A friend linked me to this list on Elephant Journal, 18 simple life lessons written by Rebecca Lammersen for her daughters.
Mostly it’s the way we’re already raising our kids.
However, a couple things particularly stood out to me as a reminder of important advice I need to take for myself in order to model it for my children.
5. Know that you are absolutely right when you think that the calculus class you are taking is boring…and is information you will never use in real life.
You are right, yet understand that the patience you cultivate when sitting through the class, and the discipline you strengthen to solve the problem, will be the foundation that will allow you to persevere through every challenge and experience in life.
12. Acknowledge your gift.
… you just have to see it. How do you see it? See this life as a journey. Learn as much as you can, read as much as you can, dance as much as you can, speak as much as you can, listen as much as you can, do as much as you can, travel as much as you can because that’s how you will see it. It’s already inside of you, you just need to spark it, so ignite as many flames as you can, and notice which one keeps burning. That goes for your life partner and your friends too.
Say hello to strangers, smile at the person sitting next to you at the coffee shop, or the person behind you at the grocery store. You never know, not only could they be your everlasting flame, but they could help reveal your gift. Your gift is your legacy, the legacy that will help serve the world.
MCA’s death has hit me hard – in a way that differs from any other celebrity death i’ve heard about. Not only because he was so young, and so talented, and a family man, and such a stand-up dude with his humanitarian work. Not only because of the impact they had on music in general, the pioneers they were and the growth we watched them achieve. But mainly because the Beastie Boys were an ever-present group throughout most of my life, with so many memories and experiences attached. In fact, his death brought on such an onslaught of communications from old friends and colleagues – an avalanche of nostalgia that really embodies the role this group played in our lives as we came of age.
I remember in 4th grade hanging up signs throughout our classroom declaring we would Fight for Our Right to Party, as a passive way to rebel against an unfit teacher. lol @ us! I remember being in high school and loving Paul’s Boutique and later Check Your Head, which is still one of my favorite albums of all time. I remember so many of my friends and boyfriends knowing, along with me, every word to so many of their songs. I remember getting busted for underage drinking before their show in Chicago. I remember how impressive their instrumental album was. I remember being in college where my roommate and I used the “Phone is ringing, oh my god!” sample on our answering machine tape. I remember that later in their career when I was less of a fan, I still couldn’t deny the danceability and originality of their songs, and how their anthology albums were a must-have. I remember that seeing their show in Long Beach was one of the first things I did with new friends upon moving to LA. I remember last year when I played that rockstar game for the first time at a younger cousins house, and KILLING IT on the vocals for Whatcha Want.
I’m glad that, less than a week before his passing, he was able to know that the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. My heart goes out to his family including Mike D and Ad Rock, and to all the fans whose lives were touched by the Beastie Boys as mine was.
With a little paint, glitter and sequins (or whatever is around) a rock can become anything. We have a big bowl of rocks and stones in our living room, some of which were collected at meaningful places, others of which just plain look cool. Often because they have been decked out by a kid.
Here’s one I’d like to share, because there’s a little story that goes with it. This is a picture of a scary ghost, who tried to eat some beans but they fell right through. You know, because its just a ghost body. You can see the bean down beow, just laying there. The whole event has made the ghost blush.
After her last rock-painting bonanza, we mailed some to family members at Li’s request. Yes, we sent rocks to people in the mail. Oh look, a small but surprisingly heavy box has arrived, what might it be?! That’s right. A rock. Yay for those flat-rate small shipping boxes.
Mother’s Day is right around the corner… so if you are known by my kids as Grandma or Nanny, get ready to receive a new batch of garden stones in the mail that have been custom created for you.
The tasty nests contain cocoa, peanut-butter, oats and butterscotch. A decadent winning combo, with the crunch of whoppers robins eggs on top. They are so good!
The recipe is here. Mine are smaller – a tablespoon measure instead of an ice cream scoop. Sold em in bags of 2 at the charity bake sale last weekend. Glad we saved some for ourselves too.
There are few folks not familiar with the peep candy. Here’s to serving them up in a whole new way.
I saw this idea on serious eats via pinterest. But decided the “seaweed” should be green of course.
The rice is rice krispy treats. The seaweed holding them together is cut up fruit rolls. There’s some other easter candy wrapped in as well.
These were made for a bake sale so they had to be portioned and wrapped. Little plates held a maki and a roll, garnished with a sprig of easter basket grass. I pretended the tied plastic bag resembled a little fish.
Lil’s dance session at Segray has just ended, and I noticed this new hip hop class offered through Green Bean in Eagle Rock. Lilah is the only girl in the class, and under the age bracket. But still, not surprisingly, she is one of the boldest. She “instantly fell in love” (her words) with the tallest most rambunctious boy there.
