Best of Just Piddlin': Top 10 of 2013

Thanx for Just Piddlin’ along with me in 2013!

I've had a wonderful year blogging and chatting with you.  Checking over my blog posts, these were the 10 most read posts of the year (no particular order).

Working moms and stay-at-home moms, alike, were represented in these motherhood and parenting posts:

• "Lean In" Isn't Such a Bad Message
• Now That You're a Stay-at-Home Mom
• Shall We Give The Kids a Sticker for Breathing

These dishes perfect for busy moms who want home-cooked food for their busy families were popular:

• Next Best Thing to Fried Shrimp - from Witchery in the Kitchen
• Asian Chicken in the Crockpot - selected as a Circle of Moms Recipe of the Day
• And for birthdays, holidays, or any reason to have cake - Cake Decorating - tips from Fancy Cakes by Leslie

Perhaps I’m not the only one struggling with the “where’s your family from” projects, as many of you read up on Another Family Heritage Project.

Fellow yarn-holics picked up their needles for this one: My First Knit Hat

Folks were busy cleaning out their closets & looking for tips on what to do with those old clothes: Re-Use & Recycle Old Clothes

And friends were looking for answers of why they were de-friended (or justifying why they de-friended folks): 5 Reasons You & I Are No Longer Friends

Was your favorite in the top 10?

In 2014, we'll continue striving to grow Just Piddlin' and make it better - for you, the reader, and me.  To learn more about this whole blog-o-sphere, I attended 2 blogging conferences - Disney Social Media Moms and Blogalicious - conferences will be in the plans again in the coming year.  We received a pile of products and books for review which was a lot of fun and look forward to continuing to bring you great products and recommendations.

Book reviews will continue, but I’ll be changing the reading plan a bit.  I’ll let you know in the beginning of the month the Book I'm Carrying Around and invite you to read along and discuss the book with me.  (I’m busy trying to pick out what to start the year with.)

I’ll still be In the Kitchen, cooking and trying out recipes, especially anything chocolate.  Feel free to recommend any great foods or coffee/chocolate shops you think I should try if ever in your city.

And of course, I will continue to be a busy mom of 4, who is always carrying around a skein of yarn, a book, and my perceptions of the world.  I hope you’ll keep piddlin’ along with me.

Please feel free to let me know in the Comments below what you would like to see in 2014.  We'll see what we can do.

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What Happens When a Natural Disaster Strikes? Are you ready?

Do you remember last October, when a tremendous storm hit the East Coast? It rained and flooded and made a huge mess? In most parts of Maryland, Virginia, and DC, where I’m located, we had the inconvenience of power outages, school closings, and Halloween being put on hold. Further north, homes and lives were devastated when Sandy dumped massive amounts of rain on New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. I remember friends in New York packing up their families and relocating until the water subsided or not being able to get to parts of the city because it was flooded. When I was there in the spring, someone mentioned how some of the subway stations were still being repaired from the water damage.

And still, there are families trying to recover from the damage that Sandy did to their homes and to their lives. And the littlest of these is the children.

Save the Children is a national organization that works to make sure that our children are safe in natural disasters. Whether Hurricane Katrina, or Sandy, or tornadoes here in the United States, or tsunamis or earthquakes around the world.  They recognize that the mental and physical needs of children in traumatic situations are different than those of adults.  They are purposed to specifically respond to the children’s needs.

Save the Children wants families to be prepared for a natural disaster in their area.  What happens if tonight, torrential storms sweep through your city and you have to evacuate your home? Are you ready to go?  What happens if an earthquake shakes your hometown while you are at work? Is your child’s school or childcare provider prepared to take care of your child until you can safely retrieve them? Does your state meet the four basic standards to protect children from disaster in schools and child care?  Save the Children’s recently released 2013 disaster report card reveals that most states still fail to meet these standards.

Is your child's daycare or school prepared for an emergency?

