Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

About Me

Dead Animal O’Clock

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I have a thing about dead animals. They make me cry.

When I’m driving down the road and I see a deer carcass or a dead bird smashed to the asphalt, its wing flapping in the wind, I gasp and tears well up. I hate to see animals hurt or killed.

It’s not like I’m a huge animal lover. I am not a cat lady and as I’ve been working on the edits for the third Drops of Awesome book this week, my editor needed to point out that I hadn’t included any questions about pets in a book that asks questions to help the user write her autobiography. It just didn’t occur to me.

But I can’t stand the thought of a dead animal.

Even though I passionately hate the mice who sneak into our garage, it is gut-wrenching to me to dispose of their bodies from the traps. I fall apart.

So, today when I saw a large squirrel dead but still perfectly formed lying in the middle of the road next to Wanda’s bus stop, I lost it a little. It. Was lost. My friend Stephanie and I had just returned from a bike ride and we had no kids with us. I knew that as soon as they got home on the bus, they’d see the poor squirrel and I wanted to spare them that trauma. Even worse, what if a truck drove by and smashed it to pieces and we had to walk by it’s caked-on guts every day for the next six months? I couldn’t bear it.

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I told Stephanie I’d dispose of it if she’d provide the shovel and moral support.

Then, just as I was approaching the beast, she suggested that maybe he was just stunned and as soon as I touched him he might jump up and run toward me.

This was not helpful.

We decided on a two-part approach. First I would poke said beastie with the tip of the shovel. If he made no movement, I would proceed to phase 2, wherein I would push him with the shovel across the road and into the drainage ditch for the coyotes to mange.

She started recording.

There was something about the soft feeling of the shovel touching the squirrel’s belly that sent a shiver through my whole body. It wasn’t pretty. I asked her to stop recording.

But she started again.

And caught my finest hour in pixels.

Because that’s how heroes DO!

I thought it was over.

The kids hopped off the bus and I headed home and retired to the solace of my favorite chair in the corner by my favorite window, working on work and watching Wanda and her friend as they played outside.

When what should fly past my ear but a giant bug. No. Not a bug. A bird. A freaking bird was inside my living room.

It landed on the window sill a few inches from me, flapping it’s wings frantically and slamming into the window over and over again.

I screamed and dropped my water bottle on the floor, wetness spilling everywhere. The bird also started spreading “wetness” all over my window sill. Bird poop. In my living room.

I called Dan for moral support but he was in a meeting. I took some semi-hysterical video tracking the bird.

“Girls,” I yelled outside, “You left the door open and now there’s a bird in the house.”

I heard my neighbor laugh from her house next door.

“Do you need my help?” she asked.

“YES!”

“Seriously? Okay. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

While I was waiting for her, I closed all the blinds in the house except the ones on the window where the bird was thrashing and opened the front door to entice him out. I grabbed a broom and started shooing the bird toward the screened-in part of the window, thinking if he was near the screen, I could push it out and let him free.

I can’t adequately describe the feeling of adrenaline that was coursing through my body as I worked to get this crazy bird out of my house, a bird who moved sporadically, frequently startling me, and who I knew could fly up in my face at any moment, freaking me out and very likely pecking the flesh from my eyes in a Hitchcockian display of terror.

It’s like that feeling you get when you’re poking a dead squirrel in the middle of the road with your shovel, knowing he could jump up, run along the handle of your shovel and start climbing up and down your face while you scream and flail around like a psychobot.

After I moved the bird where I wanted him, I put down the broom so I could have two hands free to remove the screen. As I did this, he dropped out of sight behind my long, dark curtains. I quickly closed those curtains as well, those curtains which hang in an area behind the end table, an area that has become the dumping ground for my church bag, the kids’ piano books, and a bunch of other stuff. Arg.

With the blinds all shut, the living room had grown dim.

The bird was in the mess. In the dark. And he’d gone silent.

No more flapping.

No more pecking.

Silence.

Did he die of fright and fall into my church bag to fester? My neighbor had arrived by this point and she helped me pull items one by one out of my bag, looking for a dead bird.

Nothing.

In the dim light we moved the chair. The end table. The piano.

Nothing.

Ever.

We never found the bird.

