Read this

Read THIS if you are struggling as a parent, or if you are having a hard day, or if you are in any way a human being. It's beautiful. Thanks, Laura.

Happy Everything & A Gratitude List (if you can stand it)

May the season be filled with love,

a few happy surprises, and at least one GIANT hot fudge sundae

Five things I'm grateful for right now, in no particular order:

1. My job.  It's good work.  It's 3 days a week.  There is often free food and wine.  What more could I want?

2. The Mister's work.  Yes, retail is shaky, but he owns a bookstore.  A bookstore!  How cool is that?

3. My kids.  To be honest I vacillate wildly between an awe-struck feeling of luck at being their mother, and the distinct impression that motherhood is best reserved for people without my personality.  But when I think about how they almost never came to be, I can't bear it. I literally can't bear the thought.  

4. Creative people.  Despite my fits of ungenerous jealousy, I am so often inspired by the amazing minds of others: writers, seamstresses, poets, singers, people doing weird things with glue guns and yarn.  You people make a world full of Dress Barns and Bratz dolls and The Bachelor worth living in.  

5. Perspective.  Every time I get some I realize that I am a lucky, lucky girl.  Stressed, a little zaftig, famous in very few places, and definitely not rich.  But lucky just the same. 

Merry, merry, happy, happy everything