Drops of Awesome

It All Starts With One Brick

September 6, 2016 by Kathryn

We’ve been promising my kids we’d take them to Art of the Brick in Seattle. So, this past weekend we decided that “someday” had better happen pretty much immediately unless we wanted to pay to fly the kids to San Diego or Milan. Those are the two next stops for Nathan Sawaya’s exhibit.

At $35 each, tickets were expensive enough already.

What we didn’t think about when we promised to drive the kids into Seattle was that it was Labor Day weekend. And it was Bumbershoot. What is Bumbershoot? It’s this festival that might be amazing but we’d rather not know how amazing because traffic is JACKED during it so we stay safely on our side of the lake and the river and the cow pastures when it rolls around each year.

But we’d promised.

So we headed to Seattle.

And the exhibit did not disappoint. The art was gorgeous and exciting and got me feeling all tingly in this way I get when I see someone do something that’s never been done before.

It makes me want to make good art, to write amazing words, to innovate.

Nathan Sawaya was the first person to turn Lego sculpture into a respected art form. He was a lawyer who took his hobby to the next level times ten.

I feel this same way when I listen to Hamilton. What Lin Manuel Miranda does with music and history and storytelling and wordplay makes me want to hide in a closet with a notebook and refuse to eat until I unlock some hidden inner genius I know must be in there somewhere.

Great art inspires. Great art begets great art.

At the opening of the exhibit, you watch a video of Nathan Sawaya building with Lego. He’s building a giant grey hand. The hand is holding a red Lego brick. At the end of his video, he says that every piece of art he creates begins with just one brick.

Just one.

So if I want to make something beautiful, something innovative, I just need to start. I just need to take one small action to begin.

Maybe if we do a reboot of 523 Ways To Be Awesome someday, I’ll add, “Pick up a Lego brick and start creating” to the list of ways you can Paint a Masterpiece… a bit.

Everything we do starts with one brick. One drop. What’s your next one?

Your Body is a Miracle

July 18, 2016 by Kathryn

I’m not always in love with my body. The past couple of years I’ve gotten squishier and sometimes my energy is low. I can’t always wear the clothes I want to wear or get the times I want when I’m racing. Sometimes I’m embarrassed when I see an unflattering picture of myself. And then I go on another ~~diet~~ lifestyle. Let’s call it a new healthy lifestyle. It just looks like a diet to human person with working eyes and a brain.

My passion is helping people find the good in themselves and in others. But sometimes it’s hard to find what I like about my body when there are so many things I wish I could change. Then I feel bad that I can’t just let go and love myself more. Because I’m Drops of Awesome lady. It’s not always easy in practice. Most things aren’t.

The Friday before Fourth of July I started having some pain and bleeding. The timing wasn’t right but I figured it must just be lady problems. I took Ibuprofen and I muscled through. My parents were in town and there was fun to be had. They left on Sunday and on Monday, the fourth. The pain got worse.

We got situated at the parade and I was really uncomfortable so Dan made a run to the grocery store for some painkillers while I soaked up the small town eye-candy. We had a good day. I threatened to call a doctor if things didn’t get better. The pain came and went for the next couple of days.

But Wednesday morning as I was rinsing Wanda off after her swimming lesson, I knew things weren’t alright. I hobbled out to the car and called my OB for an appointment and miraculously they fit me in that afternoon. I cried all the way home, dropped the kids off, and then cried all the way to the doctor’s office.

I called Dan from the car just to talk me through it. I’d never experienced pain like that and I was so terrified they’d tell me it was normal and to get over it. I had packed my phone charger because if they told me it was nothing, I was planning to head to urgent care until someone found a way to make it stop. I was in this for the long haul.

At the doctor’s office they did the obligatory poking and prodding and I couldn’t hold back the sobbing, but everything looked normal. My IUD was still in place. There was some minor swelling on one side of my abdomen but they couldn’t see an obvious problem.

Then it occurred to me. My back had gone out two weeks earlier. My back rarely goes out. My back always goes out when I get pregnant.

“I’m sure it’s not that,” I said, “But what if it’s that?”

They brought a test. They usually bring a test when I have an appointment at this doctor. I pee on it. They look at it for two minutes while we make small talk and then they see it’s negative and toss it in the trash.

This time the small talk lasted longer. And then the nurse said, “I’m just gonna take this to the lab.”

Crap.