I see the writing on the wall. At some point in the next couple of weeks, I will move a cushion or a piano book and BAM! Dead rotting creepy bird carcass!! It’s an exciting game we’re playing here.

My neighbor asked if there was ever really a bird or if I was possibly losing my mind. After SquirrelGate 2016 earlier this morning, I almost doubted myself.

“But no,” I told her, “I have video proof of the bird.”

Then I showed her this.

A minute of me hysterically trying to creep up on a bird that never quite makes it into the video.

Good proof, right?

She looks at me.

“It must be on the other video.”

And here it is.

So the bird is real. And the squirrel is real. And the terror is real. I wanted to find the bird so badly at first, but I’m at a point where I don’t so much want to find it now. Ever.

They say these things happen in threes. I don’t think that’s possible. Because if I have another run-in with a helpless and/or deceased animal today, I will perish as well. And then there will be four dead animals.

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Drop Kick – Using Drops of Awesome to Teach My Kids (and myself) to Pick Up Our Dang Shoes

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about finishing things. I’m not talking about finishing a race or finishing a college degree or finishing your grass roots campaign against the evil sheriff of Nottingham. (I ask you, Brother. Are you gonna finish what you started?!) I’m talking about flushing the dang toilet and putting your blow dryer away when you’re done with it. I’m talking about WHERE ARE MY SHOES??!!

I am great at cleaning my house. Super great. I have a lot of practice because I’m also really good at trashing it. I go through phases where I’m really consistent about cleaning as I go. And then I have a hardship like a toothache, or a busy week, or a good YA novel, and I fall off the wagon.

I do better at being consistent when I’m counting Drops of Awesome, when I’m congratulating myself for every small thing I get done, but due to some of my habits and routines, I have set up a system where I need to do a million more Drops of Awesome each day than I should really have to. I make my life harder by not following through and completing basic actions. So I have to go back and clean up after myself over and over again.

Take my blow dryer, for example. I frequently have to go “clean my vanity,” which involves putting my makeup, blow dryer and face wash away. This only takes a couple of minutes to do but it’s a couple of minutes I could be doing something else. And there’s really no reason it should be its own task at all. Part of drying my hair should be putting away the blow dryer.

Think about an action or a routine that you do on a regular basis and ask yourself, “At what point do I consider my action complete?”

Can you imagine using your blow dryer and then just dropping it to the ground as soon as your hair was dry, with the machine still running? No way. Part of “drying your hair” involves turning off the dryer when you’re done. I also always place my blow dryer on the counter rather than just releasing it from my hand and letting it crash to the floor.

I get a Drop of Awesome for turning it off then and another one for placing it on the counter.

Then I look at that action and ask myself, how can I kick this up a notch? How can I get one more Drop of Awesome by taking this action just a tiny step forward? I call this a Drop Kick.

So, for me, the blow dryer Drop Kick was to, in one motion, unplug the blow dryer as I’m turning it off and place it under the sink, never letting it touch the counter. Because this was a revolutionary move and so out of my usual routine, I would say, “Drop Kick!” every time I did it. It was me, improving one of my daily routines, just a Drop.

Soon it became a habit. And I almost never have to “clean the vanity.” It has become self-cleaning.

Now, you may be great at blow dryer follow-through. I’m so happy for you. But is there anything in your life that you could kick up a notch to make your day go more smoothly?
I sat my kids down a while back and asked them to each think of one Drop Kick they could focus on for the week. They picked things like, “Don’t let my backpack out of my hands until I reach the backpack shelf,” and “Don’t let my shoes touch the ground in the front entry.” (There was some coaching involved.)

For two of the kids, this has made a big difference. The front door clutter is down and they have a much easier time finding their stuff when they need it.

Another side benefit of this common vocabulary is that if someone forgets, rather than saying, “Wanda, pick up your backpack,” I can say, “Laylee is doing a great job Drop Kicking her backpack. Wanda, did you remember your Drop Kick when you came in?”

It’s a subtle difference but the cute catch-phrase really helps the medicine go down. And we’re building new, improved habits every day.

What do you want to Drop Kick this afternoon? Pick one thing that you could do a tiny bit better!

Sad, Mean, and Sort of Enjoyable

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I love the way Wanda’s mind works. I’m sure I still love the way Laylee and Magoo’s minds work too, but unlike with Wanda, I’m not privy to a constant stream in voice and writing of every thought that has ever passed through their brains. I have an open internet connection to Wanda’s thoughts. The older kids send me text messages.

