Confessions Of A Champion List Maker: Guest Marybeth Whalen

Today we’re proud to welcome wife, mom, novelist and a lot of other things, Marybeth Whalen!

As a novelist and mother of six, I often hear the question, “How do you do it?” I can honestly say that– most days– I don’t have a good answer for that. Every day is different and every day is a crapshoot as to what I’m able to get done. Some days I have to focus more on my family and some days I have to focus more on my writing. And somewhere in all of it, a balance is struck.

One way I keep track of all I have to do is by keeping meticulous lists. I have learned that if I don’t write it down, it’s probably not going to happen. While I was always a pretty conscientious student and kept track of my homework and the like, I never kept lists like I have learned to with a family. I thought today I’d share with you the lists that have helped my life go just a little easier.

The menu list: This is a cheapie write on/wipe off board that hangs on the side of my fridge. About once every week to ten days, I sit down in my kitchen (near the fridge and pantry so I can check ingredients and in close proximity to my shelf of favorite cookbooks) and make out my menu for anywhere from 5 to 7 meals. I write down what ingredients I will need for each meal and– ideally– go shopping shortly afterwards while everything is fresh in my mind. It’s a wonderful feeling to start a Monday with a stocked pantry/fridge and a list of what we’re eating for the whole week, knowing there will be no frantic “It’s 5:00 do you know what your family is eating?” moments. It’s well worth the 1-2 hours this takes me to do. Planning menus also saves money. I’ve learned to write in a few “GYO” (Get Your Own) and “Planned Overs” nights to use up the leftovers and stretch my week of meals even longer. Whoot! (It’s the little things in life, right?)

The grocery list: This is a magnetic pad that hangs right next to the menu board on my fridge. If I use up something, it goes on the list. When I’m planning meals, needed ingredients go on the list. If the kids need school supplies, they go on the list too (because I can usually pick up most items at the grocery store). I’ve also worked hard to train all of my children to add anything they use onto the list as well and to include special items they might need for school projects or any cooking they want to do. Brownie mix anyone? This habit is something that they actually do because it benefits them. If they want kosher dill pickles for their sandwiches or eggs so they can bake those brownies, they know that if it’s not on the list, it won’t happen.

The project list: This is a spiral bound 5X7 notebook that contains my life. I used to only keep a daily to-do list (more on that in a minute) but I found that when I had bigger things that needed to be addressed in the future, I had nowhere to record those. So I started jotting things down in a project notebook… and more things started getting done. I hardly ever forgot things and found that this pretty rudimentary piece of equipment was actually invaluable. Now this notebook holds notes about things the kids need for school (field trip money due next week– exact change required!), deadlines for my writing (apply to that literary festival– due date is this Friday!), and reminders to take care of issues with She Reads, my women’s fiction website (follow up on those guest post requests!). If something is a ways away from needing to be done, I simply turn a few pages ahead, knowing that future me will be glad for the reminder. And present me is just glad to not have to deal with it now.

The daily list: This list holds what I consider my assignments for the day. I treat this list as if my boss wrote it and expects it to all get done by the time I go to bed. Though I don’t really have a boss per se, I do have people who expect things from me. Because I want to be someone who does what she says, that list is key. It helps me stay accountable to the promises I have made– to my family, my friends, and the people I do business with. If it makes it onto the daily list, it’s likely going to get done. Through trial and error, I’ve learned how long the list can realistically be without being overly ambitious and overwhelming myself in the process. And so I know if there are much more than a certain number of lines filled I’m just being ridiculous– it’s time to start a page for tomorrow.

The random list: And then there are the lists for all the other stuff of life. The list of books I want to read. The list of songs I need to put on my iPod. The list of gift ideas for my kids. The list of titles for books, character names, and story ideas. For those I keep small pads of paper in my car, my nightstand drawer, etc. I’ve learned that paper should always be close at hand.

