Thanks Mom!

"Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands."

- Linda Hogan

I find this quote to elicit one of the most beautiful images I can imagine and today it seems to be playing over and over in my mind. Like many people, I've spent today, Mother's Day, thinking about my amazing Mom. This year, more than ever though, I've also been thinking about all the Moms that brought us here. There are so many things that have changed in the last hundred years, but as I rocked Benjamin to sleep for his nap today, I couldn't help but think that even over the course of a thousand years, the intense love that a Mom feels for her babies has not been touched. Tonight, I'm thankful for those mothers that snuggled cold babies to sleep before electricity and sung seasick babies lullabies aboard ships to a strange land - in short, every mother that rocked and raised a mother leading up the rocking and raising of my Mother. There is no doubt that their love has been passed down through the generations. 

I could blog for days about all the wonderful things I love about my Mom, but instead I've decided to list just five of the many things that she has taught me that I hope to pass down to my own children one day:

1) Family meals are a must.

2) Always try to make sure no one gets left out.

3) Handwritten thank you notes are not old-fashioned.*

4) True beauty has nothing to do with makeup, clothes or the numbers on your scale.

5) If you can find a career you love, it won't always feel like work.

*sorry I haven't been very prompt with this lately

Thank you, Mom, for making every one of your four kids feel special all of the time. We know you don't always have the time to talk to each of us three times a day, but that doesn't keep us from calling (or you from pretending that you do have the time). I don't know what I'd do without you. xo 

Do These Lashes Make Tummy Look Flat?

I'm leaving for Mexico tomorrow! If you could imagine me simultaneously jumping up and down while weeping, you would have a good picture about how I feel right now. I'm really, really excited for a few relaxing days away, laying on the beach, and sleeping through the night. But saying goodbye to the boys is going to be really, really tough. Ryan's parents have kindly offered to come and watch them, so I know they will be having an amazing time with Mimi and Grandpa while we're away, but I'm still going to miss the heck out of them. 

   

So about the trip... I know what most women worry about when they're headed on a beach trip.

Eyelashes, right?

Think of it as a really vain version of the Serenity Prayer. There are things we can change - without too much effort, money or pain - (i.e. eyelashes) and things that we cannot (i.e. oh, I don't know, stretch marks?) 

I know the difference and I've chosen to focus all of my energies on the former. 

Apparently, these ladies have gotten eyelash extensions:

livelovehairblog.wordpress.com

And so did Tricia - the trendy, adorable, younger sister I'm always yammering on about. (Side note: I have a trendy, adorable, older sister too - I'll be yammering on about her on here when she visits with my sweet nephew Brady next week!)

Anyhow, Tricia was really good at graciously fielding compliments about her lashes without giving away the secret. I, however, couldn't stop myself from telling anyone that complimented my new look (and probably a few people who said nothing at all): "They're FAKE! Extensions I tell you!"

A few friends have asked me to blog about them, (probably just to shut me up), but for those that are interested, here is a behind-the-scenes look at professional eyelash extensions:

It looks pretty intense, but really the most painful part is laying flat on a table for a really long time - like two hours. 

You can't stop your big sis from taking pics when someone is pointing that thing at your eye.

At first, I thought that sounded kind of amazing, but sleeping isn't easy when your eyes are taped shut and there are sharp tools moving around them. Also, after about an hour and twenty minutes I start to get pretty antsy and my hips begin getting sore, but maybe that's just me. 

These falsies are supposed to last for two to four weeks, which seems like a pretty good trade-off. I'll have to update you if that window is shortened by a few days of salt water and chlorine. 

I'm not sure how long I'll keep them up, but I think they're pretty awesome. I mean, I wake up feeling fancy. Even, my sweatshirts suddenly look dressed up. And since I don't tend to wear makeup on vacations, they seem perfect for a beach trip.

Here are the obligatory before and after shots:

Danielle: Before

Danielle: After

I'm pretty sure Ryan doesn't notice them, but he doesn't seem to notice stretch marks either, so I'm okay with that. 

