Let It Go {..."your momma isn't to blame", and other thoughts about moms and Mother's Day...}


(my precious momma and daddy, on their 50th wedding anniversary in 2013)

Passing judgement on a parent (in this case of this particular post, your mother) is one of the biggest - if not the biggest - block to your own success and prosperity.

That is a bold statement, but I can back it up.  I can back it up personally, anecdotally, and Biblically.

In this blog post, however, I am going to call on a heavy hitter in the world of small business.  I am going to let her speak to this issue, as part of an ongoing mini-series, heading towards Mother's Day.

If you own a creative small business - if you are a solopreneur, and you haven't yet heard about Marie Forleo...

...well, it's waaaaay past time that someone told you.

Years ago, I heard that she wrote a book called "Make Every Man Want You" but she wrote it as a life-coaching book, and then purposefully let it masquerade as a book dispensing attraction-advice to women.  I was beyond curious.

I bought the Kindle version, two years ago.  And I didn't buy it because I wanted to make every man want me.

I wanted to see how this girl could make a hot topic become her "Trojan Horse" to carry what in fact, was her real message to the masses.  And she was spot-on.

Simply by adding a hot-button title ("Make Every Man Want You") she managed to package a boring product (self development) in such a way as to drive sales and get her core message out to a wider audience.  That book put her on the map.  Brilliant.  Girlfriend is genius.

But it was chapter 7 that made me sit up and take serious note.  Chapter 7 is titled, "Secret 4:  Your Parents Didn't Screw You Up (and Even if They Did...)"

One of Marie Forleo's secrets to success was to stop feeling sorry for herself - in short, to stop trying to re-parent herself.  One of her biggest secrets to her skyrocketing success has been to stop spinning the "I was abused" story.

I quote Marie in her own words:

"We live in a society that is conditioned to blame the state of our lives on what our parents did or didn't do to us growing up.  Either your parents were around too much and controlled you or they weren't around enough and left you with "commitment issues".

One of my biggest breakthroughs, which completely transformed my irresistibility and my ability to have success, was really understanding that my parents didn't screw me up.  Until my mid-twenties, I believed I had a dysfunctional family and a mildly abusive childhood.  I was completely comfortable blaming my own inadequacies and failed relationships on my parents.

I would tell men I dated "poor me" stories about how bad my mother was and how she screwed me up.  I dubbed her a neurotic "clean freak" and held resentment against her for constantly making me pick up after myself.  While I didn't have as many stories about my dad, I nevertheless...silently begrudged him for failing to save me from my mother's mean ways.

What a total crock!

My childhood was neither dysfunctional nor mildly abusive.  The only dysfunction that occurred was in my bratty little mind.  I told those "poor me" stories based on memories I put together as a difficult teenybopper who did not like to be told what to do...

I had no awareness of how challenging it is to be a parent, or the complexities and demands that come along with caring for and raising a family.  Like many children, I was untidy and self absorbed and I needed discipline.  Looking back with my adult eyes, I'm 100 percent certain I did things that drove my parents nuts....The memories of my childhood as dysfunctional are not at all accurate.  They were recorded in my mind by a much younger version of me - during a time I was upset and having temper tantrums.  I had a child's perspective, which, by its very nature, is limited and incomplete.  I "recorded" my mom's parenting as somehow dysfunctional and abusive.  Until I brought awareness to it, I brought that story with me forward in time as though it were true...

If you're holding on to a story that your parents screwed you up, you severely limit what's possible for you...you squash your irresistibility because you are not yet behaving as a full, adult woman.  Instead of being an authentic, unique individual, you're stuck being not like your "bad" parent.  Rather than living an expansive life...you're living life in reaction to your parents.

...All of this drama is eroding your well-being..."

Can you imagine the courage it took for Marie to say all this publicly?  To own the fact that her perspective on her upbringing was warped at best? And then to fix it?  Publicly?  I don't know if Forleo is a church-going woman, but I rarely see that kind of courage, even in God's house.

Marie goes on to acknowledge that, obviously,  some people truly have been abused (I'm talking bruises, broken bones, or sexual abuse).  Even then, Forleo's advice is to forgive and move on.

In short, in all but the most abnormal of home situations, none of us has a reason to spin the story of "abuse".  And if we choose to spin that story, we hurt no one but ourselves.

When I was growing up, I had issues with my mom.  My own mother, today, would acknowledge that some of my issues were legitimate, because she struggled with acute, suicidal depression when I was a child.

But like Marie, one of my biggest breakthroughs was when I decided to stop spinning my "poor me" story.  One day, as a young mother of two identical twin infant daughters, I was alone with my thoughts...which almost never happened, back then.  I was pondering some things that happened in my childhood, and frankly feeling sorry for myself.

The Holy Spirit spoke to me in that moment and said, "Stop.  You will never rise above what you identify with.  You can identify with feeling unloved, or you can identify with the truth."

I can honestly say that I broke free right then and there.  I haven't had a perfect perspective since then - there have been rare hours or days when I try to revert back to spinning a "poor me" perspective - but overall, I released my mother (and my father) and chose to acknowledge that my "take" on my  upbringing was slanted at best...and at worst, I realized how I erroneously felt that it served me to selfishly cast myself as the victim.

But nobody stays "the victim" and succeeds.

Friends, let me put it this way:  if I can honestly say that my upbringing was good, and my mom is amazing, and she did the best she could, and I honor her....so can you.  So can you.  Trust me on this.  In all but the most extreme of circumstances, you can absolutely choose to drop the role of victim.

