No better toy for two young boys than a giant cardboard box.

They were taking turns getting under the box and hopping around like a turtle with bunny feet.  My heart swelled with pride at their ability to share.  They even managed get under the overturned box at the same time to play together.

Small Fry: Hey I’ll get under there too and you be the front lights and I’ll be the back lights (suddenly they were no longer a turbit but rather some sort of vehicle I’m guessing).

Medium Fry: Sure get under.

Small Fry: Okay let’s go.

(One poorly executed lurch forward.  Laughter erupts.  Out pop two boys.)

Small Fry: (grabbing his face) Ow!  My nose!

(Medium Fry continues laughing)

Small Fry: (standing up and looking down at the floor)  Oooh!  Stickers!!

Attention spans are so over-rated.

Typically when I think about creativity I think of art and the tools used to make art–paint, marble, yarn, thread, cameras, popsicle sticks.  Growing up with a mom who is a painter, I never thought of myself as creative.  I most certainly didn’t think of myself as artistic.

Lately however, I’ve been discovering this side of myself.  I’ve been reading a number of blogs and articles about various forms of creativity, but I never thought I would learn about it reading the Harvard Business Review.

Check out this article via Box of Crayons (a blog I follow mainly for work).

I’m intrigued by creativity and inspiration and where people find it.

Because of Shona Cole I have been looking for inspiration in the every day.

Because of the Disney Imagineers I have adopted the attitude “Dream. Do.”–not to be confused with Just Do It because that usually requires sweat and running and I’m still working my way up to that.

And from Jim Collins, I’m going to consider making time for white space–as if living with four males won’t make that a challenge.  You should have seen my sons’ clothes after an encounter with a snow cone at the circus tonight.

Where do you find your inspiration?  Where is the most unlikely place you’ve found it?  Do you get the opportunity to even look for it?

*I recognize that it takes a tremendous amount of creativity to run a successful business, but  I thought about that kind of creativity as different rather than opening my mind to all of the possibilities for inspiration.

Turning 40 this year has me taking stock of this life I’ve led so far.  I’ll admit that sixty and even thirty days ago I was on the verge of near panic about my failures as a human being, my lack of productivity and success to date–then I started writing about it and well realized I’ve been acting like an ass.

I see you nodding.  No need to agree with me so wholeheartedly.

It wasn’t writing alone that smacked me upside the head.  Call it providence, call it coincidence, call it divine intervention.  Over the past few months I’ve also been turned on to a number of blogs that focus on creativity.  I imagine I started poking around them initially to get more ideas for my photography, but I was quickly pulled in by the images and moments these people are capturing in their art.

Getting older and watching my babies bloom has me more aware of the swift wings of time (really?  swift wings of time?!–I need to get over myself).  I’ve been trying to figure out how to appreciate the everyday happenings of my life right now–to truly experience them–and how to capture them for later when I’m old and alone and gray(er) and on the verge of being eaten by my cats.   And these bloggers have inspired me.

Really this is a long-winded way of saying…

LOOK WHAT I MADE!!

Nice Amie.  Lovely.  What the hell are they?

Duh!  Background papers.  We’re gonna use ’em for stuff.  We?  Stuff?

I’ve joined The Artistic Mother’s Art Group.

I’ve never thought of myself as artistic (and gessoed, painted, stamped and pasteled papers aside I’m not sure I am), but I gotta tell you being surrounded by paint and paper and pastels and ink and glue and having dirty artsy hands…it kinda rocks.  The kicker too is that my kids are getting into with me.  We’re sitting around the table “doin’ art” as my small fry says.

If I stop getting pedicures and suddenly change my name to Raindrop though, you gotta promise to host an intervention.

Just when I thought I wouldn’t survive another gray sky, a series of gorgeous spring days have settled in on my little corner of the world.

I sat outside soaking up the sun this morning and noticed a pitcher I had left outside all winter.  This was the wrong winter to leave it outside I thought.  The weather was rough.  As I looked at it more closely, I noticed the patterns of wear and the flakes of paint.  It was more interesting.