Tricia: Before

Tricia: After

So what do you think? Another crazy thing to add to the list of what women do for beauty? Or a fun and painless way to dress things up for a special occasion, vacation, or trip to the grocery store?

Zagat Restaurant Guide (Toddler Edition)

I love food. 

I don't consider myself a foodie, because something sounds a little too gourmet about that and I'm no Gwenyth Paltrow (and this is no Goop!), but it is fair to say I don't like to waste my meals on food that doesn't taste good. 

I've been known to spend an absurd amount of time researching restaurants before we go on vacation. (In the meantime, I may have forgotten to book a flight once and possibly left our train tickets from Paris to Arles on the kitchen counter - in America - another time, but that's neither here nor there.) I am no longer trusted with transportation booking, but I've never lead us astray on dining options.

Shortly after I moved to New York City in 2005, I bought a Zagat Restaurant Guide and proceeded to highlight and make notes about nearly every place I ate until the book became outdated - or maybe I ran out of money. I can't remember which it was. 

So for those of you that have never looked at a hard copy of a Zagat, they look like this: 

According to my '06 edition, there is a little formula used to judge nearly every place in the city on a scale of 30 and restaurants are given a score in the categories of "food", "decor", "service" and "cost". The location, website and phone number are provided, then there is an amazing little review, "with suveyor's comments in quotes". Here's an example of the top restaurant from that year:

I never went to per se, but the description of getting a "temporary pass to heaven" for about $201 a person tells me a lot about the place. 

My life has changed a lot since I toted this tattered guide around in my purse. For starters, I generally carry a giant diaper bag instead of a handbag these days. I also don't get quite as much of a say in where I dine (we get some strong opinions from the second row). So for these reasons I decided I could use an updated version for the types of places we now frequent. Below is the roll out of this new edition, using my own surveyor (Noah), whose expert opinion you will find in quotes below.

Costco

Make sure Mom and Dad time their trip to this membership-only warehouse to coincide with "sample time". A tiny person can nearly fill up on the "yogurt, cookies... hummus, cookies, sausage, juice and cookies" lurking on nearly every aisle. "Big carts" and "toys that are too high to play on" are the name of the game at this suburban staple. If the sample sentinels get stingy be sure to beg for a slice of "pizza" and "ice cream too" on your way out the door.

Chick-Fil-A 

The "cow place" is not just for southerners these days. Often requested under the guise of "chicken" cravings, but probably loved most for their "play place" and "ice cream with sprinkles". The friendliest fast-food workers on earth will slap a disposable placemat down on your table after they carry a high chair over for your little one. They'll also move you through a line in just five minutes that would take all day at the DMV. Don't forget to check for your "surprise" (spoiler: it's usually a book) in the kid's bag.

P.F. Changs

A toddler fan favorite for their "cookies with notes" this upscale chain welcomes you with "pretend statues of one, two horses" by the front door and a memorable "waving white cat" inside. They will give you "one, two, three, four crayons" but it's "too dark to see what color" they are. The egg drop soup tastes a little "like the soup with white jello squares and seaweed from the sushi restaurant" and may require an "ice cube" upon arrival. Children's menu is limited, so you may end up paying in the mid-teens for "steak and broccoli" for your three-year-old.

Sweet Cow

Affectionately referred to as "Lucky Cow" because it's attached to one of our favorite pizza places, Luckie Pie, this local treasure has become a go-to for sugaring up kiddos so they can run around the front "lawn" (it's really astroturf) and "bounce on cows" of the inflatable variety. Mom and Dad have been known to suggest a trip after dinner and pretend it's for the kids.

My favorite surveyor is busy napping off his calories (I promise he doesn't eat ice cream every day), but he will be updating me on additions for the guide as he continues to explore various cuisines in the Denver-Boulder area over the coming months. 

We Now Have a Milkman

Ryan went out of town for a work trip a couple weeks ago. I didn't manage to shower or cook when he was gone, but when he got home he found this in our our fridge:

I hired a milkman.

