It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to write here – I’ve found myself very much in a place of purposeful seclusion lately. After living publicly online for so many years, all I want is privacy these days.

I sure got it last week – we spent 7 days up in heaven Michigan in a rented home in Twin Lake. It’s the second time we’ve been up there. And it was the first time I faced the end of a vacation and truly wanted to stay another week. I’m usually ready for my own bed, but not this time.

This was the dock in our backyard. The kids pulled fish out of the water left and right. Every night was a gorgeous sunset. Like I said – heaven!

We interrupt our current programming for a gushing mom moment.

My husband and I are horribly right brained. We’re always late. Can’t remember much. House eternally messy. But with these curses comes amazing creativity. And as if we didn’t already know – this picture makes it obvious that our daughter inherited it from both sides.

All of our kids are very creative – but what makes this especially awesome is that it was drawn with no input or help at all from anyone – by my daughter who is 7. SEVEN! If I drew like this at that age my work would be hanging in the Art Institute by now.

I made very simple new years resolutions this year. 1 – be better at bookkeeping – check. 2 – get more family time – double check. That’s it.

Just a few years ago, these goals would not have seemed ‘big’ enough for me. But I’ve found that I totally underestimated just how amazing life can be when I make things less complicated. You know – the changes that seem so little that they can’t possibly make a big difference – until you actually do them. And then you feel a little silly and foolish, wondering why you didn’t do this thing long ago.

My resolution to get more family time started to form last December. I was sitting at the kitchen table and an old episode of the iconic ’70’s sitcom All in the Family came on. I’m hearing that opening song and I’m physically still in my kitchen, but in my mind, suddenly I was 7 years old again. I felt like I was sitting in my grandparent’s family room, smelling pipe tobacco and Downy and pot roast cooking in the kitchen. I could hear my grandpa laughing at Archie Bunker, sometimes for all the wrong reasons. I imagined my grandma worrying about not having enough food for us (a trait my mother and I have unfortunately inherited from her). Every Tuesday we went to my grandparent’s house for dinner – and we always watched All in the Family together.

Suddenly I was in tears. Missing my grandparents all over again, even though they have been gone for a very long time. Missing the time my brother and I got with just our mom, because Tuesday was Kiawanis night for my dad. And definitely missing my grandmother’s pot roast recipe, which I have always imitated but never duplicated. I decided right then and there that I wanted to see my own parents more often. I wanted to make more memories like this one. This memory that swept me 30+ years back in time and made me feel loved, happy, and very full of pot roast.

Enter the 2010 monthly Piersall family dinners.

It’s perfect, because my husband loves to cook and is always looking for an excuse to buy overpriced prime rib. It’s perfect, because my sister in law and I adore each other but never find a way to make time to see each other as much as we want to. And it’s perfect, because it’s only once a month and the two most important rules are:

Houses need not be clean and food must be easy to make

It’s perfect because now we get to celebrate the month’s birthdays on our family dinner nights. It’s perfect because I really love hanging out with my parents. It’s perfect, because my kids are always bugging me to see their cousins. And it’s perfect because last time we were all laughing together watching TV while waiting for dinner to be ready – just like we did when I was 7.

And most of all, it’s perfect because when my kids and niece and nephew are all grown up, they will have so many family dinner memories that their heads and hearts will still be stuffed full of love and happiness.

I’m not sure that Archie Bunker intended it this way, but even that hard old jackass might have liked to know he’s done some good.

Ugh. Please bear with me on this. I haven’t written an intensely personal blog post in a really long time – I’m finding I’m awfully rusty. Indeed it’s taken me a week three weeks to get this so that I am ready to publish it.

I’m not one to do public suffering. I admire blogging women who can reach out to their communities in a time of need. Me? I go into cocoon mode. So last year, I fell off the face of the earth. I’ve been rather tight lipped about what I went through, because it’s really not my style to talk about stuff unless I can put a positive spin on things. It’s taken me almost a full year to be able to do so. So finally – here’s what happened to eMom in 2009.

A Disintegration of Life as I Had Known It

During an incredibly horrible and stressful time in March/April of last year (we won’t go into that part), I started having health issues. I’ve never really been sick beyond the flu, and I knew this was different. I couldn’t get out of bed most days. I was starving all the time. My blood sugar was whacked. My usual forgetfulness started getting almost scary. I had insomnia and heart palpitations. It all came on gradually, so it took me a while to go to the doctor.  But I really didn’t think it was that big of a deal. After all, I’d been healthy all my life, you know?