And in the pitcher, I saw me.

A friend had arrived on my birthday last year carrying it in filled with hydrangeas.  It was painted to look vintage, but now it truly was.   I loved it so much more.

Forty is feeling less and less intimidating every day.

“Hey dad, guess what?  I’m Irish because my eyes are blue.”

Well, he heard part of what I said.

I’ve spent the last 39 years being told I MUST be Irish what with the freckles, fair skin, blue eyes and formerly dark brown hair, but I could never be sure.

A friend recently shared a story about having a 40th birthday party thrown for him a few years in advance because he had told his partner that he was older than he was when they first started dating–years earlier.

The gravestone on my husband’s grandfather’s grave is engraved with a birth year in conflict with his birth certificate (My father-in-law decided that if that was the date he wanted people to think he was born it was what would go on the gravestone.  I love that.)

Short of purchasing one of those DNA tests or meeting my biological parents, I will never know if I am really Irish.

This year I’ve made the decision that from this point forward I’m going to own it.  I started with my youngest as evidenced above (okay so he thinks anyone with blue eyes is Irish now, but we’ll iron that out later).  I’m just telling them they’re Irish on my side.

Hey, if people can claim new names (I’m looking at you Bono) or new birth dates, I most certainly may claim an ethnic origin.

I mean it’s not like I’m telling people I’m Hawaiian or anything.

So in honor of my first St. Patrick’s Day as a true Irishwoman, I hope the road rises to meet you and the wind doesn’t mess up your hair (I probably need to work on my Irish sayings if this is going to stick).

My kids are tired of hearing it.  I try to change up the line every once in a while, but the message is still the same.

Even if you are born with a gift, you will never excel unless you practice, practice, practice.

My favorite current saying is “You play like you practice.”  The boys are already rolling their eyes at that one, but it’s true.

Anderson Cooper didn’t get on air right away.  He bought a camera and forged a press pass and took himself to Myanmar and filmed stories of the students fighting the Burmese government until his stories were good enough to be picked up.

Eighty-eight year old Betty White is still practicing sixty years after she began her career–and it’s paying off.  She will soon be on SNL and appearing in a new TV series.

Tiger Woods even has to practice (and he still couldn’t outrun his wife).

I’ve been blogging for a long time in the scheme of things, but I’ve often allowed days or weeks lapse in between posts.  That has prevented me from getting into a groove with my writing and my voice and is a habit I’m trying to break.

And despite the fact that I know this is true, it’s great to hear a master storyteller say the same thing.

I wish I could remember where I first saw the link to this video.  I’d love to give that blogger credit.  It’s helped me more than I can say.

What is something you’ve been meaning to practice more?  How has practice paid off for you?

There has been an interesting conversation happening over on BlogHer in response to a post written by Loralee Choate.  She wonders in her post if “big bloggers” owe it to “small bloggers” to help them out and pull them up.

I left a comment suggesting that it’d be nice for bloggers to help each other and pointing out that some very famous bloggers often support each other for mutual gain, but that there should be no expectation of help.

And I believe this.  Really.  Sort of.  But some days it annoys me that I do.  Because if I believe this, I must also believe that bloggers who make something of themselves on their own deserve what they achieve and some days…I’m not convinced.

I’m breaking some big personal rules by even writing this, but I can’t stay quiet about Jennifer Mendelsohn’s piece last Friday in the New York Times.

Yet again, another woman is willing to sell out her sisters for the price of entry to the boy’s club.

When will it stop?  What are we standing to gain?  What are we standing to lose?

If you believe the article millions.  And we who are called “mommybloggers” are alternately “girly-bonding” and clawing each other out of the way to get at them.

Many smart women have written about the problems with the author’s article–and there are many–and I didn’t think I had anything to add, until I read Lindsay’s post today.  It was the way she addressed the author directly not the main stream media at large that got me thinking about what I would say if she were standing in front of me.

