More than twenty years later, I’m still learning about how the death of my father at an early age has shaped me. For one, it has made me intent on raising strong, independent daughters.

We watched our tiny, not quite graceful ballerinas twirl around the dance floor while dramatically mouthing the words to a Moana song. Their faces were strong and determined, as if they were heroic wayfarers dancing across the sea. In my head, I also sang along and was pretty sure all of the other moms watching through the glass were too. “This song is going to be stuck in my head for days,” I grumbled, not nearly as broken up about it as I sounded.

We laughed, launching into a conversation about all of the kids’ movie soundtracks we know by heart. The subject of Frozen, one of my favorites for so many reasons came up and another mom was lukewarm. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have a hard time with Frozen. I’m all for girl power but, to me, it’s not a real fairy tale because there’s no prince. Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I want my daughter to believe in true love.”

I had an immediate visceral reaction, but stayed quiet, nodding as she explained her point of view. I respected her opinion and the place it was coming from, but I completely disagreed. Finding no words to explain why, I remained silent. All I knew was that I felt very strongly about the fact that I did not want handsome princes shoved down my daughters’ throats.

I’ve always considered myself a swoony romantic. I grew up on a steady diet of romantic comedies, weddings always make me cry, and love stories make me feel warm and fuzzy and electric inside.

So why did the idea that every princess needs a prince make me want to scream?

As soon as a tragedy hits and is smattered across the news and social media, I can hear it. Like a swarm of locusts, I can almost make out the individual tap tap tapping of keyboards and smartphones as people near and far offer their “thoughts and prayers.” I can almost see them too: sitting back in their chairs and feeling a small sense of accomplishment, smiling a little at their kindheartedness. They have proven they fall into the “good human” category. They have done something.

Except they haven’t.

I am all for sending positive vibes out into the universe, especially when negativity is so rampant. I believe that being kind and positive can make an actual difference. Spreading kindness makes people feel good. It has a contagious effect and spreads from person to person, brightening each link in the chain and creating a happier community.

But do you know what else is important? Action. And your thoughts and prayers? They don’t do much in terms of action.

via Awake Academy

This is a serious question.

I don’t think I know one real, live person that I’ve met in the flesh who has made a resolution this year. I mean, I know plenty of people on the internet who are talking about resolutions, but did you make one?

For the last couple of years, I’ve taken a different approach to the whole resolutions thing. Instead of picking something that I know I’ll almost immediately feel like a complete failure about (see: quit sugar, lose twenty pounds, stop multitasking everything into oblivion), I’ve been choosing a word to make the theme of my year.

A theme is way less daunting than a resolution, which feels like a promise you can’t dare break—even if maybe you changed your mind about it because something came up that is infinitely more important. Resolutions are just too much freaking pressure. A theme is something I can handle.

I’m not going to lie to you. This election has jarred me. I have so many feelings that I’m not sure what to do with. If you’re already rolling your eyes and wishing I’d accept things, move on, and stop whining, you might want to skip this post. I won’t be mad at you and I hope you won’t be mad at me. Because sometimes I need to sort out my feelings in the best way I know how: writing them down.

There are so many feelings swirling around my unsettled guts that I honestly don’t even know where to start.

It’s been awfully quiet around here. I just realized yesterday that I never made an official announcement as to why. I’ve mentioned it in the newsletter and on Facebook and Instagram, but I never published a post here about what I’ve been up to.

You may have noticed that a lot of my content this past summer focused on local adventures with my girls. These sorts of posts made it easy for me to work while spending the majority of my time hanging out with my two favorite mini humans. While that was great for me and for my family, it wasn’t exactly great for this website.

My readers are sprinkled all over the world and many of them continue to check back because they enjoy reading honest, humorous posts about motherhood. They don’t particularly care about the hidden gems in my neighborhood, unless I’m mentioning them while discussing something far more universally relatable.

Still, I like writing about our adventures and I like supporting local businesses. And local people reached out to tell me they liked reading about it. So, I decided to do what all totally sane, not already crazy busy and overwhelmed people decide to do: run another website.