Louie from Longmont Dairy Farms stopped by and I couldn't resist his sales pitch - or the frothy chocolate milk he let us sample. Now, we have a cooler on our porch for weekly morning drop offs. 

I asked Louie if I could bring my boys over to tour the farm (figured they'd find it interesting and I could write about it on here), but he said that visitors make the cows skittish, so sadly, I'm not going to be able to introduce you to the cows our milk is coming from. 

However, I did find a YouTube video on their website, so I can tell you that "the best cows give over 25 gallons of milk each day, enough for 400 glasses of milk". There were plenty of other interesting facts, but truth be told, I couldn't watch the whole thing. Benjamin turned one last week and I've just begun the process of weaning him from nursing to whole milk. Images like the one below are hitting a little too close to home.

On that awkward note, I'll see you next week with the first installment of a new project I've been working on that involves food musings from a three-year-old.

P.S. Did I mention the milkman can bring eggs, cheese and Noosa yoghurt too?  Have you tried this stuff? It's made in Colorado and it's about the only yogurt that doesn't make me scrunch my nose and smack my tongue against the roof of my mouth while I eat it. 

From Heap to Steep: Facing My Fears Near 10,000 Feet

I'm a little behind on my posts this month, but I'm giving myself a pass because another Kowalski kid carried the torch while I was out of town this week. My baby brother (he's twenty and 6'6" but I still call him Mikie) shocked the heck out of us all when he announced that he would be blogging his way across the country on a road trip with my Dad: Father and Son Bring Back Father's Father's Belongings from Farther. He retired his blog at the end of his trip, but I'm hoping he keeps writing because it was amazing and he has lots to say, but generally keeps very quiet. I suggest we all go follow his blog now and leave him a message pestering him to keep it up. While we're on the subject of following blogs, why don't you follow mine? I currently only have one devoted follower signed up - thanks Dallen. 

Soooo, guess what I did this week? I went skiing. This might not seem very exciting because I live in Colorado, where skiing or snowboarding is kind of required for residency, but before this weekend, I had only been skiing on a mountain twice as an adult. I got my first taste of powder back in Riverview, Michigan, as a child. The state is fairly flat, but people piled up a bunch of trash so that we could ski down it. Don't believe me? I have solid proof from a man named John Stossel and little show called 20/20: 

20/20: The Town That Loves Garbage (video link)

I hope you just watched that (it may require a real PC and not your phone), but I have looked for it for years, and previously could only find it for purchase on Amazon or buried deep in the tape library at ABC.  I just re-watched it for the first time since it aired in 1992. I'll admit that at that time, I only knew 20/20 as a boring show that came on after TGIF. I recall feeling pretty excited that they were doing a story about our city, then cringing when they teased ahead with the title. Watching now, with a few years as a TV producer under my belt, I couldn't help but notice the distracting use of Phil Collins music in the middle (it's so bad that I wondered if my iTunes accidentally kicked in halfway through). It also reminded me how wonderful Stossel's mustache was and how long Barbara Walters has been working. Most of all, though, it made me homesick for Mount Trashmore. It was a great place to grow up. My first kiss was at the base of that heap. 

Anyhow, back to my most recent skiing endeavor. I usually find other fun mountain-y things to do while everyone hits the slopes because on my first ski trip in Colorado I learned that my gauge for what makes a run black, blue or green was a little skewed. Pregnancy makes for a good excuse to hang back, but I'm taking a break from that for a while, so this time I decided I would have to face my fears. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is what I usually think about when I'm "enjoying" a day of skiing:

-falling off the chairlift

-falling while exiting the chairlift and being decapitated by the moving chair

-blowing out my knee

-hitting a tree

-hitting another skier (particularly one of the tiny ones)

-getting hit by another skier (particularly one of the tiny ones)

-going under the orange fence

-going over the orange fence

-careening off a cliff

-getting buried in an avalanche (Ryan tells me this does not happen with groomed snow)

-getting lost and left on the mountain overnight (before you laugh, there is an actual trail at Vail called "Lost Boy" named after a boy who got lost)

I could go on, but you get the point.

