So many memories in one place.

And then I see it.

I knew I still had it.

A small envelope, wrinkled and torn, showing signs of age.

Ten years ago, that small envelope accompanied a dozen roses on Valentine’s Day.

They were waiting for me in the school office when I went up to check my mailbox during my break.

I eyed them a bit wearily.

Who were they from?

My mom, maybe.  She was convinced I’d die alone, ever since I walked away from my last relationship. Yes, even at only 24, that was Old Maid territory for her and the pity I heard in her voice whenever I would talk to her on the phone could easily translate into pity roses.

My best friend. We’d had a fight the day before.  Because he said something incredibly stupid about who I was choosing to date these days. I slammed the phone down on him. And refused to pick up when he called back.

My ex. A cryptic email from my ex’s best friend’s wife about if I had heard from him lately had me wondering what was going on.

Some random guy.  A possibility in those days, when my recent New Year’s resolution to not automatically say no had me going on a lot of dates.

The teacher down the hall. Who was becoming a really good friend… and lately, something more.

I walked out of the office and down the hall to my empty classroom, where I set the flowers down on my desk before I opened the card. Away from the nosy office staff and anyone else who would wonder who they were from.

I opened the note and smiled. Just one word was written on the card, but it was enough for me to know exactly who they were from.

Button.

“You know that saying, cute as a button?” he had asked me, months before.

After that, “Button” became his nickname for me.

The teacher down the hall.

Who would know that one word would be enough for me to know the roses were from him.

The one who just recently shook his head at me and claimed I couldn’t possibly still have this card.

Not from 10 years ago, on our very first Valentine’s Day together.  No way did I still have it.

10 years have passed. We were married about a year after that first Valentine’s Day. Moved more times that we care to count, had three kids, and gone through ups and downs.

But, I still have it. And it still makes me smile.

He still makes me smile.

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Pinterest Pressure: the pressure to actually attempt something you have pinned to justify the hours spent on the site and the amount of things pinned.

I gave into it this weekend and had my boys work on making Valentines for their classes from a project pinned to my Keeping the Kids Busy board.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

Crayons in the shape of hearts: how cute and easy, right?

Peel the wrapper off crayons, place in different color combinations in heart-shaped silicone baking trays, bake, let cool, and creatively wrap. And easy as that, a homemade valentine.

Um, yeah. Let me tell you how that went here. From Pinterest to Reality.

My boys working on their Valentines

Supplies:
*Heart-shaped silicone baking trays
*Crayons

*I also recommend a plastic trash bag in the middle of the work space so your kids can peel the wrappers directly into it and make less of a mess.

I found the baking trays in the holiday section of Walmart for $2.99 each and bought two.  I went for the cheap-o crayons, though was told by someone who actually does crafts that these don’t melt as well as Crayolas do and that I should have spent the extra pennies per box instead. This made me panic a bit.

My boys loved tearing the wrappers off the crayons, I think because it seemed forbidden. Good fine motor activity for my son who struggles with that.  But, oh, it seemed to take a long time just to fill up the first tray of six.

Directions say to fill the hearts up about halfway. I apparently have almost no visual perception when it comes to measurement because our first set of hearts weren’t very thick. I’d recommend using at least 6 crayons in each heart. Maybe even 8. Or 10 if you want to go super-fancy.

Bake at 250 for 10-15 minutes. No melting problem with the cheap crayons, though it did take closer to 15 minutes to melt as opposed to 10. Maybe the Crayolas melt faster, I don’t know.

Allow to cool and then peel out of the cups. I only broke one out of my impatience, but melted it again for a few minutes and it was fine.

Cute Valentine bags will be hunted down this week to put each heart in for Valentine’s Day.

The finished product

Pros to Crayon Hearts:
*Very easy directions
*Simple and inexpensive supplies
*Keeps the kids busy for hours
*I can feel crafty, even though I have zero crafting ability/patience

Cons to Crayon Hearts:
*Time consuming if you have a lot of Valentines to make. 3 boys in school= approximately 65 hearts to make=what was I thinking?

Pin It

Have you given in to Pinterest Pressure? What have you made? 

My problem is called negative self-talk.

I became aware of this life-altering, tragic habit only after seeing the same therapist for an entire year. What? Everyone has a therapist, right? Or is that just me? Okay, moving along . . .

She told me that I beat myself up too much. That I have a terrible case of negative self-talk. I was shocked when she said it.

“No I don’t,” I argued.

Later that night I thought long and hard about her words. The conversation in my head went a bit like this.

Who does she think she is? Telling me I beat myself up too much. I don’t beat myself up. I just have high standards. And I don’t meet most of the standards. I am far behind my standards. I can’t do anything right. God, I really suck at life. I have to go to therapy. That right there is a sign that I suck. Man, I’m really worthless.

