Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Archives for January 2017

Bucket of Awesome – Ambassador Invitation

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***Update – The Bucket of Awesome Ambassador Program is drawing to a close, but please sign up below if you’d like to be on the mailing list for future updates and activities.***

It’s happening.

The third, and possibly most epic, Drops of Awesome book is almost here. It arrived at my publisher from the printer and hits shelves and interwebs March 7th! Sign up at the bottom for an early look at the book.

Bucket of Awesome: The Your-Life’s-More-Amazing-Than-You-Realize Guidebook has been in the works for over a year and I am really proud to share it with you. It’s a book with two purposes:

1. To improve your life by changing the way you tell your story.
2. To give you a framework and thought-provoking questions to help you record your personal history in an engaging and positive way.

Change your story by how you tell your story – Drops of Awesome style.

If this idea speaks to you like it yammers to me, I’d love to have you join our promotional team as an Ambassador of Awesome.

Ambassadors of Awesome for this project will receive an advance digital copy of the book and an invitation to join a closed Facebook group where we can share our Bucket of Awesome journeys and talk about our progress.

In return, you agree to receive email from me and the Familius team and help us get the word out about the book through participating in as many of the weekly missions as you can. I would love your help telling the world how Awesome they are. We’ve had so much fun as a team with the past two books. (As a side note, we are building the list from scratch so please sign up below if you’re interested in joining us, even if you helped us with a past project.)

Let’s fill these Buckets UP.

Select “Ambassador of Awesome” to join the team!

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Please Dub Me


Halloween and Bible Videos

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This post was originally written a couple of days after Halloween 2016 but I guess I was too tired to post it because I never did. I just found it on my hard drive so I thought I might as well “throw it up” on the blog. No pun intended…

Wanda slept on Dan’s face Tuesday night.

He did not like it.

She had stayed home from school with a cough on Monday, one of those annoying coughs that probably sounds worse than it is. And it sounds plenty worse. So you keep your kid home so people won’t hate you and your stupid offspring.

Generally, and specifically actually, we have a rule that you can’t go out and do activities in the evening if you stayed home sick during the day. Too sick to go to school? Too sick to go to moonlight pony camp. But, being Halloween, I broke down and told her she could trick-or-treat as long as she didn’t cough on anyone.

The good thing about letting her trick-or-treat when she was sick was that she tired out before too long and we got to call it a night, not because I hate fun and love bedtime, but because she was done. I had to respect her wishes.

The bad thing about letting her trick-or-treat when she was sick was that she stocked up on candy. Candy suppresses your immune system. Candy, in overabundance, makes you sick to your stomach. And let’s be honest. We might as well rename it, “Overabundanceween,” because it’s a day dedicated to too much. Also, excessive sugar can spike anxiety.

We didn’t let her eat any on Halloween night and the next day she seemed well enough to go to school. That afternoon, she made up for lost time, consuming every sugary chocolate morsel she could shove into her candy hatch. Her capacity is high.

By dinner time, she was all filled up. By bedtime, she was vibrating. Aaaand… she didn’t “feel so well.”

I laid with her in her bed. I laid with her in my bed. I sat next to the toilet with her while she said repeatedly for an hour, “I’m gonna do it. I know I’m gonna do it! It’s HAPPENING!!”

It didn’t happen.

And eventually I sedated her with bible videos.

We laid in my bed with the iPad and some little kids explaining baptism. Good times. As each video ended, she’d say, “I think I’m gonna barf!” and I’d hit play on the next one.

Dan joined us in bed, and Wanda, lulled into submission by the flickering screen of doctrine and the midnight hour eventually fell asleep. On his face.

Maybe next year we’ll just skip the trick-or-treating and go straight to the bible videos. I bet that would go over well.

Bigly Inaugurated

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I watched the inauguration today, the pomp, and some of the circumstance.

In his speech, President Trump painted an exceptionally bleak picture of America. Did you realize we were living in a District-12-level festering hole of despair? I assume this imagery was evoked so that in 8 months, even if nothing’s changed, he can proudly announce that America is great because he made it great again.

It’s like a teacher my daughter once had who purposely gave his students insufficient time to complete a standardized test at the beginning of the year so he could show that they had all experienced “growth” by the end of the year.

I guess, “America is Already Awesome but Let’s Make it Slightly Better in Spite of Ourselves” wouldn’t fit on a baseball cap no matter how high the dome.

When did America become not great? Let’s ask the millions of immigrants who want to come here and join us. We are a great country. With flaws.

Just like I’m a great lady, who can be a little crazy, and chubby, and intolerant of dandelions. I may need to meditate and lose a few pounds but I’m still totally great. I could always be greater. And hopefully with some love and care I’ll get that way.

Same with America. Let’s Make America Greater Some More.

Also, and thusly, I’d like to point out that you can’t give a completely divisive speech and then say the word “unity” and think you’re going to bring the country together. That’s not how it works. I’ve read the instruction manual.

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I loudly did not vote for him and I encouraged others not to vote for him as well. On the interwebs. In person. Waving banners over the freeway.

On the news.

And at a podium on the steps of the Washington State capitol building.

But he won the election and I passionately support our democracy and freedom and I respect our processes. He is the president of the United States of America. He is my president because I am a proud citizen of this country.

Wanda was grumbling about Donald Trump on the way to school today, not because she really knows anything about him, but because apparently grumbling about Donald Trump is a popular thing among first graders this season. She hears people talking smack about him all the time and we don’t spend time building him up around the dinner table.

So, today I just told her, “We aren’t going to speak disrespectfully about Donald Trump. We’re going to refer to him as President Trump in our family because we respect the office of the president. And we can criticize his policies or behavior, but we’re going to do it kindly and respectfully. We’re not just going to rip on him for fun.”

My opinion of him as a human being and my confidence in his ability to lead effectively have not improved since his election. I hope he can do well. I will support his good actions and speak out when he is wrong. I will continue to research candidates and vote my conscience.

And I have hope for our country because it is bigger than one person and his litany of mean tweets.

I’ve been reading Chrenow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton and it’s encouraging to me. Because the founding fathers we revere so much were not always fabulous. They bickered and fought and attacked each other and somehow still managed to form our great nation.

We’ve also had some less-than-stellar presidents, even some of the early presidents when our country was first forming, and the country has moved on. We are strong because so many people are engaged and lift their voices in passionate disagreement and eventual compromise and reconciliation.

We got this, America. 

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