by Sarah Powers on May 9, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Home contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
Photo: Anna Hollister Photography
To my first-time pregnant friend,
You’ve been on my mind lately – a couple of you, actually – dearest longtime friends of mine, about to become moms for the first time. I sent one of you a box of old maternity clothes, the few surviving pieces in good shape after my own three pregnancies in five years. To the other I sent a few books (at your request). Toward you both I find my thoughts wandering daily.
With a three-month-old of my own, I am partly of the world into which you are about to enter; but mine is a third and final babe, riding in a car seat that held her brother and sister before her, pushed in a stroller that is not only no longer fashionable but also probably no longer on the market. I am experienced, yes; but I’m out of touch, too, with the trends of new motherhood.
I want to say the right things to you, offer words that mean something and aren’t just clichés (though, as you’ll find, so many of the clichés are true). I want to be helpful. I want to make it wonderful for you, this thing that is about to happen. I want to save you from some of the parts that aren’t wonderful, and from the disappointment that comes when you realize that some of it sucks, sometimes. [click to continue…]
by Sarah Powers on April 24, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Home contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
A year or so ago, I started saving glass jars. Inspired by the seemingly overnight rise in trendiness of the Mason jar, and coupled with a sort of obsessive satisfaction I get out of not wasting things, my little collection of old salsa, pasta sauce, olive and jam jars grew steadily.
The problem was, I had no idea what to actually DO with the jars. I turned to Pinterest and created a board called Inexplicable Jar Obsession, which I filled with amazing ideas – like twine-wrapped jars filled with floating candles and ombre tinted mason jars – only to realize when my pinning high wore off that I was never in a million years actually going to do those things.
(By the way, if you are the type to do these things with jars, more power to ‘ya. To paraphrase Meagan in her post about baking from scratch, I don’t do it, but I think it’s awesome if you do.)
It has taken a while, but I’ve gradually found very practical – and DO-able, for me – uses for repurposed glass jars in my home.
Here are 5 ideas for reusing glass jars that don’t require a glue gun, raffia, chalkboard paint, or a crafty bone in your body: [click to continue…]
by Sarah Powers on March 27, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
Here in Arizona, we’re on spring break. Only one of my three kids goes to school, and she only goes three days a week, so it’s just an incremental change in our daily life and routine. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like there are more children around, louder noises filling the room, less to do to pass the days at home, and an inexplicably exponential increase in small plastic toys under my feet.
And I’m going to be honest: I’ve found myself thinking, “These kids are driving me crazy!”
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by Sarah Powers on March 13, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
This past weekend we got a lot done around the house. Since I’m home full-time (and work part-time at home) with three kids 4 and under, there are a lot of little projects that accumulate throughout the week. Things I notice but don’t get to: a light bulb that needs changing, an overflowing trash can, an empty cardboard box the kids have converted into a pirate ship that needs a one-way ticket to the recycling bin in the sky.
By Saturday morning I usually have a list of small projects and home to-dos that my husband and I go through together over a cup of coffee while the kids play. We divvy up the jobs and he works his way through his list over the course of the weekend, crossing things off as he goes.
Yep, it’s a “honey-do” list and it works for us. But it hasn’t always been this way.
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by Sarah Powers on March 4, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
When I became a mom I actively resisted the idea that I should go out and make a bunch of new friends just because I had a new baby. It felt like an insult to my existing social life, for one, to think that I needed to “trade in” my current friends for new ones who were, like me, covered in spit-up and not sleeping at night. It also felt like a sign of weakness to admit that it might actually be kinda nice to make some new spit-up covered mom friends, so of course I stubbornly resisted the idea even more.
And, above all, I was NOT going to lug myself and my baby to some cheesy (I thought) mommy group where I could sit in a whole CIRCLE of spit-up covered new moms and publicly admit to needing new friends. NO WAY.
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by Sarah Powers on February 27, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
If there’s one thing that busy moms cling to for dear life, it’s our calendars. Whether you swear by a datebook you carry in your purse, a dry-erase board hung on the wall, or an electronic calendar that lives in the cloud and syncs to half a dozen devices, I’m guessing you’ve got some kind of a system for keeping your family’s calendar.
And as Meagan points out in this post, what works for one mom may not work for another – you’ve got to find the system that works for you. Today I thought I’d share the way I manage our family’s calendar – a simple, 3-part system that combines digital and paper-based planning.
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by Sarah Powers on January 7, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
As you can see from the photo above, I’m about to enter the newborn stage again. While I still get excited folding teeny pink pajamas and putting the final touches on our master-closet-turned-nursery, I’ll admit that by the third baby it’s not all sweet anticipation. There’s a healthy dose of realism and – yup – a little bit of dread mixed in there.
Because the newborn stage is hard. [click to continue…]
by Sarah Powers on January 7, 2013
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
As you can see from the photo above, I’m about to enter the newborn stage again. While I still get excited folding teeny pink pajamas and putting the final touches on our master-closet-turned-nursery, I’ll admit that by the third baby it’s not all sweet anticipation. There’s a healthy dose of realism and – yup – a little bit of dread mixed in there.
Because the newborn stage is hard. [click to continue…]
by Sarah Powers on December 27, 2012
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
When I came on as Managing Editor here at The Happiest Mom a few months ago, I was already a big fan of Meagan and the blog. I’d been a regular reader here for a couple of years, I read Meagan’s book when it came out in 2011, and later that year I was lucky enough to be in a small group online writing class she taught.
As a reader, what kept me coming back to this space was just how helpful I found the content to be. And not just in an instructive, “10 Easy Dinners for Less than $5″ or “How to Potty Train Your Child” kind of way (though Meagan certainly has the chops and experience to be super helpful in many of those areas), but also in a “Wow, I love that way of looking at it” kind of way. I was drawn to Meagan’s writing because it was commonsense and practical, inclusive and non-judgmental, thoughtful and uplifting.
Now I’m on the other side…sort of.
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by Sarah Powers on December 12, 2012
This post is by Sarah Powers, Happiest Mom contributor and Managing Editor, and blogger at Powers of Mine.
‘Tis the season, moms – to take sides on any number of holiday-themed debates du jour: To Elf or not to Elf? Fake tree or real? Listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving or no way? Black Friday or Cyber Monday or Small Business Saturday? Holiday baking from scratch or from a mix?
And the big one: Is Santa Claus a treasured part of childhood Christmas or a commercial lie that threatens the holiness of the season and may damage our kids? [click to continue…]
