My son is a great eater. Thanks to Baby Led Weaning he has had the opportunity to taste a huge variety of flavors because we tend to eat a variety of flavors and what’s for dinner for us is for dinner for him. Of course, we have to adjust our usual spice level for his portions, because he is not up for spicy… but he loves spices and a variety of sweet, sour, and interesting food. Continue reading
Author: alphabetresolutions
7 Things I Learned from Losing my iPhone
I called a mulligan on my morning today. I had a really rough start with no coffee, a night of fitful sleeping, some emotional stress, a crazy baby who has discovered that he thinks it is HILARIOUS to throw things we need into the trash and then watch us dig for them, etc. etc.
Follow Your Bliss
See what I mean? Perfect ocean peace… no mention of riptides or sharks…
There’s a very popular saying of “Follow Your Bliss” that comes up a lot especially on Pinterest, in hand lettering, and in self help books or life classes. And while I’m pretty sure I agree with the spirit of the saying- that your passions will lead you to your vocation, I don’t love this Continue reading
Baking #18: Happy Anniversary Cake SMASH
He was excited to finally cake smash…
So, I wasn’t originally going to write about this as my baking project, but after how much fun we had, I thought I should share. With how busy we’ve become since having a baby, we were fiercely protective of celebrating our anniversary. We even turned down jobs to keep the day open so we could celebrate together. However, while May 12th is our anniversary and my poor husband has SO many celebrations he has to make happen in May between birthdays and mother’s day etc. that we decided to stay home and celebrate with a home cooked meal. He did dinner and I did dessert. At our wedding we had some AMAZING cupcakes made by a dear friend and some truffles which were perfect for our celebration. We didn’t have a traditional wedding cake, and we did not Continue reading
Thank You for Making Me a Mom…
My Wonderful Son,
Usually I would wear heels to try and match my brothers’ heights, but that was not happening at 9 months pregnant…
Last Mother’s Day I was standing up as your uncle’s confirmation sponsor and anxiously counting down the days to your arrival. I wasn’t quite in that end of pregnancy people are afraid to come near you because they think you might give birth on them or something phase, but I was definitely in the final month and feeling it. It was hard for me to get through the day without feeling completely exhausted and even harder for me to imagine what life would be like with you out in the world, helping me celebrate my first official Mother’s Day the next year. Continue reading
Baking #17: Stress baking & chocolate chip muffins
“You should have a muffin. They’re really good and they’ll help you.”
I originally got into baking in college because it made me feel good when I was stressed. Instead of stress eating, I could bake and enjoy the smells of the treats in the oven and then know that I could easily give it away by just walking down to the callboard hallway and offering it to a ton of other stressed out exhausted theatre majors who had probably forgotten to eat most of the day after going from class to rehearsal to another rehearsal and back again. (In a lot of ways being a theatre major really prepared me for parenthood….) I actually started baking so much due to stress my senior year of undergrad that people started making jokes about the Grey’s Anatomy character Izzy Stevens- Continue reading
Expressing gratitude for a blissful birthday
I have a confession to make- I’m kind of bi-polar about social media. I’m always trying it figure out how to use it well while falling prey to as few pitfalls as possible such as it becoming a crutch, a timesuck, or whirlpool of negativity. I, along with most people in my generation, am still negotiating how much the lives of myself and my family should be shared publicly and how much should stay private. I have gone through pages where I purged my Facebook friends count by over half- just across the board cuts. I’ve given up Facebook for a day, a month, a week at a time. I’ve had unplugged weekends and experimented with when I should and should not have my phone. I still have no concrete answers. But you know what I can’t fault the internet and social media for? Making a person feel pretty damn awesome and appreciated on their birthday. Continue reading
BLOOM where you’re planted
Bloom where you’re planted… a beautiful phrase I’m going to talk about this post but one I’d also like to amend- because most of the people I know have been transplanted at least once, if not a half dozen times in as many years at some point in their lives. So at the risk of killing the garden metaphor- I’m going to just say bloom where you are. Because maybe you aren’t planted yet. Maybe you’re in a window box or one of those little plastic containers being transported to an eventual garden- that’s ok, bloom and blossom and bring joy right where you are!
This month has flown by and I’ve blogged less than I’d like. Things have come up like travel, illness, and my computer being out of commission due to a blown charger. Things have come up like accepting another show to direct as part of my Director of the Year award from The Bridge Initiative. All that to say that good/bad and between, I blogged less than I’d have liked but I’m proud I still managed to blog as much as I did- I’ve just been busy blooming. And I wanted to be sure to get in this last post before we move into May.
Many of my artist friends were surprised that my husband and I chose to move to Arizona. Arizona has a pretty sad track record when it comes to funding and support for both education and the arts. It was also coming up a lot at the time for some seemingly crazytown bills and news stories. Aside from the fact that I feel miserable during the winter and love the Arizona sunshine, as well as the fact that I have family here, we told our incredulous friends that the lack of support and funding and the insanity- of both perceived and true variations- were exactly why we were moving here. Arizona needs artists. Bloom where you’re planted- you don’t have to go somewhere crazy or exotic to make a difference. You can do it right w
here you are. You can make someone’s day better right here, right now, with whoever surrounds you and comes in contact with you during your day. Your Community needs you.
As I head into my next year of life, I am going to continue to keep this phrase in mind as I cultivate my garden of friends, family, and community. I want to spread kindness and compassion and thoughtfulness and joy. May’s theme: BLISS. May is my favorite month. May is like a nonstop celebration: my birthday, many family birthdays including that of my son, Mother’s Day (and speaking of mothers, the whole month is known as Mary’s month), graduations, and my anniversary. Lots to bliss out about and I hope to make time to share all about it.
Baking #16: Already dreaming of Thanksgiving… Parmesan Cheesy rolls
My husband and I were sick last week, hence the lack of posts. It’s the first time we’ve been sick at the same time since the baby was born and boy was that a miserable experience. So we are still playing catch up but I wanted to get a blog in. I’m going to have to try to be short but I think this recipe needs a little background… Continue reading
Bardolatry: An Update
Some of you may be wondering what happened to the Bardolatry in my list of Bs since I have not been cross posting from Newlywed Shakespeare recently. Well, there’s a good explanation. I started my Newlywed Shakespeare blog as a way to keep me sharp and engaged with Shakespeare’s texts after graduate school. It worked. Continue reading
Alphabet Resolutions 