Save the Children is calling on Americans to take action to protect children – by preparing their own families and by supporting improved policies.

Downloadable family and caregiver emergency checklists are available through the organization’s Get Ready. Get Safe. initiative.  Visitors can also find their state’s disaster report card results with an option to write their governor and a video showing Sandy’s impact on children.

Pack your emergency kit and keep it somewhere easy to reach.

Download and print the checklists for your home, and share with your caregiver, day care provider, or school. Then take the next step and actually make the emergency kits for your home, so you will be prepared in case of an emergency. I have mine packed in a plastic storage box in my garage; I've included a flashlight and an old plug into the wall phone, in case the power goes out but phone service is still available.  Now, writing this post, it's my own reminder to go check my supplies and make sure the kids haven't been playing flashlight tag or stole all the batteries.

Maybe, hopefully, you won’t suffer a tragedy like Katrina or Sandy in your area. Perhaps, it will just be an ice storm when winter hits. But when the power goes out or the roads are closed, don’t you want to be ready?

Information, photos, and logos for this post provided by Save the Children.

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Chocolate at Cacao Atlanta

On my last trip to Atlanta, I went to this really cute yarn shop in the Virginia Highlands neighborhood. I planned to go there again when I went down for the Blogalicious conference, but my college roommate told me that the yarn shop was gone – and was replaced by a chocolate shop. Wow, even better!  (Could you imagine if it was combined? Although, then you may end up with a bunch of chocolate finger-printed skeins of wool which would not be too cute. Okay, so better that they stay separate shops.)

Cacao Atlanta is a delicious boutique of chocolate. It’s all white and cocoa-y colored, and with the café tables, you feel like you just want to sit and eat chocolate all day.  And read a good book! In multi-tasking on this trip, I scheduled a book signing for my novel, Life in Spades, in the shop – it wasn’t cupcakes, but it was sweet, close enough.

My debut novel, Life in Spades - available in paperback, Kindle & Nook

For the book signing, they provided champagne and macarons – pistachio, lavender orange, and of course, chocolate.   I have become quite the fan of macarons since my PR friend took me to PAUL in DC and got me hooked.  I don’t ride the Metro often, but when I do, I try to come up with an excuse why I have to get off at the Archives stop just to get a couple.  Note, these are macarons – with 1 “o” – they are light, almond based cookies with a filling, kinda like a grown-up, fancy, much more decadent version of an Oreo.  Macaroons – with 2 “o”s – is a coconut cookie, which I do not like at all.

A completely unique treat was the salame di Cioccolato.  It looked like, yes, salami that you would pick up in a real deli with the rope tied around it and all.  The chocolate is rolled with shortbread and Amaretto cookies mixed in and you slice it, enjoying a delicate sliver at a time.  And the slivers, literally, melt in your mouth. Yum.

Onsite, they make custom bark. They melt the same chocolate they use for their candy bars, give you a choice of mix-ins like pretzels, nuts, and dried fruits, slather this all on a board and let it cool.  Ta-da!

If you love chocolate, they’ve got all kinds of treats for you. In fact, even if you don’t love chocolate, like one of my friends who was with me (yeah, I don’t really get it, either), they’ve got a slightly bittersweet bar for you, too.  So if you’re ever in the city, take a little trip over to the Virginia Highlands shop (there’s another in Buckhead) and satisfy your sweet tooth.

Home-made Chocolate Bark

Just in case, you can't hop a flight to Atlanta: A school-mom-friend of mine makes a homemade version of chocolate bark using chocolate chips and pretzels.  Simply melt chocolate chips (your choice what kind) in the microwave; line a baking pan with parchment paper and lay out broken pretzels, peanuts, peppermints, whatever on it; pour the melted chocolate over your mix-ins. Let cool, break with a wooden spoon, and enjoy.  Be careful because these are so easy to make, you might find yourself making them all the time.  They are also a nice quick gift wrapped up in festive gift bags.