Assume that I inserted all the points made by Joanne,  Kelby and Liz and allow me to add these three:

Jennifer,

1.  “Girly-bonding”??!!!  Seriously?  I attend meetings and conferences for work all the time.  Never, not once have they ever been referred to as “girly-bonding” sessions.  You severely underestimate the intellect, power and professionalism of mom bloggers at your peril by using this term.  When I attend these events–and men are there–it IS called a networking event?  (Okay Joanne made this same point very well but I had to add my $.02 because I am THAT enraged by the term.)

2.  We’re not all blogging for SEO and pageviews (Sure I’d love rockstar pageviews.  Name one person writing online who wouldn’t like to have others appreciate their work.).  I am a full-time political consultant.  I don’t blog for the money or my kids would be in rags.  Is it okay if I “ignore”  my children while I’m at work?  Or should I give that up too?  Is it a problem that there are other women online who write well or that you don’t believe women should be doing anything but taking care of their children?  And if the latter is true, where is your child while you are writing and researching your stories?

3.  As a woman writing about other women writers, you did a disservice to many of the communities to which you belong (mother, writer, woman online, female professional).  Haven’t we trudged a long way enough baby?  I don’t think women should be given a bye by a female writer because they are women, and I maintain that no one blogger or writer owes it to anyone to pull others up (though Anna Quindlen would disagree.  You’ve heard of her, right?) but to tear them down?  You only make it harder on yourself in the long run.

edited to add:

4.  There’s a fourth point.  My children actually benefit from my blogging.  Just one example happened last week.  My 7 year old went to a premiere for The Discovery Channel’s forthcoming documentary Life.  Not only did he get to see it, he got to hear from the very people who made it.  He learned that there are real people whose job it is to film animals (a topic of great interest to him), that there are people whose job it is to make movies.   Oh and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra accompanied the premiere, so he got to experience a live orchestra and learn that there are people who make a living playing instruments other than a guitar.  The event made a big impression on my second grader.  And the only reason I had the opportunity to take him to this special event was because relationships I’ve made through blogging.

Sincerely,
Amie

All this has me so fired up I need to go out and “help” a small blogger now.

Oh wait.  I am a small blogger.

I know my MOM loves me.  Of course, SHE does, but she’s my mom and she’s supposed to love her child.

That’s the excuse I used forever to beat myself up.

I convinced myself–and attempted to convince the world–for more than half of my life that I had it all together.  I was strong.  I was unphased.  I was smart.  I could do it all without fear.  The larger events happening around me?  That’s just life.  Why cry over spilled milk?

But I could only wear that smile and bright red dress for so long before they became too restrictive and heavy and eventually impossible to put on every morning.

It turns out that being adopted, having my father just leave one day, gaining a new step-father (and distraction for my mother), having a sister who was battling addiction and failed loves did affect me no matter how much I wanted to pretend they didn’t.

The effect?  I became convinced that I deserved this all.  Clearly I wasn’t enough.  I mean I was the common denominator.  I wasn’t ever enough to make people stay–to keep them from leaving me.  Yep, this was just life.  Some people live in golden sunshine and others don’t.  I was one of the “others.”  Identifying it almost felt like a relief.  Now that I understood the ways of the world I could move forward with the knowledge that this was the way life was going to be.  Make some adjustments to your expectations girl and hope to have to opportunity warm up in the reflected glow of the ones you know who are on the golden path.

That got me through the next few years.

Then some really big shit happened:  Marriage, the arrival of a child with 48 hours notice, the loss of a tremendously important loved one, pregnancy and birth.

I discovered real, true love.

Real love.  True love.  It wasn’t waning.  It wasn’t perfect.  But, it endured.

And slowly, over time, I’ve been discovering that my mom didn’t just love me because it was her job.  I didn’t have to keep spinning for the happiness of others to be worthy of their love.  There might even be a chance that I could love myself.  Not too much right away–let’s not get ahead of ourselves–but a little bit here and there just to see how it feels.