Back to the trip. Ryan was really, really wanting to go snowboarding this year so I agreed to a family trip in Park City, Utah, but truth be told, I wasn't very excited about it. If I'm being totally honest, I was in a pretty bad mood about the whole thing. I nearly decided not to go because I was worried I would end up trying to keep one of the boys quiet and entertained in a tiny hotel room while the other one napped in the pack 'n play in the bathroom - then alternating children - while everyone else had a blast playing on the mountain. 

However, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable family trips we have ever taken. This required an attitude adjustment on my part, Ryan sacrificing his snowboard for a set of skis and a little of what I believe was probably intervention from above. You see, on our very first trip up the hill on our first morning there, Ryan and I serendipitously got on the chair lift with an instructor who was skiing on his day off. Ryan has been knuckle dragging (aka snowboarding) for the past twenty plus years, but he hadn't been on skis since he was twelve. When we explained our situation to Ben, the instructor, and asked for pointers, he offered to stick with us. He skied with us the whole morning, giving me helpful advice, encouraging me, and leading me to terrain that I could handle. I'm still not very good, but when I got myself to the point where I was only worrying about half of the things on the list above, I started to see how one could easily fall in love with the sport. The fifty degree weather and sunshine might have helped too.

 

Beyond skiing, which I know I will never love as much as the hot chocolate that accompanies it, we got to spend time with extended family and eat really good food. We also got to sit in a warm pool with the boys and make friends with complete strangers while snowflakes melted on our noses and tongues. Mostly though, we got to make memories.

 

Also, Benny napped fine in the pack 'n play without me having to put it in the bathroom.

Which leads me to a sort of moral to this long and rambling story: try new things once in a while, even if they scare you. For the first time ever I can actually say I'm looking forward to skiing on our next trip to higher altitude. If I had stayed home I know that would not be the case. And if you don't believe me about trying new stuff, just ask Noah, who fell in love with mussels bathed in curry on the same trip (thank you Aabir - I never thought my three-year-old would be willing to trade a chicken finger for a handful of spicy shellfish).

5 Ways My Life as a Mom is Like Going Insane

The topic for this blog occurred to me the other day while I was having a phone conversation with a friend that went a little like this...

"How has work 'do not rub boogers on your brother's head' been? Did you guys 'GET. OFF. OF. HIM. RIGHT. NOW' do anything for Valentine's Day?"

That is just a brief snippet of our seven minute chat, but you get the idea. I had answered my phone because the boys seemed happy and occupied playing when it rang, but within the first few seconds I was pulling out the crazy head shake, pointing my finger firmly back and forth between my 3-year-old and the corner, and wishing I had let it go to voicemail so I could call back during nap time. When I hung up and thought about what that conversation might have sounded like to someone bugging my phone, I realized that my life as a Mom might be somewhat akin to going insane. Here are five other examples that have transpired just this week:

1) I hear things...
when I'm trying to sleep.  It's mostly my name being called or one of the boys crying and it generally happens when I'm really, really tired and have finally crawled into bed. I think I hear "Mmmmmmmmooom", but I'm not entirely sure it isn't the heat coming on and off, the wind howling or a branch scratching on my window. It tends to be my imagination about 50% of the time, so I have to keep getting up and putting my ear to their doors in case I'm dealing with the other half.

2) I occasionally refer to myself in the plural...
when I'm all alone. I'm ashamed to admit how often this happens. Ryan will come home from work and I'll make a quick run to the grocery store without the boys in tow. I'll be cruising up an aisle with my cart and need to squeeze by someone. I'll politely nod and smile before saying, "Excuse us". But it's only me. I'm so used to having other humans hanging out of the cart that it comes out before I've had a chance to think about it.  I usually realize my mistake before I'm entirely past them, but tend to just continue on towards the juice boxes, leaving them to wonder if I realize I'm shopping solo.

