👨‍🍳 Cooking has the same ingredients as therapy

I eat healthy stuff too.

Anyone who’s been here a while knows what a foodie I am.

And not just the noshing part. I especially love the cooking part. I recently bought a FIREDISC cooker, and my life changed forever. I can make virtually anything in this bad boy. And it makes me look like a gourmet.

I have a guest post and infographic I think you’re going to love, especially if you share my affinity with the language of food. Have you cooked more during the pandemic? Well, then you’ll get this post. I take comfort in cooking when I’m at home so much.

🧳 Guest post | Traveling through Literature: An Interactive Worldly Map of Books

Finally.

Camdyn’s reading To Kill a Mockingbird in school. This, after a litany of less-than-stellar books that have dominated not only hers but also her sisters’ syllabi for semesters and semesters. Finally a good book!

Today’s guest post is unique.

It’s not a sponsored post, but it’s something I was approached with. After I took a look at this interactive book map, I was hooked. You will be too. Read on, and then discover how you can find relevant books for every nation on earth.

🤯 Guest post: Author Britt Skrabanek, on how to protect your creative mind

A creative mind is a kind of mushy not often found in this world.

Not in a ‘this apple is too old to eat’ kind of way. More in a, ‘you can’t sit on a plate of flan or you’ll flatten it’ kind of way. It’s malleable in all the right ways, and when it’s healthy and strong, the best stuff comes shooting out of it.

Yeah, like sparklers.

Like a new pair of glasses or first-edition Chewbacca figure, it’s best to keep a creative mind protected 24-7 in the box it came in. But what fun is that? And what function? Just don’t sit on your glasses. Or lose Chewie’s crossbow.

Guest Post: Laura, of Riddle From the Middle, on books she likes as much as she does ice cream

It’s fitting that I post a guest blog from a middle child on the same day my middle child signs her letter of intent to play soccer in college.

Yes, that’s a stretch. (And a way to give Hayden a shoutout. She’s signing with Piedmont International. She’ll walk in with a brace but no crutches as her recovery from ACL surgery continues. So proud of you Hayd!)

Laura’s the middle child starring on this page today.

She’s a valued blogging friend and wonderful wordsmith. No one beats Laura, a fellow parent, and writer, at headlines. Every headline makes you want to click. Her page is like an open box of vanilla wafers you won’t be satisfied with until you’ve had all of them.

Guest Post: Jenn from The Bold Thing, on Self Care

Hanging out with The Sith and Batman (prone, kissy suit) on a sunny day at Mazeppa.

Ever feel ready for something, but just not quite ready, all at once?

I know. Confusing. In all the time I’m not writing, I’m hoping to write. I’m also hoping to improve processes so that I can write soon (and have more tacos. Let’s be honest.)

A few months back, I connected with Jenn Shull, a local coach, and yogi. And, it turns out, way tons more.

She writes the blog The Bold Thing. It takes someone bold to write a blog called The Bold Thing. Jenn’s perspective and ability to see someone’s potential – through endless tarnish even – is remarkable.

#J is for Just Zip It, Parents (a Guest Post From Madison)

I took this while waiting to pick up Madison from work one night. I wonder if anyone saw me.

Highway travel.

Vegas. Any weekend convention, if you’re a lot of guys. A wedding reception.

Definitely the parental sideline at any youth athletics event.

These are all places humans have gravitated toward boorish and ill-advised behavior. Today’s guest post is from my oldest, Madison, who, like her sisters, says she blocks out the noise from the familial upline, but what she wrote today demonstrates otherwise.

#AtoZChallenge: H is For Here, as in Far From Here (Guest Post by Beatrice Pittoco)

I’ve been strict with water and sleep and even exercise.

In fact, lots of puzzle pieces of life are fitting together. As they should. Not the forced way we did as kids. One by one, the frame, the corners. Maybe something in the middle, like a hamster or eyeglasses or even Sandra Bullock.

A piece I haven’t put into place is writing and that is a shame not because of my words being bottlenecked, but the words of talented and feeling friends that sit idle in my folders, a place you could never appreciate them. I wish I’d posted this on Father’s Day.

Beatrice Pittoco has been here before, in a #GirlsRock piece. It was beautiful and moving and included her incredible photography. She’s back today, sharing a poignant piece about a place she’d love to build a tunnel to.

#AtoZChallenge: G is for guest post – Lauren Mayhew, on buried treasure

I love reading about writing.

It’s how we get better, right? That, and eating vanilla wafers. (Science has yet to chime in on the wafers as of this publication date.) Today’s guest writer, Lauren Mayhew, writes a fantastic blog about writing.

She also managed to complete the A to Z Challenge and did this really cool theme about songs played on her iPod.

Today, she’s here to expand upon her recent 6-words answer to this prompt. (No, that post hasn’t published yet!) Lauren has an awesome imagination and invites us to chime in with our answers here, too.

#AtoZChallenge: C is for Courtney Wright, guest blogger

I’m gasping for air a bit in all this #AtoZChallenge hubbub.

Hypothetically, of course. While the entire universe shares its tales of the letter E, I toil away, seeking bits of time to steal to write my C post. And it’s essentially written for me, thanks to today’s guest poster, Courtney, of Blog Me This.

Thanks for the lift, C.

So Courtney is along for the ride as my C-train ticket. She writes a wonderful blog, but even more crucially, she’s an unshakable blog friend who will shine through for you in your darkest or most blog-less and snack-less moments.

Guest post: Emily(2) Fundraising for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

It’s like, still cold in the Carolinas.

Finding the time to blog lately hasn’t been easy.

Sometimes, you have to rely on friends to pick up the slack. I’d intended to publish a #GirlsRock interview with Emily Meintzer, whose sister plays on Camdyn’s team at Lake Norman Soccer Club.

Emily and I have become sideline friends, watching her sister and my daughter mixing it up on the soccer pitch.

Today, I’m featuring a cause Emily and her friend, Emily, are working to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Many of you know my father died nearly 18 years ago of leukemia.