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Blogging Tips for Life

I feel like I'm really getting a good value for my registration dollars when info I pick up at a conference can be applied to other aspects of my life.  One of the Blogalicious presentations was themed around 10 tips for successful blogging.  There were eight presenters on that one panel - add it up, lots of tips!  Some were repeated, so those pop up as really key, and some were very applicable to other businesses or regular life.  I'm flipping through my notes and will share with you 5 Tips that I think are good one's, just for regular life, even if you don't have a blog.  (The @ references are the speaker's Twitter handles.) 

1 - Network and get out in front of the computer - from The CurvyFashionista.  I'm online almost daily - email, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest. All that. There are folks I've had online conversations with but could not pick them out of a real-life face-to-face lineup. This conference has been fun, partly, because I've gotten the chance to meet the person behind the tweets or blogposts or Facebook statuses.  I met several people who actually live in my county, in my neighborhood, even. How often do you get out into your real world and have real conversations? Try it.

2 - Be selfish with your time - from @teachmama.  Message for moms. How much of our time do we give away, especially if you are a stay-at-home mom and folks always ask you to do stuff for them? Yes, it's nice to do stuff for people, I could take on "Professional Volunteer" as a job title, but how true that we need to say "no" sometimes. Just last week, I was thinking that I need to establish a max number of meetings/evening activities  per week so that I can be home to tell me kids good night more. Crazy that I have to think of that right? But between sorority, PTA, Girl Scouts, other random stuff, I often have something on the calendar every evening.  I do need to be more selfish of my time.

3 - Have a daily routine - from @amyvernon. She spoke on having a routine for your blogging tasks, but we do that for regular life, right? Brush your teeth, take a shower, drink coffee. What about the other stuff that we need to do that would benefit our daily maintenance - read your Bible, take a deep breath before waking up the kids, drink coffee, go thru your emails, run 20 minutes, go on with your day. Check off the stuff that is important to you being you before you do the other stuff.

4 - Keep it classy - from @DeEttaMJones.  However you present yourself, how you communicate with others, how you dress.  Whatever you do - be classy. To me that doesn't mean it has to be expensive and label-laden, but be the best you. 

5 - Show folks a solution - from @yolymason. I.e. Be useful to people. Don't be the person who is always presenting a problem - you know those folks and you hate when they come around with their drama. Don't be that person. You don't always have to know the answer, but be willing to help folks find the answer. Be valuable in other people's lives. 

That's it. Five. Apply to your life, or to your blog. 

Who knew this would be a job? Blogging at Blogalicious

Hey y'all! I'm down in my old neighborhood - Atlanta, Georgia! Hubby and I lived here for a bit after we finished getting educated.  I'm here for the Blogalicious! Conference - a social media collaboration for multicultural bloggers.  

 

Being here is so far from where I even imagined when I first claimed "slackermomof4.blogspot.com" as my online space. Let me tell you how much blogging was a passing experiment for me when I started - I went to Korea for a week and didn't even post! What? Yes. Not a tweet, nothing. I think there might've been a Facebook post?  So here I am, enjoying some delicious biscuits and butter at a conference to learn how to make this digital spot a better experience for the both of us, you & me.

 

There's a lot of tech-y stuff being talked about. SEOs and mobile capabilities and analytics and such, much of which I will have to have hubby decipher and re-explain to me when I get home (or one of the kids) so I won't bore you with all that.  But I did want to share with you something I've realized with much more clarity while here, just in one day.

 

(Pausing to taste this shrimp & grits.)

For all we stress about over what our kids are learning or not learning, whether they are in a magnet program or academy or whatever special program - and, I'm including myself in that stressed out parent group - the important thing is that our kids not only learn at a challenging level, but that they learn to learn and to be flexible.  We don't know what they will be when they grow up, because we don't even know what there will be to be when they grow up.

