Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Blogging

Maybe it Wasn’t ADD

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It happened.

After 13 years of parenting little people, I no longer have a lunch buddy, a grocery buddy, or a pound on the door while I go to the bathroom buddy. For 6 hours. Every. Single. Weekday.

Starting this week, my kids are all in school fulltime.

I’ve had wild emotional mood swings about this.

Last year when I chose to only put Wanda in half-day kindergarten, it had a little to do with money, but mostly it was about – I wasn’t ready yet. She was ready. SO SO ready. But I couldn’t bear to let go of my last little friend for that many hours each day.

I knew I’d miss her, miss my role as a fulltime stay-at-home mom.

Motherhood is my favorite thing. Gratitude is not a strong enough word to describe how I feel about being a mom.

But it is brutal sometimes. And it is not cessant. Even a little bit.

Halfway through the school year last year, I started to get excited. Wanda was overripe for full day school at that point and I found myself daydreaming about all the things I’d accomplish when I had more uninterrupted time.

I could write a novel worth publishing. I could go back to school and become a doctor or an astronaut. I could even find out what it feels like to finish a thought before being interrupted.

I’ve been a casual on-again/off-again writer and blogger for ten years, periodically taking on too much freelance work. Then I would scale way back when I realized I was incapable of being a great working mom of young kids.

My blog has gone through periods of large readership, but things are quiet around here these days. I just haven’t had the time and focus to give it.

As I contemplated my new free time and all the ways I could fill it, I started to get really excited. I was ready. I could do this. I was simply moving into a new chapter of my life and I might love it.

Then a couple of weeks ago I went online to pay school fees.

And there was a box by Wanda’s name.

For lunch money.

I was overcome with sadness. It was sadness that she would be eating lunch with someone other than me. Sadness that a hugely important phase of my life was ending. My identity for the past 13 years was gone. I grieved.

So I didn’t know what to expect this week as the kids headed off to school.

Would I be sad? Would I be lonely? Would I be bored?

I doubted I’d be bored. I’d spent the entire summer (whenever I wasn’t having emergency surgery) making a business plan for all the writing and marketing I was going to do this year. But maybe I’d be depressed or lacking in motivation to follow through. That scared me.

The morning of the first day of school, Wanda was eating breakfast while I read. She called my name.

I looked up to see a concerned expression on her face.

“What’s wrong, Wanda?”

She eyed me with pity.

“When I leave for school today, the only one you’ll have to talk to is Cortana.”

(We’re a Windows Phone family. Cortana is my personal digital assistant. Like Siri’s big sister.)

To her, that was a horrible prospect. Me, sitting alone at a table, my head in my hands, repeatedly saying, “Cortona, tell me a joke.”

I walked her to school. I had a nice walk home. I showered in silence.

Then I got in the car to run an errand and this feeling welled up inside my chest, a feeling I hadn’t been expecting.

Total, pure, bubbling JOY.

I can do this. In my worry and sadness about turning in my full time stay-at-home mom badge, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would be getting another badge back. KATHRYN. I was overcome with this feeling of reclaiming a part of myself that I willingly surrendered many years ago.

I am autonomous.

I am free.

I am simply Kathryn for six whole hours each day.

And I love it.

I have gotten so much done in the past three days. I can’t even believe it.

Lately I’ve been talking to my doctor about the possibility that I might have ADD. My thoughts have been so scattered and I’ve had such a hard time finishing tasks and following through.

My kids just started school fulltime and I realized – maybe I don’t have ADD. Maybe I just have children.

adhd-and-children

I think my explosion of productivity can be explained this way – In the past, when I’ve had an hour to work on a blog post, what I’ve really had is:

5 minutes to work on a blog post

6 minutes to have my hair styled like a princess

3 minutes to work on a blog post

5 minutes to notice the pirate booty on the floor and pick it up before it got ground into the carpet

10 minutes to work on a blog post

15 minutes to kiss the invisible owie and find the band-aids because IT JUST FEELS LIKE BLOOOOD

3 minutes to work on a blog post

And then 13 minutes to figure out how the Octonauts were possibly going to rescue the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a

Now, when I have an hour to work on a blog post, I have AN HOUR TO WORK ON A BLOG POST.

And I miss my kids. But that just makes it more fun to see when they get home each afternoon. Missing them is not the worst thing in the world. I’m genuinely delighted to see them when they come home.

Enjoying this phase of life doesn’t take away from how much I adored being home and raising my kids full time. Some of my most precious memories were made during those times and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Today as I drove home from volunteering at the school, I saw a mother with her toddler, standing by the construction site. They were holding hands and engrossed in the digger truck action. I felt a twinge in my chest and thought, “I don’t do that anymore.”

But I like this time too. I’m coming to believe that there are seasons enough in our lives for all the good things we want to do. We just need to look for the beauty in the one we’re in and be present so we can make the most of it.