I waited alone in the room. My phone was dead. I thought about charging it so I could call Dan. The Nurse Practitioner came back in and told me we needed to do an ultrasound because I was indeed pregnant but my pain level made it probable that it was a tubal pregnancy.

More poking and prodding. The ultrasound technician found a bulge in one of my tubes and a lot of bleeding. They told me I wasn’t going anywhere for a while because I needed surgery.

At this point I asked someone to plug in my phone so I could call Dan. And Laylee who was home babysitting. And a couple of friends who would have my back. And I cried and cried.

And I couldn’t tell you exactly why.

I wasn’t sad about losing the baby, not really. We hadn’t even been trying to get pregnant. I probably wasn’t REALLY sad that from now on I’d have to write a more complicated medical history on every form I filled out forever. Although that thought did cross my mind. I wasn’t even crying because the pain was still unbearable.

I was just sad. And I was alone.

They wheeled me across the street to the hospital, which was sort of excruciating, every bump like a gut punch, and prepped me and within a couple of hours I was signing a form saying I understood that they may have to take out a bunch of parts I felt fairly attached to. Dan was there when I signed the papers and when they wheeled me back.

And he was waiting for me when I was wheeled out of surgery. Everything went smoothly. But there had been more internal bleeding than expected and they’d had to go in three separate times with the laparoscope to clean everything up.

The good news was I’d kept all my parts. The bad news was I’d lost a scary amount blood and they’d never really found the source of the bleeding.

So I hung out in the hospital for a couple of days, eating bland food and drifting in and out of sleep as narcotics clouded my brain. Apparently, my sense of humor kicks up a notch when I’m under the influence because my nurse said, “You’re pretty funny for someone who tried to die yesterday.”

Friends visited me and watched my kids and Laylee cleaned my house from top to bottom as a surprise. We’re talking laundry, dishes, floors, everything. If sainthood were a thing granted to 13-year-old Mormon girls, she’d be on the list.

The second day they told me they would discharge me that night if my blood count was up and the pregnancy hormones were way down.

Well, the pregnancy hormones weren’t way down and my blood count was actually slightly down again but they said that was probably just because I’d been drinking so much water and they sent me home anyway.

Because they had me in the mother/baby ward, nurses asked me when I’d given birth or congratulated me on my new baby. It didn’t make me sad. We’d never been trying for a baby. It made me grateful I didn’t have to deal with that pain on top of the physical pain I was experiencing. I know women who have had an ectopic pregnancy with a much-wanted baby and my pain wasn’t the same as theirs.

But it was scary being wheeled out to my car to go home, wondering if I was still bleeding inside, knowing I couldn’t get around well or care for myself.

The house was clean and full of flowers from kind friends, friends who had lined up meals for my first few days home. I was on bed rest. Everything hurt and I was weak and dizzy.

But I also felt really grateful, grateful for good doctors and kind friends, grateful for my loving family, but mostly grateful for my amazing body.

It took me being weak and down and incapable of doing nearly anything to realize just how much my body can normally do.

My body is a miracle.

I can train for and complete a sprint triathlon or bike 20 miles on a whim. I can run up and down the stairs to read a book to my daughter. I can move laundry from one machine to the other and cook and clean and sit up long enough to eat dinner with my family. I can hike and tour museums and sit through three hours of church meetings every Sunday.

I can wear cute clothes, even pants with a waistband. I can style my hair and wear flattering makeup and shower without passing out or feeling dizzy.

I can plant a garden and carry groceries. I can serve others and hug and carry my children.

My body is a miracle.

I found myself standing in front of a mirror the second day I was home. I had gotten over my fear of quietly bleeding to death after Dan spent a million dollars buying a blood pressure cuff and pulse-ox monitor so I could obsessively monitor my own vitals. And now I was standing in the bathroom about to take a shower.

My three incisions were bruised and painful, my stomach was swollen, and I was un-showered and un-made-up. My skin was pale and my eye circles were dark. And I couldn’t get over how beautiful I was. With all the imperfections, road-weariness, wrinkles, and authentic battle damage, I was beautiful. And I knew I could heal.

My body is a miracle.

And so is yours.

When you’re looking at a less-than-flattering picture of yourself or your hand brushes past that little top of the muffin you wish you didn’t have, remember all the things your body can do, how capable, lovable, beautiful and miraculous you are.

Your flabby tummy is just noise.

Simply Awesome – Summer Calendar

June 21, 2016 by Kathryn

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We always have a huge mental list going at the beginning of summer, a list of all the things we want to do, places we want to go, deliciousness we want to stuff in our faces. We see this never-ending bucket of free-time and think we’ll get to do EVERYTHING. Then the summer ends and we find we’ve done almost kind of a little bit nothing.