 

A hundred years ago, folks were farmers and planned for their kids to be farmers.  And they grew up to be farmers. Some time after that, folks did the same in being assembly workers.  Then somewhere in the recent past, folks were typewriter repairmen and their kids studied typesetting and they became computer programmers.

 

Today, one of the presenters was the social media manager for Kerry Washington. Her job, among other things, is to watch TV, know what Olivia Pope is wearing and be ready to answer Scandal-ous tweets.  And  maybe, I'm guessing,  say "hey!" to Columbus Short every now and then.  I'm guessing.  That is what the woman gets paid to do. Her college major? International business. You see the connection? Right, exactly. She moved from one job to the next, learning as she went and parlaying that and the network she built into the next move.

 

Harriette Cole is here. Did you get married in the 90's? Perhaps you used her book, Jumping the Broom, to plan your wedding. I did. She used to be an editor at a magazine. She now, also among other things, has a crocheted clothing business. See the connection? Now you see what I'm saying?  They've changed, they've adapted, they've learned.

 

Closer to home, my daughter is taking a photography class in high school. I did, too. Do you need a camera, is the class fee for chemicals, you shouldn't wear your best clothes on film developing day, I said when school started. Her response: I have a phone, the fee is for paper, what film?

 

Everything's constantly changing. For our kids to be successful whatever's when they grow up, it's not important that they learn today's technology and lingo and market forever and ever. But they do need to learn it to understand their current world and learn how to learn about the world as it changes tomorrow.

 

As for me? I'm going to finish this peach vodka cocktail (hey, it's Georgia!), go peek at these crocheted creations and then go tweet about this season's white suit. And  her you-know-who in the back of the car! 

 

 

Who Knew I was a Multi-Cultural Mom Blogger?

There are some parts of your identity that you take so much for granted that you don't even think about it.  Not really, not until someone or something reminds you of it.

When the natural hair movement started gaining steam, with women left and right shunning their perms and chemical processes for the beauty of their natural texture and all these curly hair and mixed-chick hair products were on every beauty supply shelf - it took me a while to realize "oh, that's me." I've been "natural" and "curly" all my life, but never thought of it that way, it was just my hair.

Recently, I came across a blog that celebrated being a multicultural mom blogger and promoted a network for such moms. This particular blog was written by a White mom with a Black husband and bi-racial children. There were other variations in the network - white moms, Asian moms, Hispanic moms, Black moms - with all shades and races of husbands and children.  Reading over the blog descriptions and author bios, it eventually struck me - "hey, that's me."  Of course, I've known, embraced, touted my ethnicity and heritage all my life, but I didn't give it much thought as defining me as a blogger.

In many ways though, doesn't our race and self-identity affect much of what we do, in ways we realize and in ways we don't much notice. The foods we eat, the activities we enjoy, our holiday celebrations.  Our language and word choice.  Our values and life choices.  It's not good or bad, better or worse.  It's what makes us all different and unique, but in many ways the same.  Beautiful, right?

So, how does this "multicultural mom blogger" distinction define my blog?  I guess in the same way that it defines me.

And now that I have had this "revelation", I'm heading to Blogalicious! in Atlanta.  A social media conference especially for multicultural bloggers.  This is my first blogging conference and I'm anticipating learning new ways to continually improve the blogging experience at Just Piddlin' - for me and you.  Be sure to keep up with me on Facebook and Twitter this week, starting Thursday, for the interesting tidbits I find there.

And while I'm there, of course I'll be multi-tasking as well.  I have a few book signings scheduled for my novel, Life in Spades. At a coffee shop, at a chocolate shop, another coffee shop - ha ha, are you really surprised?  I've got to build in my caffeine into my busy schedule.  Dates, times & locations are listed on my book site - www.francesfrost.com. So if you happen to be in Atlanta this week - stop by and say "hi"! 

Now, off I go to settle my household before I head out of town.  (Hmmm - mom's left-behind list to keep the household together while gone - perhaps another post all together.)