Within only a few days, I was getting a very-unexpected cancer biopsy. And suddenly life as I had known it disintegrated before my eyes. I questioned my purpose in life and God. I dropped everything. I saw images in my head of my children, husband and parents mourning me, which was far more traumatic than thinking about dying.

I crumbled to pieces.

Before I go further, NO, I don’t have cancer. It’s a thyroid problem. But for one week in April of last year, the possibility of death loomed before me like nothing I could ever possibly describe.

2009 was my year in Hell. Even though up until that point I had lived a life of “no regrets”, suddenly I had plenty to go around. There were the not-so-surprising regrets of working too much, letting assholes rent headspace, and yelling too much at my kids. I regretted not taking care of myself as well as I did everyone else. And I regretted giving so much that there was nothing left for me.

2009 also showed me that when faced with one’s own mortality, no matter how briefly, one can never go back to living life the same way again.

The Silver Lining of 2009

My 2010 resolutions lie in stark contrast to my past, which used to focus on PR, PR, and a little more PR. I really thought that “fame” would bring me the success I craved. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

This year I have vowed more family time, friend time and more me time. And getting more organized so that I can have even more family time, friend time and me time. Life is now about treasuring the time I have on this planet and being grateful for every second of it. So far, 2010 has been the happiest, most successful and most satisfying year of my entire life. Every day I wake up grateful – I seriously never had that before.

Which brings me full circle to the point of this post.

2010 is also about finding a way back out of my cocoon to share what I love with the people I love – and that includes the real life friends and online community of people I truly, deeply appreciate. I’ve never been good at coming out of cocoon mode, so this will probably be a messy work in progress (kind of like the rest of my life). I need to get back to doing what I have always done best – sharing my knowledge, helping other entrepreneurs, and hopefully inspiring a little bit of greatness along the way. I may not be running full steam again, but I am indeed back on my feet.

There are a handful of people who have gently nudged me along (or hit me in the head with a brick) who deserve a shout out right now. Some I have known for many years. Some I met only recently and they provoked me to think bigger. Some don’t even know who the hell I am. These people (probably without realizing it) have played a big role with helping me to get back on my feet again.

They were there even though I blew them off.

They reminded me that blogging is about community and giving.

They inspired me by showing up in life and being truly, deeply awesome.

They took care of things I couldn’t take care of.

And they offered help when I was too stubborn to ask for it.

And they reminded me that while we are on this earth, it is our obligation to shine, even when we feel surrounded in darkness.

Char Polanosky, Liz Strauss, Danielle Smith, Steve Johnson, Lucretia Pruitt, Ted Murphy, Aliza Sherman, Patrick O’Keefe, Beth Rosen, Susan Payton, Martin Neumann, Brandi Kajino, Michelle Lamar, Kelly McCausey, Heather Mann, Rachel, Dorothy Stahlnecker, Randa Clay, Jen Goode, Shannon Weidemann, Marie LeBaron, Allison Czarnecki, Lindsay Maines, Katja Presnal, Megan Jordan, Erika Jurney, Lisa Lam, Derek Semmler, Sommer Poquette, Duong Sheahan, Sugar Jones, Jessica Smith, Jenn Fowler, Scott Stratten, Amber Tardiff, Lorna Brewer, Steve Sipress, Barbara Jones, Kevin Carroll, Alli Worthington, Amy Locurto, Kim Janocko, Lisa Marie Mary, Aruni Gunasegaram, Marla Tabaka, Renee Ross, Karen Putz, Janice Croze, Susan Carraretto, Jill Koenig, Jyl Pattee, Kenny Tomlin, Kristin King, Deb Ng, Lori Falcon, Missy Ward, Rick Calvert, Samir Balwani, Aimee Giese, Scott Monty, Alicia Paulson, Ree Drummond, JenJen, Laurie Turk, Deb Puchalla, Margaret Roach, George Manty, Kelvin Kao and of course my dearest husband, kids and the best parents in the world.

You are the real silver lining of my year in hell – strangers and friends who made an indelible mark on my life when I needed you the most. You beamed your light into my life, and now I shine brighter because of you.

Thank you.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

(PS – if you think I forgot to include you on this list, then I surely did. Please don’t take it personally, I’m probably one of the most forgetful people you know. And please hit me on the head with another brick and remind me, will you?!)

