunts and uncles tried to out do each other in comedic improve.

My aunts Barb and Mona

After all the talents were shared, it was time for gifts. With so many siblings, the gift exchange seemed to take a very long time. When I turned 13, I was finally old enough to be entered in the name drawing. I remember feeling really grown up and proud to be in the circle of adults. My gift that first year was a set of hand painted ceramic turtles from my aunt Mona. I still have them almost 30 years later. I know I must have received Christmas gifts as a child, but this is the only one I really remember.

One thing I do remember well was the food. We ate rosettes, lefse, tea ring, lasagne, shrimp, pickled herring, olives, and deviled eggs. The adults enjoyed playing scrabble and putting together puzzles.

The kids loved hide and seek in all the upstairs bedrooms of “the big house” which now that I think about it, wasn’t very big at all. We fit a lot of people into that big-little house in Appleton, MN. It’s been many years now since we have had Christmas there, but the memories play in my mind like a movie. Thanks to my uncle Art, there is lots of video footage of the talent shows, singing, and dancing that I go back and watch when I’m feeling nostalgic.

Without trying, my parents have re-created a similar atmosphere of excitement for their own children. My 6 siblings and I gather with our families at my sister Gina’s house on Christmas. The kids usually treat the adults to a performance or costume parade . There are lots of board games, puzzles, a photo scavenger hunt, and a similar spread of food. My kids are soaking up every moment of memory making, and so am I.



Photo scavenger hunt organized by Katie.
I loved driving around looking
at lights as a kid and still do.

Posted by Posted in Uncategorized

Christmas in the Real World

Do you have an image of your perfect Christmas morning? From all my Hallmark Channel viewing and Internet scrolling I imagine this:

A family in matching PJs unwrapping a mountain of beautifully wrapped presents. Cinnamon rolls, bacon, orange juice, and Reindeer Blend coffee being poured into Christmas mugs. A kiss under the mistletoe near a crackling fire with Harry Connick Jr singing in the background. It’s the picture perfect white, middle class, American life!

Oh wait! My life isn’t a movie. It plays out more like this: “I’m tired, why is everyone already awake? We don’t open presents until after breakfast. Oh, you don’t like the breakfast? We got the wrong syrup? Why is the wi-fi not working? Why is she crying? When can we open the presents? Why doesn’t my present work? Can you put it together? Where are the batteries?

Our real life house. No mountain of presents or crackling fireplace. Just my beautiful girls.

This week I made a list of all the things I do to prepare for Christmas. It was a long list. I didn’t really feel strongly about anything on the list. I didn’t look forward to doing anything on the list. I do love Christmas, but mostly I love the idea of Christmas, not really the actual work that the month of December brings.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some wise words that Santa shared with me.

Let Go

Say no

Go slow

What if I put this into practice in the month of December.

What can I let go of? Fear, self doubt, and the opinions of others,

What can I say no to? The things I do out of guilt or obligation

How can I go slow? By building margin into each day, taking walks, turning off my phone, and lighting candles.

Take a moment to savor your real life in the real world. It’s all you’ve got. Find the little things…or big things… you have to celebrate, and give a hoot and a holler (or a small grin).

Posted by Tagged with family, home, memories, Reflection Posted in Uncategorized

The Year of the Mice

2016…The year of the mice. The first mouse siting was during a sleepover in a room full of teenage girls. My daughter and her group of friends were settling in to watch a movie when a mouse emerged from beneath the couch and raced across the hard wood floor, through the maze of pillows, blankets and couch cushions. That was the end of sleeping on the floor.

After that night, my kids were constantly on the look out for mice. Their eyes and ears were on alert day and night. We began finding mouse droppings around the kitchen and behind the couch. The mice multiplied quickly and we started seeing them in every room of the house. One night we had an unexpected guest who needed a place to spend the night. As I brought them to their bed, a mouse ran across the floor. After that, I stopped inviting people over.

We tried every kind of trap imaginable, deep cleaning the house, and two different pest control companies. The mice completely ignored the traps. I began to feel a bit crazy. I had trouble sleeping and jumped at the chance to leave the house on weekends.

We went on vacation in the summer of 2016 for a week and gladly left the mice behind. When we returned, there were mouse droppings in our beds. That was the last straw!

I started dreading the night. The sun setting meant the mice would come out to play. I turned on loud music and entered empty rooms with my eyes closed yelling, “get out of here, mice!”

We started to recognize the paths that the mice traveled. The majority of activity was in and around the living room couch. As a last resort, we decided to get rid of the couch. Mark brought it out into the country and my brother in-law and father in-law joined in a couch burning party.

After the couch was gone, the mice slowly disappeared. They were gone for about a year, but then came back in 2018.

One night, I opened the bedroom door to come downstairs during the early morning hours and saw two baby mice about an inch long toppling down the stairs. Seeing babies made me think, “Oh no, they’re multiplying!” Pest control came right away and told us that when you see babies, usually it means the adult mice are dead. The babies only leave the nest as a last resort. Those babies were the last mice I have seen.

The only evidence of the mice that remains is a piece of black tape covering the door to the upstairs attic. I convinced myself that the baby mice had come from the attic and taping the door was my desperate attempt of keeping the mice in.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how this image parallels many areas of life. How often do I close the door to certain areas of my heart and emotions that I don’t want to deal with? “I’ll take care of it later,” I think to myself.

Unfortunately, a conflict or painful memory can only be avoided for so long. Last week, I finally took the tape off the door. There was no sign of mice. Just old papers, musty blankets, suitcases, and trash.

The mice are gone now, but the life lessons they taught me still remain. Our thoughts are trained to run in the same patterns, just like mice do. We can look the other way and hope that our hidden thoughts will somehow go away, but usually they need some gentle, yet firm attention. The pest control company we called didn’t seem to be helping for many months. Sometimes, the friend or therapist that we choose doesn’t end up being helpful or it takes longer than we expected. We had mice for over a year and there were days when I just wanted to move out and quit trying.

I am working hard to move toward the hard conversations with others instead of avoiding them. Facing fears and recognizing unhelpful beliefs that I have allowed to rule my life is hard, but important work. I hope you will have courage to face your fears as well. You are stronger than you know.

And now, one last thing, dear reader: If you currently have mice running wild throughout your house, tell me your mice stories and my empathy will abound!