BlogHer and Me

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If you’re a woman and you’re blogging, you’re probably already familiar with BlogHer. They were a crucial resource for me at the beginning of my blogging career and I’m sure they will be again as my kids start school full time next year and I get serious about blogging again in the fall.

It’s been years since I’ve worked with them, but this week I’ve got a post up on BlogHer. Their site is the perfect place to blog about all the things I could have done when Drops of Awesome went viral a few years ago to help build my blog.

Seeking Ambassadors of Awesome!

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523 ways523 Ways to Be Awesome, the second Drops of Awesome book, is set to bounce April 5th from Familius and I would love some help getting the word out.

I would love that help from you.

I would love to appoint you as an Ambassador of Awesome.

Ambassadors of Awesome agree to do their best to do their duty to tell people about all the ways they are currently or can become Awesome.

If you’re an Ambassador of Awesome, you agree to receive email from me and the marketing team at Familius. The emails will contain Awesome Missions that we’d love your help with. Of course, you choose which Missions work best with your schedule and your network.

In exchange for your willingness to help with the launch, you will receive an advanced digital copy of the new book 523 Ways to Be Awesome and access to a private Ambassadors of Awesome Facebook page where we will all share positivity and have a great time together.

There will also be other giveaways and incentives exclusive to the launch team as April 5th gets closer.

If you’re interested in joining our team, please let us harvest your information below. We will never give your info to anyone besides our small team and we’ll try not to overwhelm your inbox with Awesome.

Please sign up below if you’d like to join us.

Join our Mission of Awesome!

* indicates required



Please Dub Me


What Can You Bear to Do Today?

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motivation-clean-and-organize-life3Sometimes I can’t bear to clean the kitchen, but I can bear to fill the sink with water so the dishes will soak. So I do that. And the kitchen is one step closer to being cleaning. I find that breaking down my tasks into lists of tiny steps and choosing which one I can bear to do helps me be productive. This and more revolutionary, life-changing tips are available in my most recent post on HowDoesShe.com.

Can you bear to click this link? [click to read more]

Not Quite Insta

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I have a love-hate relationship with all things social media. I love the way it creates and extends relationships across distances but hate the way it distills people’s thoughts, feelings and beliefs into sound bites.

I find that often people I love and respect say thoughtless, hurtful, stressful or inflammatory things on the internet that they would never say to someone in person. For some people, Facebook seems to be a dumping ground for all their worries, fears and insecurities.

Less and less are Twitter and Facebook happy places for me. I use them as I need them, but they’re not fun like they were in the beginning. They are not my “happy places.”

Because of this, I’ve been resistant to expand my social media horizons.

Finally, about 50 years after everyone else, I joined Instagram last week and WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG!?

chicken seeds.jpg

This is the happy social media hub. It’s a place to post small pieces of light, joy and humor in the form of photos. Little slices of life. I love it. LOVE. I’m way late to the party, but Instagram has replaced Facebook for me as a daily go-to to see what’s happening in my friends’ lives. This is the real stuff. It is 99% positive. It is visually pleasing.

Instagram – Look at the frog I found at work.
Facebook – I am suing my employer for discrimination.

Instagram – My desk is messy because I just wrote an awesome paper.
Facebook – Here’s a link to a whitepaper about how all is lost.

Instagram – Doesn’t my crazy Ragnar hat look rad?
Facebook – I’m so sick of all the crazy Ragnar people. They are a sign that the government wants to take away all of our rights and deprive us of Oreos.

So, join me on Instagram. Because it’s awesome. Because I want to know if you found a frog at work. Or what your daughter’s milk mustache looks like. These are the things that matter to me. Life is too short to not share pictures of your cat all day.

Drops of Awesome – The Book – Coming Soonish

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I’m thrilled, in that YayButOhWOWIHaveTonsOfWorkToDo sort of way, to announce that I just signed on with California-based publisher Familius to create a book based on the ideas in my blog post, Drops of Awesome. I cannot think of a better partner for this project. They are amazing!

Here’s me signing the digital contract with the help of my closest advisors minus one because he’s manning the camera. And when I say “manning”? Yow! You’ll have to take my word for it.

contract

The post, based on inspiration that has helped me change my entire outlook on life, resonated with a bucket-load of people around the world and your stories and kind words have really informed the direction I’ve decided to go with the project. There were a ton of options and I considered each one over the past year and tried writing a couple of them.

Christopher Robbins of Familius first contacted me back in January, interested in having me write for their website and possibly pursue a book project. Familius is a new publisher with its sole mission being to help families be happy. I loved the idea and it jives with what I aim for here on DaringYoungMom.com, but I wasn’t sure about the project. Drops of Awesome has a lot of religious significance for me personally, and their company does not cater to a religious audience. They believe that all families are important and that there are universal practices that can help make all people happier. I believe this too, but I just didn’t know how to separate Drops of Awesome from its religious underpinnings or if I even wanted to.