The unconditional love of my children* has been one of the best lessons on this path, but so too have the words of fellow bloggers and authors like Brene Brown who remind me I do deserve love–most importantly from myself TODAY.

Brene is celebrating a week of worthiness on her blog to commemorate the release of her DVD The Hustle of Worthiness.  I have a copy of the DVD to give away.  Please leave a comment below–maybe share a tip on how you discovered your worthiness–to be entered to win.  The winner will be chosen at random on Monday.

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*Two of my three children are still rather young.  There is some divine power that builds up the tank of the love you get from your children when they’re young to leave you with enough reserves to survive their teen years.

Words race through my head.  Oh to let them spill out here on the page would lift such a weight from my shoulders.

But I have a teenager.

I would never share his stories in the first place, that isn’t my place, but what we are struggling with is my story too.

Today I asked for help.

I realized that there was no more I could do to solve the situation by myself–it was time to call in reinforcements.  Years of living with an addict sibling and years pretending depression didn’t exist actually paid off.

Asking for help doesn’t signify failure it signifies sanity (or at least a moment of clarity).

Nothing changes immediately, but the simple act of admitting you can’t do it alone (or even within your own family) certainly lightens the load enough to take a few more steps.

No one is in danger here.  The world will continue to spin. Raising children though?

Tough work sometimes.  Tough work.

If you missed part 1, you can catch it here.

This post really should be titled “The Kindness of Others.”

First up: Tracey Clark

Tracey is a woman who makes me feel at ease the moment I’m in her presence. When I’m around Tracey I feel like I’m the most creative and beautiful and interesting person. And I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Tracey sees potential in every woman to be creative and beautiful. This is evidenced by her work building the collaborative photo site Shutter Sisters and by a new project she has launching soon.

We had a talk about Shutter Sisters at the Mom 2.0 Summit. She was talking about her goals for the site–about how she wanted everyone to feel like they had something to contribute there. I told her how much I loved the site, how much it inspired me and my photography but I admitted that I would never have the confidence to submit a photo to the site. I have this giant fear that the collective Sisters O’Shutter would sigh and feel sorry for me and my feeble attempt to capture the theme.

I think she fake slapped at me when I said that.

You have to understand. Tracey is a REAL photographer. She studied photography. She’s worked in studios. She has her own business. People pay her real money for her photos of things like banana bread.

Photo by Tracey Clark

How could I deign to include myself in the same group she belonged to?

But you know what? Tracey makes me feel like a real photographer. She excitedly showed me her new Epiphanie camera bag (go check out the site they’re having an incredible give-away to celebrate the launch of their new bags). We talked about light. She talked to me like an equal about her upcoming photography workshop (by the way I’ve already signed up and you should too).

Tracey’s confidence in me (in all women) gives me confidence to think of myself as a photographer and the freedom to find my creative style.

How’s that for inspiration?!

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Her first email to me started with the line “Hahahah.  I don’t do design anymore” (because she’s so busy with her new business).

Could have fooled me.

A week before the Mom 2.0 Summit I realized I didn’t have blogging business cards.  I had a new site and new URL and I was about to hang out hundreds of fabulous women and have no way to tell them about it.

Of course I lamented about this on Twitter.  And what happened?

Amy “Dish On Design” Moeller spent her valuable time creating one for me because she likes to “pay it forward.”

I was ready to scribble my URL on a bunch of index cards and hand them out, but no.  Amy wasn’t having that.  I’ve worked with paid designers in my professional life who were less concerned about the outcome than she was.

Amy and I have never met in real life.  We haven’t been reading each others’ blogs for years.  She saw another woman in need and stepped up to share her talent because she could.

In working together, we got to know each other better and each gained a new friend in the world.

Amy’s generosity reaffirmed in me the ability we all have to make someone’s life better by doing what we know how to do.

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I hope these two incredible women inspire you too.

Who or what inspired you this week?