And Biblically, the road to prosperity is paved with honor.  We simply must choose to honor our parents, if we want to truly thrive.  One thing is for sure:  if you want...if you really, really want your child to one day weigh you in their balances and find you coming up terribly short?  If you want that, then go ahead...weigh your mother or your father in the scales of your finite understanding, play the role of perpetual victim, and bemoan every way they came up short.  Then, by all means, do everything in your power to not be like her/him/them.  (Because after all, that makes it all about you, see....victims are totally comfortable with that, even when they parent.  They are always parenting their inner victim  child, rather than making the hard choice to do what is best for their actual child.)

Go on and tell your spouse all the ways your parents messed up - help him or her "understand" you.  Its the best way I know to guarantee that your children will one day do the same "for you".







A Vitamix Recipe: "Really Easy Grape Juice With Chia Seeds" {...like, really, really, really easy...}



{brief caveat:  I made this juice using a Vitamix.  I think it would turn out just fine, no matter what kind of blender you use, but I did get great results with our trusty Vitamix.}

Take a bunch of red seedless grapes...well, if you have a Vitamix, they don't even have to be seedless, but the seeds do tend to be bitter.  Toss a couple of clusters in your blender along with 8 ounces of water.

Press play.

I mean, blend it.  Put about a tablespoon of chia seeds in your glass, and pour the blended grapes over that.  Let it sit for just a few minutes, to incorporate those seeds.

Here is what you end up with...and it is so, so good and good for you:


Still juicing my way through this gorgeous book, and each recipe is pretty much more awesome than the last.  One of my best buys this year!


As The Next Generation is Home Educated {...another slice of life...a regular Thursday in this 'hood...}



Remember this?

Beauty really does spring from broken places.

There were some dark days in my 22+ year home educating career.  There were some dark years.  But we also had so, so many days like this:


My iPhone buzzed about ten minutes ago.  This is going on, next door, even as I type.  My daughter Hannah sent me the above little video clip of her going over Timothy's memorization assignment for this week - today, she happens to be including Timothy's cousin (and my very enthusiastic grand-girl) Aidyn Esther.

I die.  I die from pure delight, I resurrect, then I die again.

These moments are what makes having a career in teaching your own children at home so, so worth the cost.

My #UnstyledLifestyle House REALLY DID Get Featured on a Design Blog {...a major design blog...}


 I promised I'd tell you which design blog was going to feature our home.

Then, I forgot to tell it here.  I announced it on Facebook and Instagram, but forgot to announce it right here, where it all began.

{hint:  please consider this your invitation to join me on one or all of my other social media channels.  I would love to see you there!}

So.  Remember this post?  My "Unstyled Lifestyle House Tour For No Real Reason"?

In that blog post, I practically bragged on the fact that I have never-no-never been invited to participate in one of those "Holiday House" virtual house tours at Christmas time...you know...

...the blog hops.

Not once.

And I really didn't {and don't} care.

But as fate would have it, Gabrielle Blair over at Design Mom actually invited me to submit photos of our home for her weekly design feature "Living With Kids - Home Tours".

Apparently the sort of lifestyle we have, living with one of our grandbabies for two years, followed by living right next door to the same grandchild {and we will quite possibly be living two doors down from two of our other grandbabies by the end of this summer!} is fascinating to many folks...

...and I do have to say - I am living a dream I have not earned and do not deserve.  Hashtag blessedforsure.

Back to being invited to share our home on a real, true design blog.  I gotta tell you, the #unstyledlifestyle of that initial, silly blog post, became a "work-my-behind-off-to-style-my-unstyled-lifestyle" project.  A flurry of house cleaning and fresh-flower buying ensued upon learning that our home would actually be featured on - of all places, Design Mom.

Only THE website I have been "fan-girling" for at least two years!

I was over the moon, and still am.

You can find the shots of our home, and my interview here.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the "outtakes"...the shots that didn't make the cut for the feature piece:
















Up In The Air So Blue {...the things my preacher can do, in no time flat...}




I mentioned it this afternoon.  That's all I did, was mention it.

I mentioned the fact that it'd be fun to have a wooden-seat swing, down there under the silver maple.

This evening, right before dinner, The Preacher went out to his workshop.  I heard the noise of the power saw and something else.  In less than an hour, this is what I was called outside to see:


And then this may have happened:



I was all, like, "Hey kid.  Get off my swing."  (not really)


How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down! 

A Bit of Digital Flower Pressing {...not all Displayed Treasures are analog...}




...so I created the above image in under 30 minutes, after The Preacher and I spent a perfect evening shooting wildflowers in Cades Cove.  Well.  We shot wildflowers, and I also included a few weeds - because I love dandelions when they reach their fluffy and even spent stage.  

I am having so much fun preparing for my FREE online mini-intensive, "Displayed Treasures - Analog 'Pinning' as Art and Lifestyle".  Yes, the idea is to set some limits on our screen time, and the screen time our children are given.  

But for all the technology lovers {like me}, let me take a moment to reassure you that though we will spend some time with beautiful "analog pinning" ideas...

...there will also be a bit of digital delight thrown in, just for fun.  

Hey, if it will get us all outside, I am all in, aren't you?

I'm excited to tell you that I am working on a screencast, intended to teach you how to easily put together a wildflower {or seashell, or tree leaf, or tree, or animal, vegetable, or mineral} mini-poster, much like what you see above.  

Just something fun you can create, to save and re-live a little bit of the feeling of those moments when all your senses were engaged.  Your kids - the ones old enough to be using the computer - can follow along and learn as well.

Stay tuned right here for the official launch date.  Announcements will be forthcoming...

I Re-stocked Most Items in the Shop {...just in time for Mother's Day...}



Thank you so much for your support, when you gift-give. It means this world to me, as well as all artists...