I’ve tried writing down the list or typing it into my phone but we still get distracted and waste a lot of time and miss out on doing the Awesome. And everyone cries. And we vow to do more and do it better next year.

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So the past few years, I’ve done a couple of things to plan better. First I make a giant calendar and put everything on it with sticky notes. Second, I have a daily planning meeting with the kids where we decide what we’ll do the following day and how we’ll do it. Info on the kids’ planning notebooks will be available on HowDoesShe.com tomorrow.

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Here’s a little bit about how I do the big calendar.

I start by getting little sticky notes in a bunch of colors. I “made” these this year by cutting standard sticky notes into four equal pieces and only using the top two pieces because they are capable of bringing the sticky.

Then I drew out a calendar on a piece of poster board with day squares big enough to fit a sticky in each one. This requires a little math, just enough to keep your summer brain as sharp as a Cutco salesman’s demo knife, but not so much as to make you cry.

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Then I choose a color of sticky for each type of activity. I have a color for:

–Vacations and other pre-scheduled activities – this includes, camping trips, vacations, out-of-town guests, piano lessons, dental appointments, concerts, festivals, etc.

–Beaches, parks, and pools – I asked around on a local community Facebook group for pool, park and beach suggestions and we have discovered a TON of new places we didn’t know about before. Especially if you’re new to an area, asking around can save you a lot of research time.

–Hikes and walks – I was shocked when I found out how many trails were within a VERY short distance of my house.

–Museums, tours, and historic sites – In our plan this includes science centers, museums, factory tours, tours of local sports stadiums, free or cheap movies, and any other cool and interesting local treasures

–Projects and activities at home – While the kids are looking for sugar and swimming pools, my favorite summer activities involve child labor. I like to include big house projects as part of the festivities.

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We don’t only list things we think we have time for. We make a sticky note for EVERYTHING we can think of and place them on the poster board next to the calendar. Then we start sticking them on the calendar. This is a great way to realistically see that we don’t have infinite days in the summer (BOO!) and that we have to make some hard choices. It lets us prioritize and we get to do and see WAY more than we would otherwise.

The nice thing about the sticky notes is that if you’re feeling over-extended or like you just need a mental health day, you can easily remove things from the calendar and put them back in the holding area.

My final piece of advice is – type all the ideas into a document on your phone so that next year you can pick up where you left off. Maybe star your favorites so you remember to do them again.

Good luck! I hope your summer is filled with joy, fun, and just the right amount of house scrubbing, hopefully done by someone other than yourself.

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Are You Really Going to Let Someone Talk to Your Friend Like That?

May 31, 2016 by Kathryn

friends1 I was recently speaking at a high school. The topic was Drops of Awesome and my mission was to convince the students of two things.

You are so much better than you give yourself credit for.
You can improve who you are and become who you want to be almost instantly, depending on the next tiny choice you make.

The kids were amazing and receptive and the energy was fabulous on a level I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I hope they were as affected as I was.

I started our hour together by telling them about my high school friend who used put-downs as a fun and hilarious relationship building tool, ala – “You’re such a dork! Let’s go get lunch,” or, “Okay Loser, what are we gonna do after school?”

This wore on me and eventually we stopped hanging out. But then I told the girls about a much more destructive friend I made in my young adult years.

She constantly put me down, told me I wasn’t good enough, that my efforts always fell short. When I succeeded she told me it was luck and when I failed, she said I deserved it and she’d always known I was incapable of doing anything well.

As I described this friend to the kids in this high school class, there were several audible gasps.

“That is so mean!” one girl exclaimed.

These teenagers were more than a little horrified that I’d let someone talk to me like that, which is good, because those kind of put-downs are horrible. I should never have let anyone talk to me that way. In fact, I should try to stand up against that kind of negativity whenever I hear it, regardless of who it’s directed at.

What made getting rid of this nasty friend so tricky was that she wasn’t some outside person. It was my own inner voice, holding me back from success, setting me up to fail, kicking me when I was down.

I would say terrible things to myself that I’d never say to a friend or even an enemy. Do any of these sound familiar?

-Of course you’re late. You’re always late.

-No surprise. You made a crappy dinner again.

-I swear you’re the only parent incapable of remembering to turn in a field trip form on time.

-You look so fat today.