A long time ago, a wise woman taught me “Think once and write it down.” That concept has freed me in many ways. Once I write it down, it creates more space for the many other things fighting for space! Brain space is at a premium for me, and I suspect I’m not alone. If you need to create more brain space, then maybe you’d like to become a champion list maker too!
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Marybeth Whalen has been married for 21 years to Curt and they are the parents of six children ranging in age from 20 to 7. She writes novels in her “spare” time and runs a site called She Reads http://www.shereads.org. She also maintains a personal blog at http://www.marybethwhalen.com. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter too!

Girls Night Out

Every other month or so, a group of the guys in our neighborhood get together for Poker Night. I’m not 100% sure how it goes down, but I think someone picks a date, designates someone as host (they take turns) and send out an email. Sometimes we girls find out about it ahead of time, such as when a bunch of us are talking and someone else mentions it; sometimes the discovery happens on the target day (or night!) itself, when our guy mentions they’ll be heading out after dinner, and sometimes it’s not until after the fact. Usually these are the times that our guy can’t make it. (To be fair, I’m sure there are also times, or at least was a time, when I learned about the night well in advance.)

And you know, I think it’s a great idea. I love it when the guys get together, and I’m always bursting with curiosity the next morning. I try not to blast my husband with questions the second he rolls out of bed, because Poker Night usually rolls into the early morning hours, and beer is involved.  So I wait awhile before I start my interrogation. Usually, it goes something like this:

Me:             “So who all was there?”

Him:          [Sips his coffee] “Pretty much all the regulars.”

Me:             “So how’s [Insert’s Guy Name] doing? I heard he had the flu.”

Him:          “The flu? I guess that’s why he wasn’t there.”

Me:             “Well, how did [Insert Guy’s Name] house look? I’m dying to see the new painting.”

Him:          “They painted?”

Me:            [Sigh]  “Well, what about [Insert Guy’s Name]…are they still trying to have a baby?”

Him:         [Insert Are You Crazy Look]  “We don’t talk about that.”

Me:            [Banging head] “Well, did [Insert Guy’s Name] seem okay? I feel so bad about his mom.”

Him:         “What about his mom?”

Me:             [Growl]  “So what did everyone think about the break-in down the street?”

Him:         [Frowns] “It never came up.”

Me:             [About to scream]: “WELL, WHAT DID COME UP? YOU WERE GONE SEVEN HOURS! YOU HAD TO HAVE TALKED ABOUT SOMETHING.”

Him:         [shrugs] “We played poker. I totally schooled [Insert Guy’s Name].”

So they don’t talk. They play cards, with real money. They throw back a few beers. They compete. Someone wins, and someone loses. They go home. I guess it’s a guy thing, right?

With time, the girls in my neighborhood have decided to get in on the action, except we go about things a little differently. For us, the biggest challenge seems to be selecting a date. Whereas the guys pick one and run with it, for us, we come up with a few dates and discuss them via email. Rarely can anyone commit via the first round of emails. We have to check family calendars. We have to see if our guy is going to be in town and come home on time, to check if one of the kids has a sporting event or a party, to make sure we’re not having out of town company or some other commitment. And you know what?  That in and of itself, the very fact that no one can commit without checking with everyone else in the family, is one of the biggest reasons why Girls Night Out is so important. As women, as mothers, our families typically revolve around us. We’re the glue. We’re the cruise director, the drill sergeant. When we step back, time either freezes or collapses. It’s really quite fascinating.

After a flurry of emails, sometimes spanning a few days, a night is selected…a night usually quite far into the future, and Girls Night Out is on.  And really, how great does that sound, Girls Night Out? Immediately images of laughter and Magic Mike come to mind. It’s pretty darn alluring J

Anyway. We finally get our night scheduled, and as we rip ourselves from our homes and our families, from dirty dity dishes and laundry, school projects and deadlines, the most amazing things happens. Time falls away, and we once again return to how it was in the beginning, before kids and husbands, back when it was just us and our girlfriends, gathering at someone’s house for a slumber party, when we’d stay up all night doing each other’s hair, watching scary movies, talking about boys, and the occasional Urban Legend detour involving Bloody Mary and Light as a Feather.