(PPS – yes, Momsational is my new ‘blogging home’ now that Sparkplugging is in new hands. Yes, I’m BACK to blogging, too!! I’ll talk more about that another time!)

It wasn’t until I purchased these from Anthropologie that I realized for the very first time that measuring cups can bring a woman to tears.

Seriously – even this gorgeous photo doesn’t do these things the justice they deserve. I realize $35 is a bit steep for measuring cups. But it is a teensy-tiny price to pay for the decadent feeling I get when I use them every morning. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the sheer joy I feel when I look at the delicate hand painted details. These measuring cups make me want to cook all day long. They make me want to completely remodel my kitchen so that I can feature them prominently to family and friends (ok, I admit I wanted a kitchen remodel before I got these). But they do make me feel like my existing kitchen is nicer than it really is (as long as I am looking at them and not my 30 year old cabinets!).

But for real – this is my absolute favorite indulgent purchase I have made in many, many months. And for $35, it only barely makes it into the ‘indulgent’ category.

Find the Izmir Measuring Cups on Anthropologie

I once wrote about how I used to get SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’m kind of puzzled now as to why I wrote “used to” in that post, because there are some ok winters and some bad winters – but it happens every winter. I guess this year it isn’t so bad – but this is the worst time of year for it. So I decided to go through my summer photos today to add a shot to The Photoblog in the hopes of it taking my mind off of this.

This photo was a little tricky to play with, because I found the overexposed white area on my son’s neck to be a little distracting. But any attempts at toning it down looked like I colored on the photo with a crayon. So I ended up playing with the levels a tiny bit and brightening up the rest of the shot to deemphasize it. I lowered the white point in the levels so that it became at least less white than my screen. I also put a soft focus on the image, but removed it in that area because the glow was only intensifying the problem. It’s not perfect, but at least you can now see the three absolute best parts of the shot:

The drip of water on his nose

The laughing girl licking up the sprinkler water from her fingers – this was purely accidental bokeh that I swooned over when I discovered it hours later!

The sprinkler spray in front of the hair and shirt – I had to dodge those out a bit more to really make them show through

One of my goals this year is to get more photographs of my kids doing their thing – candid shots when they don’t know I am looking. While I love their goofy grins and prima donna poses – it’s photos like this that really let me hold onto the moments in time that will be gone too soon.

My husband is an amazing cook. Every winter, he makes a huge pot of this soup – usually it’s more like minestrone, but this year, he decided to leave out the beans and focus on the veggies instead. He and I have very different approaches to how to cook soup. His takes longer, but I will have to admit that the broth in his soup is incredibly rich, complex and delicious.

The reason he does this only once a year is because he futzes with the broth for over an hour before he even puts any solids into the stock. Some years he has had to correct the seasoning so much that we ended up with two pots of soup. But this year I forced him to write everything down and I gotta say he done good.

This recipe makes a LARGE amount of soup – we make it in one huge batch and freeze in smaller serving sizes.

Prep Time: 3-4 hours

Tomato Vegetable Beef Soup

Add all these ingredients below in a large pot

3.75 quarts (15 cups) filtered water

3/4 jar 8 oz of “Better than Bouillon” lower sodium beef bouillon

(2) 20 oz cans of tomato sauce

(2) 20 oz cans of diced tomatoes

1/4 cup of red wine

1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp oregano

3 tbsp basil

1 tbsp salt

1/2 tbsp celery salt

1 tbsp pepper

1/2 cup sugar

5 tbsp onion powder

2 tbsp crushed or pureed garlic, or 5 crushed garlic cloves

1.5 oz fresh spinach (finely chopped) (half a bag)

Simmer above ingredients for 1 hour

Add

2 lbs of beef round roast cut in 1/2 inch pieces

Simmer for 1 hour

Add

16 oz bag of baby carrots, coarsely chopped

1 pound green beans, cut in 1 inch pieces

Simmer for 30 minutes

Add

1 pound fresh broccoli florets

3/4 lb medium pasta shells

Simmer for 30-45 minutes until shells and broccoli are fully cooked

When we moved into our house 4 years ago, the previous owners left behind gorgeous hardwood floors – accompanied by large areas of piss stains and a wonderful dog smell.We are total DIYers and thought it would be no problem to get the place looking awesome.

At first we tried sanding and refinishing the floors.

