by Sarah | Feb 22, 2017 | All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Autism, Blogging Life, I'm A Reader, Redefining Perfect, Special Needs, Wordy Wednesday
The first time I saw “The Baby-Sitters Club” in graphic novel form, I rolled my eyes.
“Why on EARTH would they make those into graphic novels when there are perfectly good books out there?”
It annoyed me.
It seemed a cheat.
I was a snob.
It took me looking at my child, my Molly, eagerly reading for the first time in ages after declaring she now hated reading. Her attention span wasn’t enough for chapter books to hold her interest, but graphic novels were another story.
It took me letting go of my bias to see how graphic novels could benefit a child like my girl.
I picked up those exact Baby-Sitter’s Club books for Molly at the library.
I picked up a bunch of graphic novels for myself to try.
I found I don’t care for the comic-book ones…but those that tell a story (or stories), I enjoy.
My favorites so far have been Through the Woods and Amulet. I have several more to try, and I’m excited to do so once this chaotic work week is over.
The best part of opening my mind has seeing my daughters both excited to read again.
Molly is so excited that she’s actually begun picking up chapter books again.
Kennedy is enjoying interspersing her chapter books with these quicker reads of graphic novels.
I’m enjoying expanding my painfully narrow repertoire of reads to include something different, and learning what I like in this new area.
So, in short…you can teach an old dog like me new tricks. It just takes me letting go of my bias and opening my eyes to see the benefits.
So now that I’ve opened my eyes, I need your help!!
What are the best graphic novels for my girls?
What are the best ones for me?
by Sarah | Apr 7, 2016 | All About Denver, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All of Us, Disney, Make-A-Wish, Redefining Perfect
This year when we went to Universal we found this guy.
He was super friendly and even nuzzled Kennedy a bit…and didn’t try to eat her head…
Much.
Honestly, it took some convincing to get the kids to go see the raptor, and I was more excited than they were to go see it (and Molly flat-out refused).
It was one of the coolest moments we shared outside of Hogwarts, though.
The raptor was impressive, and the calls it made were perfection.
I was so geeked out, I could hardly think, but it was still so awesome. I can’t wait to go see him again.
5.5 years until 2021!
Not that I’m counting, or anything…
by Sarah | Apr 5, 2016 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Home, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Redefining Perfect
March was a sucktastic month, I’ve made no secret of that.
But it’s over now.
With some carnage around us, we are gathering the pieces together, and re-evaluating some things.
The teen is graduating soon and moving on to bigger and better (and warmer) things. He’s pulling up stakes and moving down south to pursue a dream.
Whether it’s me turning 40, hubby turning almost-50, the teen leaving home, or just the hell of a month we went through – we are starting to look at where we are ourselves vs. where we want to be.
We’ve begun to dream big.
Bigger than we’ve allowed ourselves to dream in a while.
Right now it’s all pipe dreams and wishes,
but as Walt Disney said – “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Now all we have to do is muster some courage and pursue them all.
We needed a spark of hope, and we’ve given it to ourselves.
It’s kind of terrifying, and so very exciting.
I’d gotten in a rut, and sort of beat down.
It feels really good to dream again.
by Sarah | Mar 15, 2016 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, Crap, Random, Redefining Perfect
It’s been a rough week and a half.
ROUGH.
And it’s not over yet.
As this is posting I’m going through a meeting I don’t wat to.
A meeting where I must get and use a backbone.
And I still have much to deal with in the fallout of last week.
So there is little left to do.
Except follow the immortal words of Dory…
“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…”
by Sarah | Feb 18, 2016 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Disney, Make-A-Wish, Redefining Perfect
We once again had the mixed blessing of a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney and Universal. How it came about wasn’t intentional, in fact the wish was originally something much different.
When we had our first meeting with Make-A-Wish Denver thought he’d hate Disney, that Kennedy’s wish would be awful, and he’d be so bored. His wish was to meet Sir Patrick Stewart. We were warned that celebrity wishes were difficult and took a long time to fulfill. So we waited.
I planned Kennedy’s trip in the few months we had, and we ended up going in pretty blind.
We had an amazing trip, as I’ve documented here (and will continue to do so), and all too soon we returned home. Although Denver returned home a changed teen, we thought that was it.
A few months later I got the fateful email – Denver’s original wish to meet Sir Patrick Stewart would not be able to come to fruition. He was working 27 hour days on the set of his new show and they couldn’t make it happen. Did Denver want to change his second wish?
Boy, did he ever. He wasn’t sure Make-A-Wish could make it happen because we’d just been, but if we could, could we return to Disney?
Turns out, they could, and so we were going to return to Disney!
Denver wasn’t done there, though.
To top of the already magical wish of a Disney vacation – he wanted to invite his grandparents (only my mother went).
And then he wanted to take it a step further.
He wanted to completely surprise his sisters.
So for seven months we kept the secret, barely at times.
The story of the reveal is one for another day, but suffice it to say, it went over very well and we made the amazing return to Disney.
We did more, saw more. Had better times, and some not-so-great times. We went on every coaster, sometimes twice. We took chances, we met princesses and dined with them.
We met villains and Eeyore and Mad Hatters.
The return was a breathtaking celebration, the fate of our family as a Disney family sealed. The future goals of our son irrevocably changed.
Once again their is so much to tell. So much that will come out over the course of the next few months. I’ll continue our stories from the first year and add in those from the second.
Needless to say. If we weren’t before – we are a Disney family now.
by Sarah | Dec 31, 2015 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Home, All About Indiana, All About Kennedy, All About Marriage, All About Me, All About Molly, All About Ripley, All of Us, Blogging Life, Disney, Make-A-Wish, Redefining Perfect
Tonight is a night of reflection. When we all look back on the year that’s past and examine it, and then look forward to the coming year and anticipate what’s coming.
A breath of hope.
Of change.
Of life.
To look back on my 2015 I can sum it all up with one simple word.
More so in the last 1/3 of the year, but definitely, all around, chaos.
There was much good to be had – Disney (again), getting my son back from the land of emo teenager, book releases, returning to the community theater stage (w/ my whole family, no less) good moments with friends and family.
There were also rough times – my dad’s downward spiral into some pretty bad Parkinson’s symptoms, working triple time at the day job, my publisher closing, and some pretty hurt feelings on my part (sorry, vagueposting that).
The last third of the year it felt like I couldn’t even take a breath we were so insanely busy. Between the play, Disney, work life and home life, I got hardly any writing done, hardly any breathing done.
Now it’s time to step back and take a breath. To look to the upcoming year with hope and excitement.
I see more chaos in the coming year for certain. I see myself setting more lofty goals for myself. I see big changes for my family’s dynamic as one bird flies from the nest. I see growth for my book sales, and moving closer to my dream of being able to stay at home again. I see excitement as more of my Buffalo family moves to Indiana.
So I welcome 2016 with a certain level of anticipation and calm acceptance.
I look forward to whatever it brings me.
The first time I saw “The Baby-Sitters Club” in graphic novel form, I rolled my eyes.