Okay, so we don’t do each other’s hair anymore, and we don’t watch scary movies, but we do talk. A lot. We talk about work and our families, about stuff going on with our kids and our parents, about problems and opportunities, about the neighborhood and our community. About something we heard on the news, on the playground. About what book we’re reading or what movie we just saw (or want to see.)  About an upcoming doctor appointment. About what stresses us, scares us. Terrifies us. The walls come down. We quit trying to be strong, invincible. We quit trying to be the glue that never cracks. We talk, and we laugh, and sometimes we cry. And when the tears come, so do the looks of understanding, and the hugs, and suddenly we’re not alone anymore. We’re not the fulcrum point of our families, but a friend among friends, a woman among other women. They get it. They know. They understand. They’re living parallel lives, and together like that, we all feel stronger somehow, because we know we’re not alone. We know the road we’re on is well traveled.

Consider these research-based facts:

• Women with strong female-based networks live longer than those without them.
• In fact, women without these social networks (support systems, safety nets) risk health issues equivalent to being overweight or a smoker.
• As opposed to fight or flight, women undergoing stress actually seek out others for companionship and support.
• The UCLA School of Medicine actually found that when in the company of girlfriends, a woman’s production of the oxytocin, the feel-good hormone, actually increases.

All this is significantly more sobering when you consider how increasingly isolated so many of us are. According to a sociologist at Duke University, Lynn Smith-Loving, friendships are actually the decline, a devastating consequence of the fast-paced lives more and more of us live.

If you’ve never seen the one-man show Defending the Caveman, you need to. It’s a classic, and it’s spot on. If you have, you know what I’m talking about.

 

It’s funny. There’s a bunko group in our neighborhood, and for years they’ve been inviting me, and I’ve politely turned them down. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I don’t really know what bunko is, much less how to play. But finally last month one of my super sweet neighbors grinned and said…”We don’t actually PLAY bunko. That’s just what it’s called.”  Oh?  Really? So I went. And she was right. We didn’t play bunko. We gathered first in the hostess’s kitchen, where we indulged in chips and guacamole and other yummy offerings. Then we gathered around the kitchen table, with wine and laughter and stories about kids, families, school, vacations, you name it. No bunko, just camaraderie, and a whole lot of awesome.

Apparently calling the evening Bunko Night draws a firmer parallel to Poker Night, even though nothing could be further from the truth J  But regardless of what you call it, Girls Night Out, Bunko Night, Mom’s Night On The Town, I’ve come to realize that time with friends is like one big group hug, like an endless warm bubble bath. Remember this commercial:

 

And yeah, while I was looking up that commercial, I ran across this one, too.

 

It’s kinda of the opposite end of the spectrum, but it counts, too. It matters. Because it conveys the same message, the woman who does it all.  You. Me. Us. And THAT woman deserves a break…she deserves a group hug and a bubble bath, she deserves a night without anyone spilling milk or asking her to wipe their butt. She deserves to laugh and cut up and be silly. She deserves a girls’ night out. It’s not selfish. It’s not silly. It’s VITAL…and fun  I think that’s why I’m so excited about my Silpada jewelry party coming up next week: girlfriends, jewelry, and wine. I can hardly wait!

Adventures in baking…

This past weekend we had my youngest daughter’s birthday party. I chose a Minnie Mouse theme because my baby loves Minnie! I had in my mind the way I could do cupcakes that would look like Minnie and I wanted Babybee to be able to recognize it right away. Of course things don’t always go as planned,for example, I couldn’t find bow candy molds or a bow mini-cookie cutter so I chose the next best thing: a dog bone. Then I got a food pen to try and draw details on said bones to make them look like bows. I do think they ultimately turned out okay. And the most important part, they tasted amazing – homemade strawberry cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting – yum!

Sometime last year Emily hosted a Harry Potter party at her house and I volunteered to make dessert because I had seen some darling owl cupcakes on-line. I suppose I could have called the first part of this blog: how to decorate cupcakes with oreos. Moving on….

So that’s some of my cuter baked goods and then we’ve had the flops, which oddly enough usually happen at Christmastime. One year I tried to make those little ball cookies where you hide hershey kisses inside…they didn’t work, instead I ended up with nipple cookies.