So we exchanged a few emails and when he told me that they were branching out into children’s fiction, I sent him pages from my completed YA Novel Dark Bird and my Middle Grade work in progress.

Six months passed.

I continued being Awesome. A bit. Drop by drop.

I spoke about Drops of Awesome at women’s events large and small in Oregon and Washington and had a blast doing it, meeting new people and hearing their stories. Interestingly, I heard from agnostics and atheists in person and online who were just as enthused about incorporating Drops of Awesome into their lives as any of the Christians who’d read it.

I worked on a Drops of Awesome book in its various forms and started to feel stuck. The religious version of the book was not going well. I sounded like a bit of a wind-bag, honestly. It’s a small idea and I was trying too hard.

Then, out of nowhere, Christopher from Familius emailed to set up a phone conversation about my fiction. As we discussed the work I’d sent him and I got a better idea of their mission and the work they do, I told him I was open to discussing a Drops of Awesome project. I’d been feeling more and more like it was something I could and should open up to a broader audience.

He suggested that I consider writing it as a journal or gift book.

Hmmm.

We agreed that I’d mull it over and get back to him in two weeks with a proposal. As soon as I started working on Drops of Awesome as a journal, things started flowing. Suddenly, it wasn’t me writing a book, preaching at you. It was me co-authoring a book WITH you. I’d share ideas and then invite you to share your own. Rather than being a book for you to sit down and read passively, it was becoming a well for you to draw from, but also a bucket where you could capture all of your Awesome, a journey of self-discovery for both of us.

Design is really important to me and having a book that looks fresh and feels good to hold, manipulate and write in is crucial. Before we negotiated a contract, we negotiated paper samples. It had to feel right and be writable on-able. It had to fit in your purse.

Most of the ideas behind Drops of Awesome are universal, regardless of your background or beliefs. These concepts resonate with people from every walk of life because we have more in common than we have differences. We all have important missions to fulfill in our lives. We are all uniquely qualified to achieve our highest personal goals. But, we also all fall prey to many of the same destructive thought patterns.

-Many of us obsess over and wish we could change the past, but we can’t.
-Too many of us spend too much time listening to that voice inside our heads telling us we’re not good enough, that our best efforts are failures because the one thing we’re not doing is the only thing that matters.
-We verbally abuse ourselves in ways we would never think about using on others.

If the entire world would adopt an attitude of living in the moment, putting our best foot forward one tiny Drop at a time and then celebrating those efforts, the entire world would change for the better.

So, what I’ve come up with is a concept for a book that will be interactive, playful, and hopefully as life-changing for you as getting to this point has been for me.

The book is set to release in Fall of 2014 and I’m excited to share it with you! In the meantime, I will be blogging here and at Familius.com about the concepts in the book and the progress of the project. I have also created a resource page on this blog for my LDS readers, who want to experience Drops of Awesome through the lens of spiritual belief.

Go forth! Be AWESOME!

Drops of a Podcast

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Today I had the chance to speak with Dr. Paul Jenkins on his Live on Purpose Radio podcast. We chatted about Drops of Awesome and a little of the background behind it. He’s so delightful to speak to and I love the uplifting nature of his show.

It was my first podcast so I kept thinking I should be nervous, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t nervous before. I wasn’t nervous during. He’s just really easy to talk to. AFTER the podcast I got nervous. I had this sort of, “Oh Em Heck. What did I say?” sort of moment.

With writing, you can always go back and edit.

Speaking on someone else’s radio show? Not so much. I think I said bra about five too many times, but other than that it’s probably okay.

Here’s the link:

Live On Purpose Radio with Dr. Paul – Drops of Awesome-Sauce Style

Drops of Thank You

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Thank you so much to everyone who read and shared my post from two weeks ago with your family and friends, maybe enemies whose attitudes you were hoping to change. The number of people who have shared their kind words and stories with me is such a throat lump, I’m not quite sure what to say.

Many of you shared very raw and personal stories and I’ve been moved to tears daily as I’ve read your comments and emails. I’m not a huge crier. Okay. I cried at the Backstreet Boys Concert. And pretty much every time I’ve ever seen a flash mob on YouTube. And because… ballerinas. But I rarely cry over blog comments.

When I first had the Drops of Awesome flash of inspiration, I desperately needed it. I was having one of the “dark times.”

As you know if you’ve read this blog for long, and most of you haven’t, (WELCOME!) I dealt with some pretty crushing panic and anxiety disorder following the birth of my second child seven years ago. It was humbling in a way I hadn’t imagined possible. To suddenly not be able to trust your own thoughts and feelings is terrifying. I’ve found some amazing help and healing but I still deal with it off and on. It’s something I may struggle with for the rest of my life.