This worked for the front room and dining room. But the stairs and upstairs hallway were an absolute disaster. Sanding would not, could not, get those piss stains out of the wood.

So then we tried putting a laminate over the hallway and the stairs. This was an uber disaster. The stair noses started falling off in less than 3 months. You couldn’t sweep them because the dirt got trapped in the stair noses because they laid on top of the step like this:

They became downright dangerous because soon most of the noses were so loose they threw you off balance if you put your weight on them. The laminate is in the garbage, and now the stairs look awful. Worse than ever. Worse even than before we moved in.

So now we are on plan C.

Since we really don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for rebuilt all-new stairs, our only choice is to paint them. At first, I thought I couldn’t pull it off. I’m not a fan of painted floors. Then tons and tons of Googling turned up this gorgeous inspiration:

I don’t think I can get away with the very dark stain on the stairs – I really think I am going to have to go for true black paint. And figuring out how to transition to the hallway and bedrooms will be… well, interesting. But this project has been simmering in the back of my mind since November and I want this done before spring is here. The hard part is that because the stairs were previously varnished, I have to paint with oil-based paint. UGH. Hate that.

So here is my very ugly stairs and front entryway “before” shot:

And now that this post is up, I’m going to have to be accountable and get going on this project.

Found on the ever-wonderful U-Handbag blog, I bought this calendar on Etsy a few weeks ago. I certainly thought it was cute, but in real life this thing is freaking adorable. It’s printed on thick water color paper, the colors are super-saturated, and the little Kokeshi dolls are to die for. I’ve got one pegged up with some mini clothespins for now, but I think I am going to put up a magnetic strip on my shelves to put up more than one at a time!

Illustrated by Stephanie Fizer. YUM!

After running kids activities blogs for over two and a half years, I’ve found out a thing or two about what kids like. And kids like Tinkerbell.

No. Kids LOVE Tinkerbell.

Actually, maybe it’s us moms that love her so much. Honestly, if you go watch the original Disney Peter Pan movie, Tink is a horrible jealous stalker-type that embodies all of the worst female stereotypes you can possible imagine. But we love her anyway, don’t we? Maybe it’s because in more recent movies she has cleaned up her act. Or maybe it’s because she’s so freaking cute. Or maybe it’s because we all have a little bad-girl inside of us and it’s way more fun to watch Tinkerbell act that way than it is for us!

Everything Tinkerbell

Anyway, here are some of the posts I have put up over the years that people seem to luuuuvvvvv…..

Tinkerbell Pictures (several early Disney concept sketches through Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure)

Tinkerbell Coloring Pages

Tinkerbell Pumpkin Stencil

Free Tinkerbell Crossword Puzzle

Tinkerbell Party Ideas

Tinkerbell Costumes

It’s kind of hard to go on and on about how much I love Chicago when it is the middle of January. But winter is a distant memory come May, when this photo was taken in 2008. It is one of my favorite all time shots – the light on the Chicago River cruise was exquisite - and I know that sounds so cliche, but it’s true. Everything was glowing. I was running all over the roof of the boat snapping pictures as fast as I could. Lots of them came out fuzzy, but this one is my pride and joy.

My son is a Wii fantatic. He could play games on it all day, every day. Since most of the Wii games we have simultaneously give him indoor exercise, I’m not complainin’. So when I was given the chance recently to check out the new Tony Hawk Ride game for Wii, I jumped on it!

My son is almost 10, which is the starting recommended age for this game. I think even kids as young as 8 could play it, as long as they are pretty coordinated. It’s probably best for teens, and even adults will be able to play. I wish you could have seen the moment I brought out the game box, because my son just about passed out. He made goofy noises, jumped up and down, and hugged the box. Seriously, he was that excited about it.

For the uninitiated, the game is a full size “skateboard” that is a game controller for the Wii – though it also comes for the PS3 and Xbox 360. It comes bundled with the game disc for anywhere between $90 and $120, depending on what deals are out there. You “ride” the skateboard to play the game – like this:

Setting up the game was a little tricky, but not too bad. It took us a little while to figure out how to get the board game controller turned on (it went on right away the first time, but then we figured out that you have to hold the button down to get it to go on again). It was frustrating only until we figured out that it was a simple solution, which made me feel somewhat silly. And then you have to ‘calibrate’ the board, which my son was able to do on his own without my help, so it was pretty simple – the game walks you through it.