Then this past year, the first year I made my famous sugar cookies as a mother and Busybee asked for Rudolph cookies. Well, I don’t have a Rudolph cookie cutter, but I had seen elsewhere that you could use a gingerbread man cutter and just flip it upside down. Mine look like naughty women. So see, when I try to get creative with my baked goods, I tend to get pornographic.

Have you ever made something that didn’t come out just right? Did it taste good, but just look ugly? Share your story so you can entertain me while I’m rushing to the end of my deadline…

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I’m Robyn DeHart, AKA Basket-Case Mama, but not because I’m crazy (though really, what mom isn’t?) but because I have a slight obsession with baskets, well containers really. I’m a bit of an organization nut and I love to containerize stuff. And yes, I’m authorized to use words like that because I am also a writer. But back to the kids, so I’m mom to two ridiculously beautiful little girls and I can say that without bragging because I didn’t actually make them. Last year my husband, The Professor, and I adopted said little lovelies from the foster-care system here in Texas and now we’re a big happy forever family. Busybee is three and so full of joy it just oozes from her. Babybee is a walking-talking toddler who has a heck of a temper but is so cute, it almost keeps her out of trouble. Though neither of my girls are newborns, I’m fairly new to motherhood compared to the other peanut butter moms, but we’ve settled in as a family as if we’ve always been together. When I’m not trying to keep up with my two bundles of energy, you can usually find me on my laptop on Pinterest, no, that’s not right, um…you can find me writing, yes, that’s it, writing my latest historical romance. www.robyndehart.com

We Are Honored

Thanks to Pat O’Dea Rosen for giving Peanut Butter on the Keyboard its first award! The Liebster Award! We’re honored.

Friday Fun: What Ryan Gosling Says

Have you seen all the Ryan Gosling memes going around? I have no idea where they started or why, but I can spend a TON of time (that I don’t have, of course) scrolling through and laughing. Today, for Friday Fun, something I think many of us can relate to:

I may not have had 14… but it was pretty close. And how many did I use? One. For perhaps a couple of days.

What about you? Are/were you a babywearing mama? How many baby carriers did you have?

I’m Elise Rome, AKA Midnight Mama because I’m usually burning the midnight oil. If SuperGirl (2, with a speech delay) and WonderGirl (1, my very own hip attachment) aren’t getting up in the middle of the night, then I’m busy working on writing and writing-related business until early morning…usually 3-4 am or so. Both my husband and I stay home with the girls (he’s a writer, too! www.lukasholmes.com), but usually I’m focused on them throughout the day and only get started working until after 8pm when they’re both in bed. I’m a former Texan now living in Colorado who desperately misses no-snow winters, and my parenting goal is to raise my daughters to be strong, intelligent, and independent women…much like the heroines I write, as a matter of fact. I’m a recovering perfectionist, recovering procrastinator, and perpetually aspire to keep the house clean (because it never actually is). When I’m not chasing around my daughters or adoring my cooking/cleaning/diaper-changing husband of 8 years, I write historical romances about women who fascinate me and men who somehow always remind me of Rhett Butler, the first literary hero who captured my heart. www.eliserome.com

Friday Fun: The Joy of Laughter

Happy Friday, everyone! =)

First, SuperGirl sleep update from the Midnight Mama household! As most of you know, after a terrible windstorm about a month or so ago, my 2yo became afraid of the wind and, even worse…sleeping! We would have to stay in her room until she fell asleep, and then if she got up in the middle of the night for any reason, would have to do it again then. We tried pretty much everything to reverse this, but nothing worked. After one particularly bad night when SuperGirl got up three or four times in the middle of the night (which, yes, meant me staying in her room for an hour each time for her to go back to sleep…and yes, I might have been *this close* to shedding tears), the next day hubby took my old idea (which he’d been against in the past, lol) and we moved the girls into the same room.

