Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson
We were walking around after a dinner out the other night when we came across this.
Dan pointed to the number crossed out and said, “That’s a pretty creepy way to get a cat. You just go around and find a cute lost cat poster, cross out the phone number and put your number in its place.”
Yeah. Fritzy seems to be just the kind of cat I’m looking for. Hand me the Sharpie.
Jerks.
Tons of great things have come from releasing Drops of Awesome out into the world. One of my favorites is that it helped me discover Brandon Miltgen’s art. We met through my blog and when I saw the Drops of Awesome art he created, I had to hang it on the wall of my family room.
And there it lives, even now.
I posted a link to his work when I first discovered it and several people asked me where they could buy it, but he wasn’t set up to sell prints back then.
But… dun dun dun…. his wife recently set up an Etsy shop to sell is work and you can go there to get the Drops of Awesome print or a ton of other great pieces.
To launch the shop, Hubby Can Draw is giving away a free 14×11 print of the Drops of Awesome piece. To enter, just:
1. Visit and Like Hubby Can Draw’s Facebook page;
2. Share any post from the Hubby Can Draw Facebook page (Be sure to mention that you found Hubby Can Draw through Daring Young Mom to be part of the giveaway!)
That’s it! Anyone can enter from today until Saturday, the 27th at noon. One random winner will then be chosen from all the entrants and contacted through Facebook for their free Drops of Awesome print!
So head on over, and be sure to browse their shop – it’s got a bucket’s worth of awesome art for sale.
First day of preschool and they’re reading a dinosaur book. For the first week the teacher has the kids come in small groups so she can get to know them and help them feel comfortable with the routines. Wanda is on the mat with two little boys listening to a story about a dinosaur who goes to school.
“What if a dinosaur came to our preschool?” the teacher asks.
“They can’t. All the dinosaurs are dead,” one four-year-old boy pipes up.
FACT.
The story continues until they get to a part where the dinosaur roars. The teacher asks the kids to roar like a dinosaur. The boys both give nice, cute little roars.
Wanda, on the other hand, has spent the last two years working out with me and my online fitness coach Erik, who believes in the release that comes from letting go with a soul-felt, visceral roar after each workout. These are roars that make your neighbors call 9-1-1, roars that release every pent up feeling in your body, roars that make a poor, unsuspecting preschool teacher startle-jump, eyes wide, her hair flying out behind her like Beyonce in a music video with one of those giant fans blowing while you wonder, “Where is all that wind coming from?”
Yeah. That happened. We’re the Thompsons. That’s how we do.
We really do. Especially me. I often feel like I have that giant fan effect on people I talk to and work with. When I was recently asked to take a turn being the Primary President at church (this involves doing some administrative tasks and teaching the kids), I spent the first two weeks on turbo speed, scaring the stuffing out of the other leaders I work with. I calmed down. A bit. But I go zero to super-annoying very quickly and I have to work hard to keep myself in check.
With this book project, it’s something I struggle with. While my publisher is working on releasing around forty books this year, I’ve just got the one and I have so many ideas spinning around my head, speaking engagements, updating the website, Drops of Awesome umbrellas, charitable giving, book signings, giveaways, interviews, CREATING A MOVEMENT OF AWESOME, squirrel!
I don’t have the money, time or energy to execute half the things I think would be awesome for this book, but I can sure rapid-fire email or talk the CEO’s ear off about them.
Right now, thanks to my amazing readers and friends, the journal is doing so well that we sold out the first print run within two days of release day. This is amazing and exciting and also, WHERE ARE THE BOOKS?!
Answer = The books are at the workshop even now, but the next run won’t be in your hands until mid-October. It’s sort of an exciting problem to have since when Familius asked me a couple of months ago how many I thought we’d sell, I said, “Ummm… At least fifty?”
But it is still a problem and I’m sorry we couldn’t see into the future well enough to keep up with demand. In the meantime, they’re keeping the price at 40% off retail on Familius.com for the next 30 days while the books are printed. So ordering now, especially if you’re looking for Christmas gifts, or other bulk orders, will ensure that you get them at the beginning of the next rush and with the discounted price.
Also, in the meantime, I’m working on a little Drops of Awesome shop. Stay tuned for updates. Fun things are coming.
