Six o’clock, T.V. hour, don’t get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh
This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine
–REM

WWII and the Holocaust, the great depression, the refugee crisis are all examples of history and even more current world events so far removed from myself, I’ve only ever wondered what it would feel like to have your world stop. The rhythms of everyday life–wake, school, work, home, eat, sleep, repeat–feels so automatic, so set in stone, it is a complete paradigm shift to see life as we know it come to a halt. 

Granted, not much has changed for me or my family, but we can all feel it. This looming unknown. (**I wrote this sentence last Wednesday before the school closures and mass cancellations. However, there are still a lot of unknowns and thankfully, for the time being we are still safe and healthy.)

I’m wary to say this out loud as I don’t want to be mistaken for indulging in drama, but there is some strange sense of relief found in knowing that it’s OK to drop the usual ways of life when there are more important things at stake. Like when one of my children is sick and I realize that letting everything else go by the wayside is actually the better thing to do even when at first it feels slightly irresponsible. I have found myself thinking, “It’s OK that I’m up at 3 in the morning. My child needs me and this is what I should be doing. Everyone else will have to understand and adjust if I need to take a nap tomorrow and order pizza for dinner.”  It’s not that I want my kids to be sick, or that I want a global pandemic, but sometimes the rules of the modern adult world feel ridiculously important until we are forced to remember that there are bigger things at stake than Ted’s mandatory 10 o’clock meeting regarding proper memo protocol.

But it’s also unnerving. We’ve all had an experience that reminded us that life can change in the blink of an eye, without any warning. But we’ve never experienced that on a global level all at the same time. We are in uncharted territory. But as I mentioned earlier, previous generations have had their uncharted territories as well. It’s new, but also nothing new. They made their way and we will make ours.

We will get through this. We’ll be OK, even if no one is sure what OK will look like. The important thing is not if we get through it, but how. Right now so many things are wildly out of our hands, but how we act and react during these times is what we can control. We will need each other now more than ever, even–ironically–as we practice social distancing at the same time.

I asked my Instagram followers for ideas and ways we can help each other during this time and for resources we may need as we’re all homebound for the foreseeable future. I’ve done some research on my own as well. I know many of us are aware of things we can do to help, but I always appreciate having a list in one place. Please feel free to share this list and add anything else in the comments below.
&nbsp [readmore title= “Click here to read through a fantastic list of resources for both giving and receiving during this time!”]

Hello! I was out of town for a week at Alt Summit, and came home to house guests, my daughter’s middle school play (which was beyond amazing–more on that later) and now I’m just barely getting my feet back under me. I wanted to share some random thoughts that have been jumbled around in my head for weeks. This is good ol’ fashioned blogging at it’s finest folks! Mostly politics, but a little personal stuff at the end. Besides, politics is personal.

Elizabeth Warren
First, I am so sad Elizabeth Warren dropped out. I know that feels like old news now and I never talked about my support for her on here, but I was so very excited for her and what seemed like a lot of momentum surrounding her campaign. Like many other women I know I keep thinking, If not someone as smart, experienced, capable and scandal-free as Elizabeth Warren than who? Personally I think that when the media focuses on things like “electability” it becomes this thing that gets into people’s heads. I appreciate and very much support the free press, but I also dislike how much influence they can have to negatively impact something that should be a foregone conclusion by now. Of course a woman can and should be President of the United States, but by questioning a woman’s “electability” or whether America is ready for a woman president, plays right into the blatant sexism that is keeping smart women like Warren from going further. In the words of one graphic I saw recently, “She’s Electable If You *!$#@& Vote For Her!”
  [readmore title= “Click here to read more, especially my thoughts on reconciling my faith and Trump supporters”]

Hiiiiiiii! My blog was down for almost a week and boy was that stressful! 14 years of blogging and I’ve never had my site down that long. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again. Also, in the past week all my kids have had some sort of illness–mainly strep–and I am ready for it to be over. Additionally, we now have a teenager in the house. Is it crazy that I’m excited for these years? Also, I leave for Alt Summit in Palm Springs tomorrow and I could not be more excited. Give me some sunshine and warm weather STAT! I’m also speaking again and super excited to be amongst so many amazing power-house women creatives and entrepreneurs. This really is one of my favorite events of the year–I always come back feeling so inspired. Did you know I had the idea for my book, When Charley Met Emma at Alt and met Merrilee Liddiard the woman who illustrated the book at that same Alt? I’m telling you, Alt is magic. (Have you ever thought of going?)