Would you ever say things like this to another person?! Would you ever stand back and watch someone say things like this to one of your friends?!

I’d like to think that most everyone would stand up for a friend they saw being treated so poorly. So it’s time to act like your own best friend and stand up when you hear your inner voice spewing garbage like that. (I know we’re getting all kinds of split-personality-ish here but that’s okay. Is it? Yeah, I think so. Okay, I agree.)

So, you toss a box of cereal on the table when you get home from work and tell the kids to eat quickly because you’re already late for baseball.

In your mind you hear, “No surprise. You made crappy dinner again.”

You answer back, “You know what? I made dinner again. I’m feeding the heck out of these kids.”

“But this isn’t healthy. You’re probably the only mom who does this.”

“I’m positive I’m not the only mom who does this and that doesn’t really matter anyway. This isn’t how we ALWAYS eat. This is called baseball season. While I’m on the bleachers, I’m going to make a list of all the awesome meals I have made in the past and that I plan to make again when life gets back to normal. And for now, I’m going to feel good that I remembered to buy cereal. Also, I’m about to be sitting on the bleachers again for three hours. D to the ANG! I’m the nicest mom ever.”

Do a few things for me this week, precious please.

Notice when you’re being a jerk to yourself.
Fight back.
Don’t let anyone talk to your friend like that.
Eat some cereal for dinner so I can feel better about myself.

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

May 3, 2016 by Kathryn

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!

All About that Base…ball

April 19, 2016 by Kathryn

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.**

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

April 5, 2016 by Kathryn

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.

BlogHer and Me

March 9, 2016 by Kathryn

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.

I Used to Do That

March 2, 2016 by Kathryn

I wasn’t always this perfect. And I won’t always be as imperfect as I am now.

A while ago I said something epically insensitive to a friend of mine who struggles with infertility. She didn’t say anything about it at the time but in a quiet moment later that day it occurred to me how hurtful my comment may have been. In this particular instance I felt strongly that bringing it up to apologize would only cause her more pain so I could relieve myself of guilt.

I felt terrible every time I saw her after my open-mouthed foot insertion. The guilt was eating away at me. I thought, I am so insensitive. I can’t believe I said that to her. I always speak before I think.

And then I stopped.

No, I thought, I used to do that. As of this moment, I don’t do that anymore.

This was a profound moment for me and I’ve used that phrase over and over since.

I used to do that.

As a mature woman who allows myself to evolve and change, when I look back at my life, I find there are things that I just don’t do anymore. There are little bad habits, sins or unkindnesses that come to mind and I think, I used to do that. But I don’t anymore.

I try not to beat myself up over these Used-To-Dos. If I don’t do them anymore, then thinking about them should make me happy. Oh, my, how I’ve grown!

But how long do you have to wait before you go from, “Dang! Why do I always do that?” to “I used to do that”? A week? A month? A decade?

Nope.

I propose that if you want to conquer a bad habit, you turn it into a Used-To-Do immediately. Whenever you do something you wish you hadn’t, rather than beat yourself up again, say, “Wow. I used to do that.”

Fix it if it needs fixing. And then move on.

If only wishing made it so, you might think. Saying, “I used to do that,” doesn’t automatically make it so I won’t do it again. Nope. I believe it can. Over time. At least far better than shaming and guilting yourself.

Let’s say you want to get up on time in the morning but you always find yourself hitting snooze. You wake up far too late, in a grouchy mood, and start the day off frustrated. You spend all day thinking things like, Why do I always do that? I know better than that but I’m so lazy. I’ve got to get up earlier but it’s so hard. If I don’t do better tomorrow, I’ll have another lousy day. I am so bad at mornings.

There are a few things that are messed up about this line of thinking.

1. You are reinforcing the negative behavior – “I always do that.” “I’m so lazy.” “It’s so hard.” “I’m so bad at mornings.” By telling yourself this story over and over again, you are digging it into your neuropathways, reinforcing it with steel beams and covering it over with cement. If you want to keep sucking at mornings, this is the way to accomplish that.

2. You are marinating in shame and guilt – Who was ever motivated to peaceful positive change by excessive shame and guilt?

No one.

Shame and guilt are key components of addiction and other out-of-control negative behaviors. A small amount of shame can help us fit into society by providing that little voice that tells us not go topless to the mall and a small amount of guilt can help us desire to make things right when we hurt another person. However, excessive shame and guilt can leave us feeling hopeless and grind us to a halt on our journey to healing and growth.