Its an interesting class. They begin with a warm-up and then have fun exploring gynmastics, ballet and martial arts as the teacher explains that hip hop dance includes these influences. At some point they were all freely coloring with crayons on huge paper to help channel their creative flow before doing a circle, or cypher, where each kid has a turn in the middle. They were encouraged to include both upright and floor moves, and that was the only direction they were given. Here’s Li…
These homemade lollies look pretty cute and make great favors/treats for any occasion. Li and I made a ton of them to sell 2 for a buck at a community bake-sale, all proceeds of which benefit the LA Rescue Mission. It sparked a big discussion about what charity means, what charities do, and how people can help. After that, Li was even more excited to put these together with me, proudly stating she was making as many as she could for charity.
And what could be easier. You melt hard candy in the oven. I saw something like this on pinterest using jolly ranchers, but we used life-savers. I thought the roundedness of them would make nice striped pops somewhat remniscent of easter eggs. Didn’t exactly, but thats ok.
We got 2 large bags of life savers in mixed colors. We started with the “spring” bag that is available during easter.
Line them up in pairs on some parchment-paper lined baking pans. Arrange the pairs with enough room between them to add the lollipop stick once they melt. (Choosing the combinations and setting them up became Li’s job and she loved it).
Bake at 300 until they melt – it takes about 5-10 minutes. Once they melt together you want to take them out fast. Our first batch did not work l because Vi needed some attention right at the melting moment. And by the time I returned, they had spread too far and burned. (as you can see in this photo of the “bad” batch next to our second batch where we got it right.)
Eventually we decided they looked the coolest when we combined an opague candy with a transparent candy. How easy it would be to customize these treats to any party or occasion just by using the right colors.
Have lollipop sticks on hand and work fast – as soon as you take the pan from the oven, begin inserting the sticks. Give them a twirl so the candy wraps around before it melts, securing the stick. Then let them cool for a good 20 minutes or so before wrapping them up. We used small plastic treat bags to cover the lolly and tied them closed with colorful ribbon. Lollipop sticks and the small treat bags can be found at places like Michaels, Party City, Target.
This huge consignment sale of all things baby, kid and parenting, is back in Burbank again this week. Open to the public from Thursday through Sunday. On Sunday, most things are marked down another 50%.
I’ve been consigning at these sales for 4 years now, but this time I’ve put in far more items than every before. Vi is now 1 and has moved past the infant stuff… and since we’re done havin babies, I no longer need countless bottles, rattles, a crib bumper for instance…. or all those adorable little clothes both my daughters have looked adorable wearing.
Of course, many of the cutest will be set aside for Amy or Karen’s new little ones… and I’ve saved some of the more memorable. Yes, it has been a little bittersweet to part with so many relics of an era – but also very satisfying. Some serious and much-needed spring cleaning has been taking place. We’re packed to the gills here, with the kids already sharing a bedroom and acquiring ever more loot. Dropping that ol boppy pillow off at Goodwill felt amazing, as if the house got somehow lighter.
Hello, my name is v-v-v-v-v-Vivi and I’m almost 14 months old. I am trying to feed myself with spoon & fork, drinking whole milk out of sippy cups, climbing on anything I can. I’m talking more and more, saying the first syllable of many words, and some two worders like “uh oh” and “all done!” And now that I’m over the longest cold ever, I’m feeling quite adorable.
Oh and did I mention? I now walk. Yeah, I’ve been standing for months now and even staggering around here and there for a couple weeks, but now its for real. I had one night of restless sleep, waking up 4-5 times because I couldn’t stop dreaming about this whole walking thing. So the very next day I went for it. And voila!
Daddy took some videos of me walking, and of just hanging out with my sister, the best person ever.
No, the title of this post is not meant to be cheesily symbolic of our journey with our children. It’s quite literal – thanks to the totally awesome Butterfly Garden kit by Insect Lore that friends gave Li for a holiday gift. What a great idea this is.
It comes with a mesh container and a card. You mail it in when you’re ready, and they send you a small glass jar containing 5 tiny caterpillars with all the food they need. These teeny little things turn into thick huge furry caterpillars over the next 2 weeks or so – which was so exciting for a 4yr old to witness. We put the caterpillar jar inside the mesh thing and hung it from under her loft bed so it was out of baby’s reach. Every morning Li would check on them and every morning they were HUGER. And then one day, they were cocoons, dangling from the lid of the jar.
At that point you open the jar and find they are attached to a piece of textured paper you then pin to the inside of their new mesh home. Another 2 weeks go by and the next thing you know, there’s butterflies flitting around in there. So cool!
For the first day they mostly remained still, gradually uncoiling and drying their new wings. And then they became very active. Crawling and flying about – a marvel for Li to watch. We had to feed them by placing some flowers into their home and dropping sugar-water onto them. Li chose flowers from our yard, helped mix the sugar water and helped drop it in there – instantly we could see them going over and using their weird long tongues to drink.
The butterflies only have a lifespan of a few weeks – so after enjoying our “pets” for a couple days, it was time to set them free into the world. We opened the lid outdoors and some of them lingered awhile before fleeing. They actually sat on Li’s hand and allowed her to place them onto some of our flowers. It was interesting how they didn’t seem to be very afraid of people, I guess since our huge looming faces had been around since their caterpillarhood.
The whole process and experience was pretty cool, and we are able to send in for more caterpillars to start over. We will definitely be doing this again at some point. Thanks, Sarah & Bill!
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