[This is a guest post by Dan!]
Wanda recently had a birthday. Among her many joyous activities she had some time to sit down and do a little drawing. She was drawing a picture of a little girl and I asked her “is that little girl five years old, like you?”
“Nooo! She’s FOUR just like me!”
“Don’t you turn five today?”
“I’m four until I get my PRESENTS. THEN I’ll be five.”
So there you have it: aging is a product of the presents.
We’re so close, I can taste it. I guess I could actually taste it, if I wanted to. Although Drops of Awesome: The You’re-More-Awesome-Than-You-Think Journal doesn’t release for another week, I already have my copies in all their deliciousness.
That was an exciting day. Laylee said that me opening my box of books reminded her of George McFly getting his first box of books at the end of Back to the Future. I take that as the highest compliment.
I would also take it as quite a morale boost if you would pre-order Drops of Awesome on Amazon today. You can buy it any day but we’re trying to see how high we can get the Amazon rank to climb, so today would be especially helpful.
I love the book. The ideas within its pages have changed my life multiple times. Let’s call those times “course corrections.” And I really want to see the book and the movement spread throughout the world.
We need to start defining ourselves by who we are and what we do, not who we aren’t and what we don’t. We need to celebrate our victories, no matter how small to help us build momentum to do even greater things. And we need to know that a new story starts this instant. If you are taking positive action now, then you are the person you want to be.
Below is a preview copy of the journal. I hope it inspires you as you read and you want to share it with your family and friends. I can’t think of a more perfect gift for the sister, mother, friend, teacher, or dude who isn’t afraid of pink in your life. Who doesn’t want a gift that says, “I think you are amazing. I want to help you see just how awesome you are?”
I want you to see just how awesome you are! Please take this journey with me.
Well, it starts. School. More specifically middle school. Queue the silent scream. This person is far too old and far too tween-ular for my liking. I still like her, but like I said, the silent scream.
Things take longer in the morning when your destination is middle school. You have to panic because your curls “look weird” and then you have to de-weird them. You have to wear lipstick for the first time. That’s right people, LIPSTICK, because you are old and mature and… SILENT SCREAM.
In middle school you wear runners bigger than your entire body was when it exited your mother’s womb and a backpack that is heavier than your current body weight. You have to check and recheck your backpack and ask your mom to walk you to the bus stop on the first day, only to get to the bus stop and realize, “Hey. Why is my MOM here?!”
So this is her back-to-school bus picture. From behind the trees. With Laylee super tiny because I didn’t have a razzi lens on my Windows Phone camera.
She will do great. Me too. At least the screams are currently silent.
Then there is Magoo. He has never cared about fashion. Or, I should make a correction, he has always cared about fashion just enough to know that he wanted no part of it. The look of horror he gave me last year when I suggested he wear a button-up shirt to school picture day curled my toes.
“Why can’t I just wear an Angry Birds shirt like a normal person?”
He doesn’t want to stand out, doesn’t want to be uncomfortable, doesn’t want to be seen as someone who cares about what he’s wearing.
But then this year we took him to H&M for back to school shopping and somehow this happened:
It was love at first sight and I found myself spending three times more on a pair of jeans for him than I ever had before. Because when a person who wears track pants and a logo t-shirt every day of his life begs you to let him look like a Newsie the first day of school, you say, “How high?” and jump up to that cash register. (This only works when you are employed, which we are. Yay! I’ll be blogging about that soon.)
Even Dan agreed. We needed to buy the outfit for our sudden fashionist-o. But then he asked, “Do you think he’ll really have the guts to wear it the first day of school?”
I had no idea but I was willing to take the gamble. And it paid off. He is even now on the bus to learning land, dressed like someone who’s misplaced his street urchin boy band. Out of two kids at his bus stop this morning, only two of them gave him a hard time for wearing suspenders. So that’s something.
I don’t care. The cuteness cannot be stood for.
I had a moment this morning where I was praying over my breakfast and it ended up being a way long prayer about the kids and school and all of my wants and desires for them. It’s swallow-you-up raw, that surge of emotion you get when you think about your kids and their happiness and future. I can’t express in words how badly I want them to be happy.
And off they go into the breach and I start the countdown to summer all over again. I will miss my friends.