3) I sing, play peekaboo and converse simultaneously...
during every shower I take. All the while this is happening outside the glass door:

4) I ate about 4,500 calories worth of food...
that I could not see today. Noah is the master chef. He cooks us hamburgers, whips me up three or four strawberry milkshakes an afternoon and occasionally spoils me with his specialty: bug soup. We haven't paid for any improv classes for him (yet), so every meal item he "hands" me is usually in the shape of a cup and I devour them all with great fervor. 

5) I can maintain an almost eerie composure in utter chaos...
but the tiniest things will set me off. I really wish this one were not the case, but there are days when I'm being puked on, the floor is covered in Playdough, the boys are poking each other in the eyes and I can take it all in and think, "I love this messy life". Then a few minutes later, I'll be asked for a sucker for the third time in thirty seconds and I'll completely lose it. 

I wouldn't trade out a single moment of this crazy week, but if you seem to be getting my voicemail more than you used to or you catch me with a faraway look, I hope you will be willing to "excuse us" and chalk it up to lack of sleep and spending most of my time with people who aren't fully potty-trained (a whole other blog topic). I'm not sure who created this graphic, but I thought it summed things up nicely:

Bestselling Novelist, John Shors, Talks Tossed out TVs, Travel & "Teeny-Tiny"

I thought I'd change things up a little this week. Most of the calls I've gotten for freelance work in the past six months have been related to the legalization of pot and school shootings. While both of those stories may need to be told, there's only so much telling I can do. So a couple of weeks ago, after one of those calls, I did a little reflecting about what I really loved most about my career in hopes that I might be able to incorporate a little bit of that in my blog.

There are lots of perks to a working in television, but believe it or not, meeting celebrities and the occasional free loot didn't top my list - (waking up at 3:45am and trying to book interviews with people who didn't want to be interviewed didn't either - that was the worst!) But after a little introspection, I came to the realization that the part of my job that I loved the very most was getting to meet and interview authors. Dorky, I know, but writers are way more fascinating in person than P. Diddy. Yep, I just name dropped.

Again. No shame.

The photos are fun to have, but all kidding aside, I consider myself lucky that books are my thing because I guarantee Jimmy, Jennifer and the Jessicas are not interested in hanging out if I'm not producing a live hit for them, but I think I may be able to twist a few authors arms for an interview. Which is how I ended up sitting in a bestselling novelist's home on a piano stool, throwing questions at him for this blog...

A couple years ago, when we first moved to Colorado, my sister-in-law gave me a copy of a book she liked called Beneath a Marble Sky. (Thanks Angela!) It was based in India and unraveled a beautiful love story in the midst of the construction of the Taj Mahal.  I love historical fiction and I couldn't put it down. When I got to the last page I came across this message from the author:

My immediate thought was: "How cool is that? A bestselling novelist is inviting his readers and book clubs to reach out to him". Then I flipped to the following page and found out he lived near Boulder, just like me. I let my Mom borrow the book and kind of forgot about the whole thing until I was having my little reflection. That night I downloaded his most recent novel on my Kindle, ran a web search for his name, found his email address, and sent him an email introducing myself and asking if he would be open to letting me interview him. I got an email back within 24 hours, and within a few days I was heading to his house with my camera.

John Shors is about the nicest guy you could ever meet, and if you like to read, write, travel or have ever considered throwing away your television, I think you'll enjoy the interview below. Also, I know I said I don't have anything to give away in my first post, but he signed a couple of books for me, so now I do!  I'll be putting the names of anyone who shares this blog post within the first 24 hours into a hat and letting Noah and Benjamin each choose a name. If they pick yours, I'll mail you the autographed book (so go share and then come back and read/watch below).

Q: How did you know you wanted to be a writer? 
"Basically, I grew up reading. When I was probably 13-years-old, I came home from school one day and my father had thrown away our television. My brothers and I were very distraught at the time - it was quite traumatic - but what it did was sort of push us into books and we all became avid readers. I’ve pretty much read a couple of books a week ever since that day. At some point I just decided, probably when I was in high school, that I want to do this, I want to become a novelist. I had no idea how hard it would be to get to that point, but I just felt like I could do it and luckily things worked out."