3. You are not being productive – There are no real solutions in this type of thinking. You are tearing down, rather than building up, criticizing rather than motivating.

Now think about this. Your alarm goes off one morning and, as usual, you hit snooze several times. You wake up late and frustrated and you think, I used to hit snooze a million times in the morning. That did not help my day go smoothly. Good thing I don’t do that anymore.

Throughout the day, as you feel unprepared or frazzled you think, This is frustrating. I used to feel like this a lot when I used to hit snooze in the morning. I’m glad I don’t do that anymore.

This does a few things to help your progress.

1. It stops your negativity before it spirals out of control – This is frustrating. But it’s temporary because I don’t do that anymore.

2. It redefines who you are and what you are capable of – I’m a person who makes positive changes. I have a plan to improve and I am improving at this very moment.

3. It reinforces positive behavior – All day long you rehearse the new improved version of yourself. I am a person who gets up early every morning.

You may need to do this again the following morning. And the next. But, if each time you hit snooze you think, I used to do that you will likely find that you hit snooze less and less.

Eventually you will transition to a place where your alarm goes off and, as you reach out your arm to hit snooze, you think, I used to do that, and slowly sit up in bed rather than dozing off again.

You reach the final stage when you don’t reach for the snooze button anymore, when talk of snooze button abuse comes up at a PTA meeting (as it so often does) and you think happily to yourself, I used to do that.

Saying, “Drops of Awesome,” when I do something positive helps me celebrate the good and keep my momentum going. Saying, “I used to do that,” when I do something negative interrupts the destructive behavior and reminds me of who I am and can be.

In the middle of writing this post, I went to the kitchen for a snack and saw the other half of Wanda’s breakfast grapefruit sitting on the counter. I should eat that before it goes bad, I thought. But then I decided there was probably more appetizing fruit in the fridge. I started to walk away and leave the grapefruit on the counter to die but then I thought, I used to waste food, and I ate it.

I used to eat chocolate right before bed. I used to say insensitive things in the name of humor. I used to ignore my kids when they got home if I was in the middle of writing.

What did you used to do today?

Resume of Awesome

February 24, 2016 by Kathryn

This month, for the first time in 15 years, I applied for a job.*

It’s a strange thing, filling out an application, creating a resume. It’s your turn to tell your potential employer everything they need to know about you to make an informed hiring decision. They want to see what you can do.

Kathryn Thompson – Seattle-ish, Washington
Work Experience
-Not really much. I’ve worked less than I should have.
-Just kind of grunt work at various companies but not even that for several years
-Spotty freelance writing but I’ve been too lazy to make it a full time job
-Too busy volunteering to do any real work
-“Just” a mom
-Too fat to be a fitness model
-Too weak to build houses
-Too boring to host my own TV talk show
-Too lazy to finish editing my Great American Novel

Um… no. That is not how I wrote my resume. But, it’s easy to have a resume like this going on in your head. You focus on what you’re not doing, ways you’re not living up to your potential. But listing what you aren’t does not present an accurate picture of who you are. And besides, it’s lame with a great lameness.

If someone asked your name, would you say, “Not Ermengarde?” Would that be helpful?

No. It tells you practically nothing.

I am Kathryn. I’m a Canadian. I care deeply about people and I love old cheese. I am getting better and stronger all of the some of the time. I want to get better and stronger all of the all of the time. I look good in purple even though I’ve never liked that color. Yesterday I washed half of the dinner dishes even though I had other things I’d rather be doing. I go to bed on time every night… since Monday.

See? That’s a much better introduction, don’t you think?

When you’re writing a resume, you focus on the good because you want people to like you, to have confidence in your abilities, and to hire you to work and complete important tasks. You’re not lying by leaving out your missteps. You’re trying to give them an accurate picture of what you’re capable of.

Well, you need to continually give yourself an accurate picture of what you’re capable of. Do you want to like yourself, have confidence in your own abilities, engage yourself to work, complete tasks, and achieve goals? Then give yourself a Resume of Awesome.

Talk to yourself about who you really are, not who you think you’re not.

You may not be an expert fisherman but it doesn’t mean you can’t grill a mean salmon.

You may not be a perfect mom, but it doesn’t mean you can’t help your children feel loved when you next see them.

Be the best of who you are. Focus on the best of who you are. Who you aren’t… is not a thing.

*I’m not planning to go back to work full-time but I applied to be a substitute teacher because there’s a shortage right now. I’m having too much fun writing to do real work everyday.

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