Do you see what happened there? Yeah, me too. Look how mean I was being to myself!

Negative self-talk is when your inner voice tells you very bad things. The voice talks so quickly that most people don’t even know it’s happening.

The next time I saw my therapist I told her about my little light bulb moment.

“You’re right,” I said with a smirk, “I hate on myself and I didn’t even know it.”

She looked me in the eye and said, “Now that you know you have the power to stop it.”

POWER. Now there is a word that should be in every person’s vocabulary.

After 30 years, I had perfected the art of negative self-talk. Only now is it clear how severely this terrible little voice inside has affected my physical and mental well-being.

Think about it this way – if there were someone standing in front of you telling you horrible, no-good things multiple times a day, well, you’d be a mess, right? It’s the same with negative self-talk.

But it’s not easy to stop. First comes awareness but then comes the hard part. Stopping the talk before you start. You have to learn to catch yourself before you attack. I’m not always great at catching it. Sometimes I have to stop mid-sentence.

For instance:

Ugh, look at this laundry piling up. I hate laundry. Maybe if I were more organized it wouldn’t pile up like this . . . oops. There I go again. You’re not a bad person for not doing the laundry. You’re a tired mom and it happens to everyone.

Do you see how I changed my self-talk? I literally talked myself out of the bad thought I was having.

Now that you know about negative self-talk, I’ll give you a challenge. Listen to yourself. No, really. Listen carefully to that unspoken dialogue taking place within you. Are you being nice to yourself?

Because you should be.

Please show Molly some comment love here and then go follow A Day in Mollywood. You can also find Molly on facebook and twitter.

• How to anticipate conference costs
• How to get a conference sponsor
• How to prep your blog for a conference
• How to prep your life for a conference
• How to talk to brands
• How to get over your fear of talking to other bloggers
• 7 must-pack items for your room
• Tote bag necessities

There are many other fabulous conference tips posts out there and we thought we’d direct you to some of those, too!

In case you are wondering if a blog conference is worthwhile, Tip Junkie shares 10 reasons why you should go to a blog conference.

Have you been to Blissdom before? Or have you been to bunch of conferences and you feel like a pro? I love this post from Charlene Chronicles, which reminds conference alumni of what they should be doing during a conference to help newbies feel welcome.

Blissdom is held at the Opryland hotel. And it is HUGE. I had heard that before I went, but until you actually get there and see the massiveness that it is, you don’t really understand. Check out some tips about the Opryland. And don’t miss part 2, too! AND there is a free app for the hotel that you can download.

Hear what Blissdom newbie Sweet Phenomena has to say about her goals for Blissdom. I think every newbie should have this list!

I know a big concern for everyone is what to wear to Blissdom. Check out Simple Mom’s post about it.  She breaks it down into a very easy-to-follow manner.

Actually, I don’t think there can ever be enough what-to-wear posts! Come back next week when we’ll give your our take on that, too!

Be sure to check out Ashley’s post today for even more helpful Blissdom posts.

Sure, I was still posting here. And jumping on facebook and twitter when I had a minute because I could do that from my phone wherever I happened to be. And I was still working because mama needs a paycheck.

But, I haven’t been commenting the way that I used to- the way that I would like to.

I truly believe that the blogging community is about friendships. And friendships should be give and take. So, I used to go visit everyone who commented here(maybe a day or two late, but I still did it) and then go visit others: maybe some usuals, maybe something that caught my eye on twitter.

But, the past two months….

Not knowing what was going on with my son or what we were going to do, plus having him home all the time, us going to up to 4-5 appointments in a week, some over an hour away…. I had nothing left to give.

So, the blogging guilt kicked in. And the internal debate began. Let me give you a glimpse of what I was thinking.

I really need to go return visits to blogs.

No, you don’t. You need to sleep.

But, I miss my blog friends.

They’ll still be there.

No, they won’t. They’ll leave if I am not a good blog friend back to them.

Oh, shut up. They know what you’re going through. You blog about all of Bear’s problems and how depressed you are about everything else, and how tired you are and how you are overwhelmed with everything. They’ll understand.

Well, what if they don’t read and they don’t know? They’ll just think I’m ignoring them.

Do you hear yourself? If they aren’t reading and have no idea what’s going on with you, why are you worried about not visiting them?

I don’t want anyone to think that I stopped caring about them.

Shut. Up. When one of your friends is going through a rough time, you always cut them some slack.

Well, yes. But…

No buts allowed. If you would cut them that slack, then you should expect it in return.

But, I’ve already had people mad at me for not being there like I used to be.

You have to let those people go. You’ve been doing all you can to take care of your family and yourself. You couldn’t do anything else.