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On the walk to school yesterday, Wanda asked, “Do you know what a patteroller is?”

“Nope.”

“It’s that thing where the cops carry a big stick around and if you don’t go to school or do something else bad, they hit you with it.”

“I was not aware of this.”

“Yeah. We learned about it in music class. There’s a song that says, ‘Run children run. The patteroller catch you.’ I just like to think about that.”

“Well, I have two things to say to you. One. Did you know there’s an even more polite way of referring to a ‘cop’? I like to call them, ‘police officers.’ Two. I don’t think police officers chase kids with sticks anymore for skipping school. I think that song was written a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” she replied, “It’s from… like… 288 or something.”

Yes. It’s a song written about local law enforcement when Diocletian was emperor of Rome. Those were serious times.

She spends a lot of time thinking and overthinking everything and then telling me about it. Take this simple homework sheet for example.

The teacher read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then asked the kids what they thought about it.

Check yes or no. Was it good or bad?

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Sort of.

Why, sort of?

Wanda responds.

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And it makes sense. It IS sort of a sad and mean kind of story. Chick breaks into a family residence, uses or destroys all their stuff while they’re out battling the obesity epidemic with some family exercise. When she’s caught, she books it. What kind of a story is that?

Sad, mean, and sort of enjoyable.

40% Off Drops of Awesome Books for Mother’s Day!

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6tag_150316-142725Familius is offering a discount of 40% off both Drops of Awesome books plus several other great titles now through Mother’s Day. They’ve curated a nice collection of Mother’s Day gifts.

As a bonus, if you order two books, you get a copy of Motherhood Realized for free.

I like free stuff as much as any Oprah audience member so I thought it was only right to pass this along.

All About that Base…ball

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BASEBALL IS NOW!!!

At the beginning of each calendar year, there comes a point, and I never know when it will be, when I get an email that essentially says, “BASEBALL IS NOW!!!”

What this means is, “You signed your child up for baseball six months ago, not knowing when it would be, and then you planned your schedule and moved on with your life. But starting tomorrow you will have baseball practices and games 3-5 times per week in various towns all over the valley and you will no longer be in any way in control of your family’s schedule. You will not eat normal family dinner for the next 4 months.”

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And we do this every single year because, flying in the face of everything I thought I knew about genetics, I have a kid who adore sports, particularly baseball.

This year is especially special because not only is Magoo playing, but Wanda is six and it’s her first year playing softball. And she’s not the only one playing softball. Due to an utterly desperate coaching situation in our little corner of Little League, I am managing and coaching her team.

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Have I ever played softball before? No.

Have I ever touched a softball before? No.

Have I ever watched a single game of softball being played? Not so much.

Am I much more qualified to direct a theater production, conduct a band, or coach a team of mathletes? Yes.

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But I do know how to dial up the YouTube. And I know how to interact with kindergarteners. And I have great parent support and the sweetest assistant coach ever, Coach Laylee. So I’m doing okay so far. Our games start soon and then we’ll see exactly HOW okay.

Not only am I… ahem… coaching, we also decided to sponsor Magoo’s team this year. I have a business license in Washington State as an LLC for my writing and coaching work. So when the team asked if any of us had a business who’d like to sponsor the team and have our business name printed on the back, I could not resist.

Meet Team Drops of Awesome.

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While other kids go around with the names of local restaurants and hardware stores printed across their backs, our kids wear the banner of Awesome.

I love to cheer for them but my cheering is at best awkward. At the moment, I’m working to use phrases that don’t in any way come naturally to me to support the kids as they try to do the good baseballing.

When other parents call out things like, “Good cut,” and “Way to get a piece of it,” they sound cool and sports-like. When I call out those things, I feel like I’m dressing my vocabulary up in a baseball mom costume and the costume doesn’t fit so well and I sound silly.

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One seasoned baseball mom recently told me it’s all about yelling things with authority. It doesn’t really matter what you say. You just have to commit and sound like you know what you’re talking about. So here are a few I’ve come up with this season and I’m excited to try them out.

“That was high quality cutting!”

“Your arm is nice!”

“You swing with great strength!”

