Let me start this post by admitting that I have written and rewritten, tweaked, hacked, chopped, and edited this post on no less than 100 separate occasions, since I originally started writing it in September, 2011.

(yes, September)

If I know just one thing, it is this: giftedness is not an easy topic to discuss; there are too many conceptions, misconceptions and opinions.

I finally determined that I’m never going to get this intro ‘just perfect’, and frankly, it’s been holding me back from so much that I want to write about this very topic (as well as the relaunch of the new layout and design), so I’m just going to close my eyes… hold my breath… and JUMP!

*peeking through squinted eyes to see if anyone is reaching out to hold my hand*

Since last spring, Randy and I have been on a journey of sorts, navigating our way through countless books, websites, articles and conferences to better and fully understand “giftedness” and all of its meaning.

In many ways, it can be a confusing and lonely journey.

A beautiful, chaotic, fun, intriguing, curious, lovely journey.

Without a map.

The more we’ve read and come to understand about our gifted children, the more we’ve come to realize that, despite the fact there is so much need for support, for a million and one different reasons, there isn’t much.

So often, what we were reading essentially concluded with “We know it can be difficult and challenging. Just love ‘em. [long pause...] Good luck!”

Not much help when dealing with four children (and two adults… *hi!*) who all have emotional intensities.

So that is why we are starting this section on our site. We can’t document our lives and ignore how giftedness factors into it. It affects every moment of our day: from what we eat, to what clothes are worn, to how we end the day.

Our purpose in starting this section of our site is: 1) to be a resource and support for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, teachers and friends, of gifted children, and any parent who is advocating for their special needs child and 2) to share our journey along this path.

We will eventually expand this section of our site to include a forum, various resources, tips and professional advice. The support community built around it will be named “The Hive” (I will explain why in another post. I promise!)

It’s gonna be cool. And we want you to join in and lend your thoughts and ideas.

We absolutely and wholly love, adore and cherish our gifted children, despite any frustrations and challenges, and we know that you feel the same way about your own precocious children. We’re so excited about this journey and seeing where it takes us.

We hope you find comfort and answers along the way as well.

February 15, 2010 is the date that, after thousands of emails, texts, tweets, DM’s, photos and countless hours on the phone,  Randy and I finally got to meet face-to-face.

Last year, I wrote about it, using only texts and photos from that very day. I still think it’s the very best way to capture that day, so I’m simply linking to that recap. It’s a moment I would never be able to sum up adequately with words, so I’d rather not even try…

What a life changer that day was.

Given that I am a self-proclaimed, recovering sugar addict (my doctor once told me that I was *blush*) I expected incorporating more and more fresh foods into our diet would be painful.

Thanks to the internet and our own creativity, it’s been a lot more simple than I would have thought.

But one of the habits we have had a difficult time letting go of has been popcorn. Of the microwave variety. *winces* And the more we realize how bad it is for us, the more we’ve determined to find some alternatives (eg: popping it in a pan).

So when I came across a recipe for Cauliflower ‘Popcorn’ in our local Birmingham Parents magazine, and read about how kids were gobbling it up, I decided to give it a whirl.

Granted, it took a bit longer than popping a bag into the microwave, but the process of making it was satisfying and it really is delicious.

To make your own, just follow these five simple steps:

The above photo says it all: two years ago tonight, I tweeted “I need chocolate stat.”

And fortunately, Randy replied.

“What kind?”

And the rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

We ended up talking on the phone (after I was convinced he was neither a 16 year old boy in his mama’s basement nor an 80 year old man looking for a ‘cute thang’…) until I had to get ready for work the next morning.

And from that point we were connected via text, emails, DMs, phone, Twitter, Foursquare…

And my world hasn’t been the same since.

The countdown is on, and SOPA is expected to pass through the Senate on January 24th. (*UPDATE 1/19/2012 : Key Supporters of the bill have backed down after Wednesday’s protest)

Tomorrow, January 18th, 2012, many of the most popular sites on the internet will be taking part in a ‘blackout’ of their sites to protest this bill.