But, I still feel bad. Guilty. I worry what people think.

Get over yourself. Most won’t think anything of it.

But…

Stop with the buts. The ones who do judge, well… let them go.

I still feel bad.

I know. I’m you, you goofball.

Well, now that things are starting to get better, I’ll be back around like I used to be, soon. 

Of course you will. And your real friends will understand. And will think you are silly for even writing all these asinine thoughts out.

Do you ever have blogging guilt?

We do. We’re moms. We love them to itty-bitty pieces.

But let’s be honest here.

Not every single moment of motherhood is perfect. Not every single moment is one that we’ll treasure.

We don’t love every single thing our kids do. We still love THEM, but OMG, they can push our buttons.

And I think it’s okay to admit this. To say, you know what? Sometimes, my child does xyz and it annoys the shit out of me.

It’s okay to acknowledge that our children aren’t angels 100% of the time.

It doesn’t make us bad moms.

So, I’m confessing- here are the things that my boys do that irritate me:

*Make a crazy mess. I don’t mean a normal mess like their toys are all over the place. I mean getting the stepladder out of the hall closet and using it to reach the cocoa powder in the cabinet and making it snow brown powder all over my kitchen.

*Say “but…” Kids are sometimes going to argue sometimes, but when I tell my oldest something and finish it with “And I don’t want any arguments, this is what you are doing right now” and he opens his mouth with a “but…,” my blood boils.

*Spitting. How nasty is this? We’ve talked about how gross spit is, but they will still spit at each other from time to time. Do you rememeber “gleeking?” I don’t mean any reference to fans of Glee, but that weird way of spitting that kids thought was super-cool back when I was about 10. My older brother thought it was the coolest thing ever to gleek. Maybe my boys get this from their uncle.

*Refusing to move. My youngest is the one who is guilty of this. Just plopping himself down and refusing to leave somewhere. And he’s big enough that it’s a pain to pick him up. Plus it makes me feel like an ass to have to physically pick up my child.

*Hating a previously loved meal. Licked their plates clean when I made something two weeks ago: offer it again and noses are upturned. What is that?

*Speaking of food… Pretending they didn’t eat. This is most often around their grandparents. They might have just had a huge meal, but they will say that they didn’t eat when they get around Grandma so that she will then buy them junk because their poor bellies are empty. Thanks for making me look like the awful mom who never feeds her kids.

*Flipping the switch in front of company. Could be having a totally nice, calm day. Then someone comes over or we are out around others and who are these children?

Your turn! What do your kids do to make you crazy?

Disclaimer for those without a sense of humor: my boys do not do these things all of the time. In fact, they really are good kids. And I love them with all my heart. But, yes, they each occasionally do something that makes me want to drink to pull my hair out. If yours never make you feel that way, please tell me your secret. I bet it comes in a prescription bottle. 

Time for a new look!

I’ve been itching to make changes on the blog for quite a while now.  But, I didn’t want a change just for the sake of change, I wanted something that really fit Things I Can’t Say and that could stick around for a long time.

Design creativity, though? So NOT my thing. At all.

So I turned to the fabulous Cynthia of NWDesigns and NapWarden for help.  She spoke at BlogHer and Bloggy Bootcamp about blog design and she really knows her stuff! I had the chance to meet her at BBC Atlanta and she said she could help me.

All I gave her to go on was that I wanted something bright and bold but not obnoxious. Simple and clean, but not boring. And oh yeah, there’s that blog term of “branding,” can you do that, too?

The result had me squeeee-ing. Yes, I really did. I know people say no one really squees, that it’s just something you type, but I literally squee-ed when I saw what she came up with!

You see that “shush” up there? Well, that’s what I’m calling it. Cynthia drew it for me! How awesome is that? Not a stock image, but actually made just for this blog!

Squeeeeee!

If you are looking for a blog makeover, I cannot recommend Cynthia enough! She’s creative and so talented. She’s also very reasonably priced. You might want to hurry up and get on her design list before she realizes just how reasonably priced she is and raises her rates.

And a huge thanks to Ashley at My Front Porch Swing for implementation and for “getting me” so that she could explain to Cynthia what I wanted when I had no way to describe any of it. If you are looking to move to wordpress, contact her! 

But this is things I can’t say – right? So – my official disclaimer is I’m going “All – In.” On Things I Can’t Say. I’m sorry if anyone’s feelings are hurt – this is why I don’t say them over on my blog.

I hate that my parents are divorced. There. I said it. (Mom, stop feeling guilty already!) It is not that I hate our collective life since. My dad has remarried and she is a great person in our family. I wouldn’t trade her. It is what the divorce has done to me… in my personal life circumstances.