One the game was ready to roll, I have to say I had pretty high expectations and I was impressed more than I thought I would be.

This game is flipping cool.

There are several modes of play, from an easy ‘free skate’ to more challenging courses that require that you learn to do tricks. There also is a half-pipe mode that is entirely different than the skateboarding mode. I tried skateboarding back in the 80’s, and quickly found that my kind of coordination is NOT the kind of coordination needed to be a good skater. So I’ve never bee into it – but this game was hard to resist. After an hour or so, I kicked my son off the board so I could try it. Sadly, I’m just as uncoordinated now as I was back then. But even though I was flailing around our front room on the skateboard controller, it was still a blast and I’ve played it again since.

Tony Hawk Game Pros and Cons

Again, the game has a brain dead easy tutorial on how to do them. I do appreciate the attention to detail they paid on making sure the game was easy to learn. The setup could get complicated fast, and they have plenty of ‘experiential’ learning features that walk you through the game and skateboard tricks, step by step.

Probably the biggest drawback is that due to my kids’ allergies, we don’t have carpeting in our house. The game comes with adhesive padding for use on hard floors, but it’s clear that the controller works best on carpeting. I’ll probably end up buying a small rug for the room – one with a no-slip backing, because this thing really can slide around. Technically not that big of a deal, but enough of a deal to mention it.

The best part of the game is that my son l.o.v.e.s. it. And so do I! You couldn’t ask for a better game for kids to play when they are cooped up in the house on cold or rainy days. And there are so many different courses and play variations that it will be a very long time before the game is ‘played out’. It is most certainly great exercise, and the coolness factor is really beyond words.

Disclosure - I received this game at no cost as a review copy. I received no other compensation for this review, and the opinions are 100% mine. Additionally, now that I’ve tried the game and see how much use we will get out of it, I would totally buy it anyway. Even at the top end of $120, I think it’s completely worth the price, and at $90 I’d pay for it again in a heartbeat.

Have you seen these ultra cool photo flip books? They are the cutest little brag books – and you can get a 20 page 4″ x 6″ photo book from VistaPrint for free! These are perfect gifts, stocking stuffers, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day presents.

VistaPrint is really the ultimate freebie website, and if you want to add pages or make your book a little bigger, they charge so little it’s almost creepy. You can get a slightly bigger 20 page photo book with 5″ x 7″ images for a crazy $6.49. Back in the days of film processing, I used to pay more than that just for normal prints! And these books include a cover with your choice of pre-designed templates, too.

Want more freebies? Check out these free custom address labels, too!

My kids actually love doing worksheets year-round, especially when they are fun worksheets or have lots of cute pictures on them. I am even able to sneak in plenty of skills review in the summer by giving them worksheets mixed in with their coloring pages.

And on the days that my kids forget their homework, I’ve found alternative worksheets for them to do so that they don’t think they can get out of doing their class assignments! The thought of having to do MY homework in addition to their regular homework usually motivates them to check their homework folders before they leave school!

We have a big collection of printable worksheets on Animal Jr. and on our newest Woo! Jr. Network addition, Classroom Jr.!

Teacher Worksheets to Print

Language Arts Worksheets

Synonyms and Antonyms Worksheets

Fun Math Worksheets

Seasonal and Holiday Worksheets

Spring Math Worksheets: Counting Money

Spring Math Worksheets: Addition Color by Number

Christmas Math Worksheets: Addition and First-Then Logic

Christmas Math Worksheets: Addition and Subtraction

Winter Themed Printable Multiplication Worksheets

Printable Valentine’s Day Multiplication and Fractions Worksheets

You might also like these “How Do Plants Grow?” activities, free paper crafts, or this collection of Where the Wild Things Are lesson plans and activities.

Rain is so important in Bermuda – did you know that there is no fresh water supply on the entire island? No lakes, no streams, no nothin’. So by law all of the buildings there have to have a water collection system in place – kinda cool. This rain never actually made it to the island – it was so hot (in August!) that any rain that tried to come down evaporated almost immediately.

I wish I could remember all the Photoshop processing steps I did in this shot, because it is significantly enhanced from the original. I started with a light HDR treatment with ReDynaMix, pumped up the colors a whole bunch, and added an edge burn from Ree Drummond’s free Photoshop Action Sets. Plus other things I can’t remember. I kind of got lost in the artistic process on this one.