I thought I would do a round up of some of the interesting things I’ve been reading, seeing and check out around the web these days. I know I love a good link round up and I hope you do too! Anyone up to anything exciting this weekend?
7nbsp; [readmore title= “Click through for 13 links I found interesting around the web this week.”]

This post is sponsored by Full Circle Home. Thank you for supporting sponsors here at This Little Miggy.

One thing I’ve been noticing in our home lately is that we have too much trash. I’m embarrassed to admit that we fill up our kitchen trash on a near daily basis–or at least every other day. I hate it. And while I’ve been slacking a little on composting lately, I’m still a little dumbfounded about how we go through so much garbage. The biggest culprit seems to be food packaging. Honestly, there is only so much you can do if you don’t live in a town or city with grocery stores that feature package-free bulk items like grains, flour, snacks, etc. We had a store like that in San Antonio and I miss it so much! We actually have a little grocery store near us now where we can buy great produce with less packaging (mostly because I don’t use the plastic produce bags), so that helps. Additionally, there are always farmer’s markets to frequent in the summer, but still for things like chicken, almond milk, regular milk, cereal, crackers, cheese, eggs, snacks (and the list goes on and on) it seems that we’re at the mercy of what’s available to us locally. I think there might be some options in the greater Cincinnati area but then it becomes a driving and time management issue.

As a society we sure haven’t made it easy on ourselves when it comes to minimizing our waste. Our dependency on grocery stores alone means that we’re going to consume a lot of products in wasteful packaging. But I’m going to keep working at it and do what I can to find some more sustainable options when it comes to food packaging. For example, shopping for meat at the local butcher shop where the meat is wrapped in a couple sheets of freezer paper, as opposed to Styrofoam packaging and plastic wrap (also I love supporting local businesses when possible.) And again getting to the farmer’s market more frequently for plastic free produce. In the meantime, there are certainly other things I can do to minimize my family’s waste apart from food packaging. One of those is to reduce our one-use items around the house. Full Circle home has made this a lot easier for me. Here are some of my favorite products that have helped me reduce waste in our household.
  [readmore title= “Click here to read about my favorite products that help reduce waste around our house.”]

I know it’s February, but if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to go back a ways and share our Thanksgiving with you. If you’ve been following me long enough you probably know that one of my all time favorite movies is Dan In Real Life. (Quick interjection: If you’ve never seen this movie, please rectify this oversight in your life immediately. But also know that, I’m not going to feel bad for any spoilers I give below because it came out in 2007.) I supposed we’re all drawn to art in one form or another that reminds us of us. Our personalities, our sense of humor, places we’ve lived, circumstances we’ve been in, or maybe places and circumstances we wish to be in. So the fact that I was living on the east coast when I first saw Dan in Real Life in the theater (remember in the olden days when that was the only way to see a new movie?) and the movie takes place on the east coast makes this movie feel like a warm bowl of soup. Additionally, Dan has 3 daughters, his extended family is hashtag goals and of course he’s one helluva dancer. OK, you get it. I love the movie.

Therefore when my husband’s family decided to come to our house for Thanksgiving, in my mind there was only one way to do it. Try to mirror Dan in Real Life in as many ways as possible (except for the love triangle part because ew.) Of course the movie doesn’t ever specifically say it’s Thanksgiving–and maybe it’s not even implied other than why are they eating so many pies in New England in the fall if I’m not supposed to think it’s Thanksgiving? Nevertheless, I decided that we were going to mirror our family reunion after this movie so help me Dan. If you’re not familiar with the movie, that’s sad for you and the following references won’t make a lot of sense. For the rest of you, here’s how our Very Dan In Real Life Thanksgiving went down.
  [“Click through to see how our Dan in Real Life theme played out… in real life.”]