Q: Did reading about faraway places inspire your travels?

"I think books really did inspire me to travel because so much of what I was reading was set overseas. I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa – very nice city, nice place – but I wanted to sort of go beyond and I was reading books set all over the world and I think that really was the catalyst for me to get interested in traveling. I was lucky enough after college to hop on a plane, fly to Japan and teach English for a couple of years and that really got me excited about seeing the world."

Q: Do you have a favorite place?

"I love Asia. I really have an affinity for Asia, whether it’s Vietnam or Thailand or  Cambodia, India, Japan. To me, it’s exotic and so very different from the west. I’ve been to some of these places twenty times, but yet I feel like every time I go it’s a new adventure and new experience."

Q: Tell me about the process of writing your first published novel…

"Yeah, it was difficult. At the time I had a very busy day job, I was helping to launch a public relations agency in Denver, and I had this dream of becoming a novelist, so even though I had this very busy day job I would come home at night and work on this novel, which was based on the story of the creation of the Taj Mahal. It is a famous story in Asia, it’s beloved, but no one in the west had ever really heard about it so I felt like there was an opportunity to make a splash with my first book. It was hard having a full time job – writing at night, on weekends and vacations. Under those sort of confines I worked on it for five years. It was a true labor of love."

Click on the book to go straight to Amazon

Q: Part of its success could be attributed to your book club program.  How did that come about?

"When Beneath a Marble Sky came out as a hardcover it got great reviews, it won a national award, we sold the movie rights, all these really good things happened – and I just decided that I wanted to give something back to readers.  So when the paperback version came out two years later I put a letter in the back of the paperback inviting book clubs to invite me to their evenings via speakerphone. I included my email address in there, which had never really been done before. It just took off. I got quite a bit of media attention and 'word of mouth' buzz.  So at this point I’ve spoken to about 3,000 book clubs all over the world."

Q: What’s the best question you’ve gotten from one of these book clubs?
"It’s so hard, I mean, some of them have been "googling" facts for hours and they’re very studious and serious. Other clubs have been drinking margaritas for hours, so I’m never sure what kind of group I’m walking into and the questions are very different and they’re both fun."

Q: Now you're actually traveling with your readers to the places in your books - how did this happen?  Did you go to your publisher and say, "I’m thinking about doing this..."? 

John and some readers at Angor Wat, the setting for his most recent novel, "Temple of a Thousand Faces".

Q: Where do you write?

"My home office, nothing fancy, just a laptop and a monitor – but I’ll try to get myself in the right frame of mind. I’ll listen to some song that I love and try to motivate myself, because writing is hard work. I always feel like when I’m starting a book I’m about to climb a new mountain and it’s a heck of a lot of work, so I do need to sort of motivate myself and inspire myself and I’ve got various ways of doing that."

 Q: What music did you listen to today?

"Actually, I listened to One Republic. My family is going to their concert later this spring so I'm trying to get intimate with all their songs."

Q: Best and worst writing advice…

Q: Favorite Children’s Books?

"Shell Silversteen’s stuff I loved, poems. Ferdinand and the Bull [The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf], that was always a fun one. My Mother used to read us this book called Teeny Tiny and the Witch Woman which was kind of a scary book, so that was always fun."

I'm going to order this on Amazon - Noah loves/hates/loves scary stuff!

See, I told you he was super nice! Go ahead and email him yourself if you don't believe me. His email address is shors@aol.com and his website is www.johnshors.com. When I told Ryan he had spoken with over 3,000 book clubs since placing that letter in his first novel, he replied, "that's like two a day!" He is a math guy, I'm not good with numbers, but I know it's a lot of readers and I think it's a wonderful gesture.

Speaking of readers, I thank you, my dear blog readers, from the bottom of my heart, for giving me an excuse to use my camera for something other than home movies this week. I'll be back with a post about "5 Ways My Life as a Mom is Like Going Insane" in a few days.