Once more, with feeling...

Once upon a time there were three proms. Three! The first was for church, the second a friend's senior prom at another school, and the third was the one at her own school. (Goldilocks anyone?)

It feels redundant to be posting yet another series of prom photos but here we go. This is for you, posterity!

with bestie, Lucy

Her date was working in Boston all day, close to the prom hotel, so he met her there. Maddy (who I'm nominating for the super-good-sport-sister-of-the-year award) provided the chalkboard stand-in drawing for pictures.

Great people, right there ^ It will be wonderful watching who they each become.

Funny girls.

Prom season, over and out.

. . .

(Jenny, re: your comment on the last post, we should start a prom dress exchange service. Plan on using our prom dress closet when your daughters reach that point. Truly.)

Liner notes 11-15

  

11. Save the day with laughter. Another great grandma Brockbank classic, her mothering motto can apply to so many situations. And your laugh is particularly contagious...

12. Everyone feels shy/awkward/insecure sometimes, especially in new situations. Introduce yourself, smile, shake hands, make eye contact. 

13. Offer to help with the dishes. You'll be amazed at the effect on roommates and (eventually) potential in-laws.

14. It's not all about you. To find yourself, lose yourself.

15. Any sentence that begins "no offense but..." or "I hope this doesn't offend anyone..." probably will. Be thoughtful about whether you need to say it at all.

. . .

With the first of my children leaving home in the next few months, I'm writing occasional Liner Notes, bits of advice to my kids concerning my take on how to be a gracious, awesome grown-up-type person (both trivial bits and major advice). Why "liner notes"? Because, back in the day, I pored over the liner notes of my cds, curious to find the story behind the music. That's what I hope this will be: the story behind the music of growing up and setting off on your own. (Or at least a ready-made catalog of how you can avoid making my mistakes.) Feel free to chime in! What would you add?

How to increase traffic to your blog without really trying

I blog to express myself (therapy!), to document our joys, to make new friends and keep in touch with longtime ones. I don't really market or promote this site because I never really set out to make it into a thing, you know? As a result, I don't obsessively check my blog's statcounter (well, not really obsessively...I do like to know whether anyone's reading it now and then) but when I clicked on it this morning at 9:30, this is what I saw:

What?! Five+ times the usual traffic yesterday?! This might be the norm for many of you awesome blog writers out there but it's insane for me and mine! A closer inspection revealed that most of the clicks were coming from one site, who, after I had done that post late last week, put a link to my little blog. (Thanks, guys, very generous.)

So, here's what you do:

1. Find an awesome site that not many people have yet discovered, about, say, a dad who dresses up in a different costume every day to wave at the bus.

2. Write a blog post about them, linking to their blog.

3. (Here's the part you have no control over...) Ride the wave of the other site's sudden popularity as they get discovered by newspapers, facebook, twitter, and other sites and as they generously link to you.

4. Realize things will get back to normal very soon as everyone will be disappointed you are not also dressing up in a different costume every day.

5. Consider dressing up in a different costume every day. 

That's it, friends, all I've got in the marketing department! 

. . .

 

Part of Christie's How-to Tuesday project...

Another farewell every day

 

Isn't it amazing that virtual (just about) strangers voluntarily agree to get up at the crack of 0 dark thirty to teach other people's children about faith and scripture and life and eternity? Yes. Yes, it is. Almost as amazing as a group of teenagers voluntarily arising at the same hour and groggily making their way to church for a daily 6 a.m. class. On Sunday Lauren celebrated four years of this routine, graduating from our church's youth seminary program. Thank you to her teachers, past and present. You've made all the difference.

And here again, another farewell. Another landmark passed. Another lump in my throat. 

Actually, to be absolutely honest, I'm still in denial but this week--with all its "last this" and "last thats"--is working overtime to get me out of denial and into hysterical meltdown mode. I'm a little nervous...it's not going to be pretty once it hits. This episode of Modern Family hits a little too close to home.

Glass ceilings and mockingbirds

What a fun & full weekend! On Saturday we met my parents at the MFA & saw the Chihuly Glass exhibit (amazing! look at that ceiling in the big photo below!)

But the real reason we went was to see Hey, Boo!, a feature-length documentary about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird. Definitely see it if you get the chance. It was surprisingly emotional for me and, judging from the sniffling and wiping away of tears around me, I wasn't the only one. (Obsession alert! I've also written about Harper Lee here and here)

A few take-aways:

1. I always thought that To Kill a Mockingbird sprung sort of fully formed from the mind of Nelle Harper Lee. But it actually took a LOT of work and two years of grueling rewrites even after she finished the initial story. 

2. Two friends (a married couple by the name of Brown) believed so heartily in her talent as a writer that they gave her a Christmas gift of enough $ to support her for a year so she could quit her job as an airline reservations clerk and dedicate herself to writing. She said it was not so much the $ but their complete faith in her that carried her through the creation of the book. What fantastic friends, definitely fifth business material.

3. She started law school but quit to be awriter. Sometimes quitting is good.

4. Atticus is based loosely on her own father, A.C. Lee, who was a member of the state legislature, an attorney, and an editor for Monroeville's newspaper. (I just found a great LA Times article about Lee's last interview and some of her influences here.)

4. While the character of Scout definitely embodies Lee's characteristics as a young girl, over the years she has come to feel more akin to Boo Radley as the media and well-meaning, curious fans have sought to bring her out of her private isolation. "Know what'd happen then? All the ladies in Maycomb includin' my wife'd be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight – to me, that's a sin. It's a sin and I'm not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it'd be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch...Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough."  Although meeting her is one of my dreams, I suppose reading her book is enough for me, too.

. . .

Click here for a clip of the documentary, a portion of the section on Scout.