And guess what?!? IT’S WORKING!!! The first night there was some crying, yes, but I didn’t have to stay in the room until SuperGirl went to sleep. As soon as I close the door, they both quiet. If WonderGirl wakes up in the middle of the night, SuperGirl just goes back to sleep while I change WG’s diaper. And last night–oh, last night–they both slept through the night! *does the Midnight Mama dance* (If you’re wondering what that looks like, well… lol. Maybe one day I’ll record it for a Friday Fun post. )

Anyway, to celebrate the preservation of my sanity and this wonderful accomplishment, I wanted to share this video today. It was very popular last year, but it’s worth watching again. Today one of the cousins came over today to play and as I was listening to SuperGirl laugh (that big kind of belly laugh), it made me remember when we first heard her real laughter…when she and her dad were building a tower out of blocks and she knocked it down. =)

Here’s the video. Prepare to smile. And I bet you end up laughing, too. =)

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I’m Elise Rome, AKA Midnight Mama because I’m usually burning the midnight oil. If SuperGirl (2, with a speech delay) and WonderGirl (1, my very own hip attachment) aren’t getting up in the middle of the night, then I’m busy working on writing and writing-related business until early morning…usually 3-4 am or so. Both my husband and I stay home with the girls (he’s a writer, too! www.lukasholmes.com), but usually I’m focused on them throughout the day and only get started working until after 8pm when they’re both in bed. I’m a former Texan now living in Colorado who desperately misses no-snow winters, and my parenting goal is to raise my daughters to be strong, intelligent, and independent women…much like the heroines I write, as a matter of fact. I’m a recovering perfectionist, recovering procrastinator, and perpetually aspire to keep the house clean (because it never actually is). When I’m not chasing around my daughters or adoring my cooking/cleaning/diaper-changing husband of 8 years, I write historical romances about women who fascinate me and men who somehow always remind me of Rhett Butler, the first literary hero who captured my heart. www.eliserome.com

Friday Fun Post: The Sleeping Reality

Midnight Mama here! A few weeks ago my sister-in-law posted this picture on her Facebook page. At the time I laughed (which is why I originally saved this in my “Friday Fun” file). I thought it was cute. My kids sleep in their own rooms, thank you very much. Other people might have sleeping problems with their kids, but mine were…well, if not perfect angels, then at least somewhat angelic when it came to their sleeping habits.

Then it happened. The night of the windstorm. I don’t think there was even any thunder, lightning, rain, etc. Just wind. Wailing gusts of wind that moaned and screeched and sent branches and the tarp on my husband’s grill flapping against SuperGirl’s window.

This is SuperGirl.

Cute, isn’t she? She probably looks innocent and sweet to you, doesn’t she?

Well, in the past few weeks SuperGirl has been transformed by her overnight (literally) terror of the wind into No-Sleep-Girl. Perhaps that’s not entirely accurate. She sleeps… she just doesn’t sleep as much or go to sleep as easily as she used to.

In the past, we’d follow our bedtime routine (put milk in fridge, brush teeth, go potty, read devotion and story, plug in nightlight, turn on heater, turn on fan, turn off light, get in bed), and although she might get up once or twice before she went to sleep, it was fairly easy to get her to go down. Now she screams and comes out of her room if we don’t stay with her until she goes to sleep. This happens in the middle of the night, too, if she gets up. And during the daytime, she won’t take a nap unless we either sit with her until she falls asleep or unless she takes a nap with us. (Thankfully, her fear of the wind seems to have abated after we showed her how she can blow and make wind with her mouth; now she’s just afraid of sleeping (!!!))

Yes, a few weeks ago when I saw the picture at the top of the post I thought it was cute. I even chuckled in my ignorance. Yes, I used to be one of those moms who swore by routine and refused to give in to the kids so that bad habits wouldn’t develop. Now I’ve learned my lesson. Parents will do ANYTHING to survive…even if that means letting your child sleep with you and kick you in the face so you can sleep, too. =)

Haggardly,

Elise Rome aka Midnight Mama

Please tell me this is only a phase! Do you have any tricks that you’ve used to get your child back to their regular sleeping habits? (The other Peanut Butter Mamas suggested a sleep clock and a gate at her door…)