And that’s okay.

I’ve been tested to my limit no more or less than I’m sure you have been tested to your personal limit. We grow. We gain more empathy. I know Christ didn’t learn love and empathy by spending his days in a bubble surrounded by fluffy bunnies and marshmallow peeps. He felt and experienced pain on an incomprehensible level.

So when this flash of inspiration came, I was grateful for it. It got me through a really hard time. When I felt inspired to share it with the teenagers at church, it was for them. I felt that and it was reaffirmed when one of the girls I’d had the hardest time reaching texted me that night to say she was still thinking about our lesson. I was so grateful that inspiration had come to me that was sharable, that could make a difference to someone else as well.

At the time, I put my current fiction project aside and started writing a Drops of Awesome book, that I soon abandoned. Maybe it was just inspiration for me and Young Woman X, I thought, and I was totally cool with that. But then I wrote up a short version of my thoughts in this post. It has since been shared and reposted by everyone and his mama and I’m filled with gratitude and awe. I am not alone! WE ARE NOT ALONE. And not just in a God Loves You kind of way, but also in a Shared Human Experience kind of way which seems very immediate and tender.

All that being said, since originally posting my Drops of Awesome thoughts before Christmas, and seeing how they’ve been received, I’ve been scared to post anything else.

You see? This has never really been a religious blog, not at DaringYoungMom.com or for the years I blogged at Parenting. I am religious and it sort of oozes out sometimes, but mostly I write about silly stuff. I blog about life in all its weirdness. My next post will likely be about yogurt or photo-bombing my son’s school pictures.

You might have to wait a long time for inspiration lightning to strike again. I hope it does. If it does, I will totally share it with you. If not, read back through the comments on the Drops of Awesome post, because they are… well… awesome. In the meantime, read about my yogurt and tell me about yours and we will drip away together toward something magical.

Livin’ It Up in Hotlanta

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I’m typing this from my room at the W Hotel in downtown Atlanta. The room is gorgeous and filled with swag from Coca-Cola. They’re hosting ~20 mom bloggers for a 2-day conference at their corporate headquarters, teaching us to live positively, giving us advice on branding and marketing ourselves, and possibly harvesting our organs while we sleep.

They’re being very nice to us.

I stayed at the W in Chicago when I was on a panel at Blogher several years ago. I shared a room with my friend Erin and new friend Jenny and, although we loved the room, the bathroom arrangements were a little awkward for a budding friendship.

The W is big on chic-ness, leather divans, employees that wear black, and it’s also big on dance music in the elevator. What it’s not big on is bathroom privacy. In Chicago, the bathroom was separated from the bedroom by some very thin shutters.

In this room, the shower is clear glass with no curtain or door and is located in the middle of the room, right next to the bed. It’s all very lovely and oh-so-not-sharable with women you barely know. Luckily I’m alone here.

The hotel is chic. The dress for tomorrow is supposed to be “casual chic”. My fashion icon friend Emily said that means “wear a scarf.” I shall do so. And I will report back to you about what I learned… about both chic-ness and positivity.

When speaking to marketing people, I always tell them, “If you want to market to mom bloggers, give them an experience.” We want to blog about experiences much more than products. I loved blogging about Nintendo because they set up events where me and my kids could play wii at a nursing home. I loved blogging about Method because they hosted an event that I’d been planning to host anyway and they paid for everything.

Well, I can tell that this is going to be an experience worth blogging about. I’m hoping to meet and network with some great women, get some much-needed relaxation and writing time in this way-too-swanky-for-everyday hotel room, and learn some things to energize my blogging and fiction writing career.

I’m not entirely sure what Coca-Cola is hoping to get out of the arrangement. I hope we all end up happy and with all our kidneys intact.

So far, I’ve spent a great day with Megan, whom I carpooled to the airport and shared a flight and Taxi with. We’re practically neighbors and I’m glad to know her now. I’m sure I made an awesome first impression, taking two wrong turns on the way to the airport, and then inviting her join me for dinner, only to walk two blocks, change my mind and tell her I’d rather eat a sandwich in my room. So many awesome points for me.

When I’m away from home like this, I vacillate between being overjoyed to have some time alone and missing Dan and the bebes desperately, calculating how many days it would take me to walk home to Seattle from Georgia were the Apocalypse to occur in the next two days. (Write YA post-apocalyptic fiction much? Why, yes, I do.)

The best part of the day was getting a text from my brother, whom I never see, who said he was in Seattle on his way to a Border Patrol training. It turned out he was at the Seattle airport on a layover from Montana and had no idea I was traveling today. So he came and found me as I came through the security line and gave me a hug before I headed to my terminal. I love this guy! What a fun surprise!

Notice the scarf in that picture. See? Previously un-chic. Now CHIC with added chic-ness. BAM!