“Throw the ball with more hardness!”

“Knock it to Sammammish!”

“I like the way your bat touched that ball even though it didn’t go the right direction to allow you to run to a base!”

Okay, that last one’s a bit long but I think it gets the point across nicely. I could also go uber short with things like, “BOOM!” “Ska-DOINK!”

I’ll fine tune it and let you know.

Besides vocab choices, the main concerns I have during baseball season are how to feed my kids when we’re at baseball from 4:30-8pm and there’s no eating allowed in the dugout, how to get stains out of white pants that are worn exclusively for times when you plan to slide and roll around in the dirt and grass, and how to prepare for every possible weather situation.

We’re wet and freezing. We’re sizzling and baking in the sun. Sometimes we do both of those things during a single game. So I bring umbrellas and sunscreen, snacks and water bottles, sunhats and parkas.
This year Magoo’s level of Little League team chooses a Major League team for their team name, so we’re the Dodgers. I like this because it makes finding fan gear easy.

The Northwest, and online store that specializes in exciting, new and innovative products for the majority of the world’s most recognized and loved brands in sports, entertainment and lifestyle

9 Secrets to Raising Happy Kids

The Northwest, an online store that has all kinds of great MLB gear, reached out to see if I was doing a story on baseball this season and when I told them I was, they sent me this awesome Dodgers blanket which helps keep us snuggly warm on rainy days or as the sun drops behind the trees sunny days. It’s fun to be cozy and support our team at the same time. Their site also has tons of other cool licensed products from just about every type of sports team and entertainment companies like Disney, Universal, Marvel Bros, etc. Next time you go to a hockey game, played between Kylo Ren and Santa Claus, they can hook you up for that too.

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At least next time I yell, “Dodge like a Dodger baseball man!” I will look legit while saying it.

**Sometimes I get free stuff for mentioning it in a post. I always tell you when that’s the case.**

ERRRRRRR…. I Don’t Think it Goes That High

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Wanda wasn’t feeling great when she woke up yesterday morning. She had a 102 fever and said her tummy hurt. Who am I to send a walking biohazard into a building full of children on the cusp of spring break? Not a terrorist. So I kept her home, gave her some watered-down Gatorade, and got to work blogging in my pajamas.

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Early afternoon I made her turn off the Power Rangers and she quickly drifted off to adorable sicky sleep. But when she woke up, she looked horrible. She started sobbing that her tummy hurt and her skin felt hot to the touch. When I asked her to show me where it hurt, she pointed to her lower right side and moaned. I had her try to use the restroom while I Bing-ed “What side is the appendix on?”

Soon she was yelling for me to help her because it hurt too bad to get off the toilet. As I lifted her from the throne, I could tell her fever was really out of control and the forehead thermometer confirmed, 105.8!

Now, for normal kids this is insanely high but I’ve measured Wanda at over 107 in the past and anything under 103 is no big deal for her. However, combined with the side pain, I thought I should at least make an appointment with our pediatrician.

So I called. And his nurse told me to get to an ER quickly. Just like me and Bing, she was vibing appendicitis. So I rushed around like an unshowered maniac, grabbing my purse and phone charger and some grown-up clothes. Five minutes later the nurse called back to make sure she had told me the correct ER and to encourage me to leave as soon as possible.

We zoomed. But it takes about 45 minutes to get from our house to Children’s Hospital in Seattle and my red-hot bubs cried off and on all the way there. “It hurts, Mom!”

I feel so helpless when one of my children is in pain and there’s nothing I can do about it. I was doing what I could, which was praying and driving faster than the law allows. I also texted my family on the way out the door and they all said they’d send up a prayer as well.

We pulled into the ER parking lot and I loaded Wanda and her barf bowl and Gatorade into the softball gear wagon and wheeled her into the hospital, red hot and whimpering. The check-in nurse commented on how awful she looked, took our insurance card and sent us to the lobby to wait.

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For twenty minutes I watched Wanda become absorbed in a Disney movie and slowly but surely the violent red flush of her cheeks disappeared and her skin color returned to normal.

“Wanda,” I asked, “How does your tummy feel now?”

“It still hurts a little.”

“On the right side?”

“No. Just kind of in the middle.”

They called us back. They took her temperature.