You see… most people fight, get over it, and move on. You know what I do? I linger on it. I fret over it. I let it worry on my heart. Because I know that one day my parents loved each other. One day they chose to marry each other. One day they chose to have kids. And … all I remember is my parents fighting. So, how did they go from point A to point Z? What were all the letters that happened in between?

Was it simple arguments over shoes left laying in the living room? Was it arguments over who cooks or cleans or does the dishes? Was it feeling unappreciated? Because, honestly – haven’t we all felt this way at one point or the other?

Which brings me back to the worry of it all. I trust in my vows. I took them for life. I know my husband did also.

BUT… we are under enormous stress. Ask a parent of multiples. Especially if they have a singleton, they will tell you that having multiples puts a strain on a marriage. I don’t know exactly why that is… but it is true. Maybe it is the stress of having to nurture two at the same developmental age at the same time. Maybe it is the stress of knowing that if you screw it up – you screw it up times 2. Honestly, we don’t really know the difference, because we did not have a “singleton” first. This is all we know.

Ask the parents of a child with special needs. If they are honest, they will probably tell you there is added stress there too. The stress of not knowing how things will be. (I know there are no guarantees… but most of us have a vision of how we think life will look in 10 years.) Hubs and I literally have no idea what life will look like. Maybe it is the stress of the extra chores we do to keep our children healthy. Maybe it is the stress of the extra doctor appointments and therapies and the spreading of everyone so thin. Maybe it is the combination of all of these things. Honestly, I don’t know…

I only know that it exists.

So here is the thing I can’t way. I worry about my marriage. I know that will scare my parents and in-laws and family and friends. But, I don’t mean it that way. We are fine. We love each other. We work together as a team. I am happily married.

But when you add the stress + the normal “are you wearing my socks?” argument (hubs asked me last night… I was. He was not thrilled. It was his last pair. Oops.) + the knowledge that my own parents once loved each other and then didn’t….

It scares me. A lot. There. The things I can’t say.

 

• How to anticipate conference costs
• How to get a conference sponsor
• How to prep your blog for a conference
• How to prep your life for a conference
• How to talk to brands
• How to get over your fear of talking to other bloggers

Today, we’re getting down to the practical: what you need to bring with you. Ashley is going to share what you should carry around with you during the day at the conference. But, I’m going to let you know about those things that you need to have with you in your room. Also known as the things you might not have thought of, but will be thankful you have.

Power strip and chargers for all electronic devices. While you shouldn’t have a shortage of outlets in your room, if you have multiple roommates and you are all trying to charge your laptops, tablets, phones, cameras, etc., you’ll be glad that you have that power strip. You’ll be using all your devices, so you will need to charge them!

Moisturizer. The air at conferences is notoriously dry. Bring body lotion and face lotion.

Make-up remover. I can usually get away with using face soap to remove all of mine, but when I’m stumbling in coming into the room at 3am after being up all day, I need a little more help. Maybe you do, too.

Concealer or eye brightener. Another item I usually only pull out for conferences. Long nights can mean tired-looking eyes. My own not-so-secret weapon is Benefit Eye Bright.

Extra contacts/glasses. If you are like me, you can’t see past the end of your nose without the help of contacts or glasses. Be sure to bring an extra pair so you don’t end up miles from home with no back-up in the event of a tear or break.

Book/kindle. For any downtime(not that there will be much!), but think about the airport wait, too. In a conference jam-packed with technology, sometimes it’s nice to step away from the internet and lose yourself in a book.

Water Bottle and snacks. While conferences will have food and drinks, it’s nice to have your own stash of snacks.  The room that they take up in your suitcase on the way to the conference can be filled with swag on your way home.

This last one isn’t must-pack, simply a nice suggestion. You can bring a small gift for your roommates. Maybe it’s a peace offering for the fact that you snore or like to take incredibly long showers. Note: my roomie and I have roomed together for five conferences now, so the only gesture we make is playing who is paying for the first round of drinks.

What are your must-have items for a conference?

Be sure to check out Ashley’s post today on the must-haves for your conference tote bag.

But, yesterday, we had a meeting at a different school(the same one that my oldest attends) and we have a temporary plan in place to help him and he’s going to start school on Monday. They’ll do some observation and then come up with a more long-term plan.

Just knowing that something is going to be done is a huge load off. I can already feel myself breathing easier and I know that I will be feeling more like myself soon because my son will be getting the help that he needs.  This is still all new to us and still too raw for me to really poke at too much(note to self: stop with the heavy appointments on Tuesdays- you need more time to process before PYHO), but I know(and am thankful for) those of you who have been following along with this and giving me so much support might appreciate a small update.

But, in the meantime, I did pour my heart out yesterday on my friend Ashley’s blog as part of her Porch Swing Stories. I’d love if you headed over there to visit my post: What Love Feels Like.