While none of our sites are equal to Mozilla (Firefox), WordPress.org or Wikipedia‘s traffic (<<< those links will take you to posts on their stance on this bill), we are taking part, to show our disapproval of this bill in its current state.

Our own sites will be blacked-out.

While we sympathize with those who have their work stolen from piracy sites online, this bill is not a good compromise.

It will change the internet as you know it.

Please educate yourself on this topic (in addition to the links above):

Stop American Censorship
Strike Against SOPA
WIRED.com – Black out your site the Google friendly way
SOPA Blackout rebuffed by bill authors (*duh…)
and on…
and on…
and on…
and at this point of my list [not trying to be rude] but, I say, just do your own Google search on SOPA Blackout (see how there are currently more than 2600 (!!) news stories on this?)… There is so much info out there…

And if you are so inclined, please add these plugins to your WordPress sites:

SOPA Strike (you will see out black-out tomorrow, January 18th, 2012)
Stop SOPA Ribbon (you can see this in the upper right-side of this site)

On that note — all of our sites will be on ‘blackout’ tomorrow.

Educate yourself.

(*this post is being cross-posted on all of our sites: Archer Creative, Living The Life Fantastic, Karla Archer )

as always — please feel free to include your own links on this issue…

Last year, I wrote about the anxiety I was feeling as we entered the holiday season. Knowing it was going to be different for all of us was exciting, but it was still a struggle, that ended with me almost imploding our Christmas.

Lesson learned (for the millionth time): Wanting to do something can be easy. Doing it (with or without tears and struggle), can be a different story.

This year, I took a deep breath and determined to be a big girl about it all.

We stuck with our determination to keep it simple, and avoid getting sucked into the pressure of buying, just for the sake of buying. And (surprise!) it’s been wonderful, relaxing, and full of meaning.

Some of the free, nearly free, or reasonably priced things we’ve manage to spread throughout the season:

1) Picked our tree at Home Depot: Randy and I got the tree and set it up while the kids were at their dad’s for Thanksgiving break.

(side note: I made the door hanging from the limbs we trimmed off of the bottom of the tree. That bow? $1 at the Dollar Tree. Score one for my wallet and my sanity.)

2) Decked the halls: In preparation for their return, we strung lights all throughout the inside of the house – the kitchen, bedrooms, railings… but we left the tree undecorated (except for the lights and garland, because let’s face it – that job is hard enough without the kids having to suffer through watching me attempt to untangle all the lights while I watch my language.)

3) Making ornaments: One of the things we enjoyed so much last year was making all of the ornaments for the tree. Except for a couple of little tingly bells, everything else is made by the kids. Even the star is an origami star Abbie made at school. We add to it daily, so it’s not fully decorated until the tree comes down.

I state, at least once a day, how beautiful our tree is. Not only that, it makes me smile!!!

4) Enjoyed our town’s Christmas parade, which passes right in front of our home

5) Watching Christmas movies with all the lights out, except for the tree

6) Dance Party – Christmas Music style

7) Attending the McWane Science Center’s Members Party

8) Watching a preschool and kindergarten Christmas pageant

9) Driving around and looking at lights

10) Taking Abbie to see the Alabama Ballet perform “The Nutcracker” using free tickets I scored via “Sharing Spree”

11) Baking cookies

12) Adding holiday sprinkles to random food items (the kids love that!!)

13) Donating gently used clothes and toys to Jimmie Hale Mission

We’ve managed to enjoy so much, without spending insane amounts of money. The kids have spent the entire month full of wonder and joy.

Do I believe my children feel deprived? Not for one second.

I would never ever try to tell anyone how to spend Christmas. But my point is that, if you have ever considered celebrating Christmas in your own, simple, unique way, try it.

It will take some thought and planning (I’d dare say, more than it takes to do the sorts of Christmases we did before), but you’d be amazed by the ROI, when it’s purposeful.

tra·di·tion/trəˈdiSHən/

• The transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
• A long-established custom or belief that has been passed on in this way.

One of the beautiful things about blogging is the connections we make as we read the stories of others lives and see a part of ourselves. This “keeping it real” attitude (even if it’s totally slightly exaggerated) is what makes us feel a bit more comfortable sharing parts of our own lives – those pieces that we might have otherwise been too scared to share.