99.9

Magically. Healed. By. The. Hospital. Lobby.

The intake nurse looked at Wanda. And then back at me. Then back at Wanda.

She asked all the questions and Wanda answered them like a person who should stay in for recess and maybe miss school just to be safe, but not someone who needed to be taken to a doctor and certainly not the ER.

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I was relieved, truly, that she was feeling better. And if me looking like a hypochondriacish idiot was the price I had to pay for her health, I was willing to pay it. Grudgingly.

They gave her the world’s most expensive popsicle and, as a bonus, she got to pee into a cup and all over my hand.

When the doctor asked me again how high her temperature had been at home, I told him 105.8 and he startled and asked what kind of thermometer I had used. I pulled it out of my purse to show him.

“I don’t think they go that high,” he responded.

“They sure do. They don’t get an error until 108.”

He had no response to that.

I texted my family to tell them that all was well except for the fact that I looked like an idiot. He said they must all be really good prayers if their prayers could bring her back from the brink of death that quickly.

I decided not to share the prayer hunch with the ER doctors but I did wonder how I would ever know if she had been miraculously brought back from the brink by divine intervention. I tend to be more of a Heavenly-Father-please-help-my-daughter-no-wait-she’s-fine kind of person. This could use more in-depth pondering.

Everyone was super nice to me, the way you’re nice to a crazy person. And, according to the supervising ER doctor, it was good that we came in, just in case. Apparently, there have been several cases of this crazy stomach virus in the ER lately. The cramps are intermittent, localized, and extremely painful, accompanied by high fevers.

They look like appendicitis.

The doctor said she had watched kids have acute episodes that had totally faked her out and she’d ordered all kinds of tests that turned up nothing, only to have the kids seem fine half an hour later.

Such is the humbling life of a mom. You sacrifice your pride for the safety of your kids, people who delight and terrify you every day.

On the bright side, at least they discharged her just in time to hit rush hour traffic so we’d have plenty of time to take a rare look at the gorgeous mountain that was showing up against the clear Seattle sky.

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When I checked her temperature this morning, she was back up to 104.9. Or not. I don’t think the thermometer really goes that high. But I should probably shower this time, just in case.

MY Best vs. THE Best – 523 Ways to Be Awesome

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Today is the official release day of 523 Ways to Be Awesome! It’s the second book in the Drops of Awesome series and I’m super excited about it.

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I guess you could say that today is the book’s birthday and since I wrote it, David Miles designed it, Stephanie Yan edited it, and Christopher Robbins (not Winnie the Pooh’s homie) masterminded the whole thing, we are all accepting gifts and salutations through midnight tonight.

The book is doing well on Amazon already thanks to you Awesome people and Familius has been working hard to get this book and the last one into some epic retail locations. I’m not naming names, but someone I know has been stalking the book shelves at Whole Foods because… ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!… any minute every Whole Foods in North America will have one of these bad boys.

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The whole thing is totally surreal to me.

Free range happy bacon.

$10/ounce soy cheese.

Handbags and leggings fashioned out of Kale and Hemp fibers.

Book
s by Kathryn Thompson.

All things that belong at Whole Foods.

We’re even working on scheduling a Costco book signing! You guys! I may get to hang out at Costco like the Blendtec guy, hawking my wares while people try to avoid eye contact and then eventually succumb to David’s gorgeous design and buy my book.

All of this is thrilling and I’m stoked. However, in some ways it puts me in a place where I desperately need to apply Drops of Awesome thinking.

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The truth is… there is always something more I could be doing to send this book out into the world more effectively. In fact, there are so many things I could be doing to spread the word about 523 Ways to Be Awesome that it can be really overwhelming. I slip into focusing on everything I’m not doing, which is ironic, considering the theme and content of the book.

Yesterday I sat looking at the list of marketing tasks I wanted to do before the book was released. The list was vast. And the check marks were… not as vast. And I was a day away from launch. And I didn’t have long to focus on it because I had to make dinner and get my son to baseball so I could go run a softball practice for my daughter.

In situations like this, it’s easy to think, “I’m not doing my best to launch this project.”

But then you have to dig further, “I may not be doing THE Best, but am I currently doing MY Best?” These are not the same thing.