The ugly underbelly…

And since I began blogging, over 8 yrs ago, I’ve prided myself on writing authentically and putting myself out there.

Pride.

Maybe that is the key word to this post.

We all have it, to some extent, don’t we; despite being told it can be our downfall. (and why does that never seem to play out fairly across the board??)

My point? This is one of those stories.

I had big hopes for last Christmas.

Hopes.

Maybe that is the key word…

Or maybe it is just when hopes and pride collide.

I’m not sure which has the potential to cause the most pain in our lives.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the kind of hope that helps keep you from dying in a pit. Or the sort that allows you to keep your sanity in the midst of unthinkable situations.

I’m talking about the sort of hope that sends you into a frenzy of high expectations and elevated desires. The desire for perfection.

It was that hidden desire for perfection and that sense of pride that fills me when I succeed, that nearly turned last Christmas into a big fat, freakin’ failure.

We didn’t want our Christmas to be like everyone else’s. We wanted it to look different. We wanted it to be intentional and mean something more than it has in the past. So we stripped it down. Way down.

As noble as this sounds, in the end, I panicked and got wrapped up in making the imperfect appear ”perfect” by the world’s standards. Rather than let it be and trusting my gut, I still worried what others would think, or worse, what I would think December 26th.

So Christmas eve, I fell asleep on the couch, staring at our tree which was covered completely with homemade ornaments.

Heavy-hearted, trying not to cry, I’d convinced myself that it wasn’t perfectly imperfect. I felt like a failure before it had even come to be.

So worried and convinced, was I, that the children would hate their new Christmas, that I nearly solidified that reality for them.

It was our first Christmas as a family, and I was trying to create traditions that mattered before we even knew what would matter.

But traditions should come from realizing the things that have value and meaning. Not something forced upon us.

Traditions are those unexpected things that we realize set the tone and create a feeling of bonding and connectedness.

Sometimes we get it horribly wrong. Sometimes we nail it.

But we never know until we try.

In the end, all of my worries and fear gained me nothing but a bad night’s sleep. It was a wonderful, beautiful day. The children were the sweetest, most grateful children you could imagine. Their hearts are so sweet and focused right where they need to be.

I have so much to learn from them.

I currently have about 15 posts in draft, and they all sit unfinished because we’ve been working on some big changes for this site.

We will be re-launching Living The Life Fantastic in the coming weeks with a brand new look and layout (as a designer, coming to this site BUGS the bejeesus out of me — it’s a perfect example of the cobbler’s children who have no shoes… in this case: it’s a crappy, slapdash site design :)

There will also be a greater emphasis on interactivity and new categories.

The site will no longer be just about our journey and telling our story, but it will include articles on how to incorporate changes in your own life.

We hope you will find it to be both inspiring and encouraging.

So – be on the lookout!!

In case you missed it over on KarlaArcher.com, last week I wrote about why I run. It may not be what you think.

Why do you run? Or bike? Or take yoga?

Isn’t it always about more than it appears on the surface?

I said last week (or maybe it was two weeks ago, now… Life… seriously?!!! It happens so fast!) that I would post a recipe for our wonderfully amazing homemade ice cream. (maybe that was our popsicles, but still…)

I’m not kidding when I say that it is simple.

Remember the days of cooking the mixture because it had raw eggs? This has none of that.

Dump. Dump. Dump.

Three ingredients and you’re done (except for the waiting).

Here it is…

wait for it…

breathe…

Ingredients:

• 10 oz frozen fruit of your choice (suggestions: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, cherries) <— or what the heck! Add some CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!
• ¼ cup of sugar (or Splenda/Truvia.etc…)
• 2/3 cup of heavy cream
• Optional: dash of REAL vanilla <— does that count as an official 4th ingredient??!!??

1) Put the sugar, half of the cream, and half of the fruit into the blender or food processor.
2) Run the blender/processor until the ingredients have blended.  Add the rest of the fruit and cream and repeat until everything is blended.
3) Freeze until serving.

I’d love to hear what your favorite homemade ice cream recipe is.