THE Best is a notion that there is one perfect right way. It’s rarely realistic and frequently frustrating. MY Best is an honest assessment of what I am capable of doing based on my current circumstances, knowledge, and abilities.

And maybe My Best isn’t as good as I want it to be. So, what can I realistically do to increase my capacity today without beating myself up about what my capacity looked like yesterday?

To help with this process, I’ve been keeping a weekly to-do list, rather than daily. I write down everything I hope to accomplish for the week. Then, each morning I break my day down into time chunks that work around the flow of my non-negotiables and appointments.

Then I add as many items from my weekly to-do list as I can fit into those time chunks.

This gives me a realistic picture of what I actually have time to accomplish in a given day and I’m not quite as hard on myself when I find that I can’t do EVERYTHING. Time is finite and all I can do is use my time well. Sometimes this means changing my non-negotiables, cutting down on the appointments and commitments, and saying “no” to a few more things so I can say “yes” to different things.

I don’t have all the answers to this because I still get frustrated sometimes when I know there is a better way to do something and I just can’t quite get there. But I do know that I am happier when I focus on what I’m doing right and on realistic positive change.

I wrote a book. Drop of Awesome.

I gathered a team of fabulous friends and supporters to help promote it. Drop of Awesome.

I have been studying and planning and learning how to better execute social media strategy and I become more focused every day. Drop of Awesome.

Thank you so much to everyone who is taking this journey with me! Let the launch day festivities begin.

Leprechauns and Expectations

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The Leprechauns must be stopped. That much is clear.

I think the unicorn blood we’ve smeared over our front door is working because we’ve been largely spared their antics, some green milk here, shamrock-colored toilet water there. It’s just harmless fun at our house.

But others are not so fortunate and sadly my kids have been affected by what Leprechauns are doing at their friends’ houses.

When fifth-grader Magoo came downstairs this morning, he looked intensely in my eyes and said, “I wonder what the Leprechaun brought us.”

“Um… I’m pretty sure nothing,” I said, “Leprechauns don’t bring gifts to this address.”

“Oh,” he looked deflated.

This surprised me because for the past several years, as Leprechaun activity around our town has escalated to the point of total Pin-sanity, we have been continually spared. It’s not as though last year the Leprechaun swept in like an abusive husband, trashing our house and leaving reconciliatory gifts, but then forgot about us this year.

No.

Green milk.

Every year.

That’s all she wrote.

So Magoo continued, “I’ll go check my shoes… just in case… to see if he filled them with Rolos or gold coins.” Again the intense eye contact, pleading, hopeful.

The heck? I bought you Lucky Charms and offered you spinach eggs (WHICH ARE GREEN!!). What more do you want from me?

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I do not understand the magic of Leprechauns.

Santa and the Easter Bunny bring gifts, symbolic of the gifts of the Savior. The tooth fairy brings money in exchange for harvested body parts. These make sense to me. But Leprechauns?

They trash your house or school room and then I guess feel bad about it so they leave you gold or high fructose corn syrup or adorable hand-made prizes as seen on Pinterest.

What’s next, a Flag Day Gollum who burns your house down and then leaves you a new car or fills the charred remains of your socks with diamonds?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’ve come up with a plan.

Next year.

For St. Patrick’s Day.

I think I may go crazy and dye the milk green. I think the kids will love it.
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Pi Day – Beef Broccoli Cheddar Pie

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My kids love Pi Day almost as much as I love Labor Day, and that’s saying something.

They have each memorized more digits of Pi than any sane person should know and every year we celebrate.

This year, in honor of Pi day on March 14th, why not make pie for dinner?

This recipe is a healthied-up version of a family favorite my mom used to make when I was growing up. Even with the changes, my kids love this. Enjoy.

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Beef Broccoli Cheddar Pie

Filling:
1 lb ground beef
1/4 cup of chopped onions
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
8 oz of tomato sauce

Topping:
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 oz cheddar
6 oz low-fat cottage cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp dry parsley
1 cup small-cut broccoli florets

Steam broccoli until just tender enough to stick a fork in. Set aside. Brown beef and onions and drain well. Mix beef and onions with remainder of filling ingredients. Mix topping ingredients except broccoli. Fold in broccoli. Spoon filling into pie plate. Cover pie with topping and bake at 350 until the topping is bubbly and cooked through, about 30 minutes.

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.