This week, I'm heading to Salt Lake City to moderate a panel on ad networks at Alt Summit. Alt Summit is a conference for design and lifestyle bloggers. That would be the people who understand how to tie a scarf and write beautiful blogs with stunning photography highlighting one-of-a-kind wooden rings hand carved by sage old men living on mountaintops.

While I feel pretty decent about my ability to discuss ad networks, I feel pretty intimidated about my personal style. I am not the type to obsess about what to wear, either. Years of working in corporate America has bestowed upon me plenty of pairs of black pants and acceptable cardigans. I've spoken on panels before and spent exactly two nanoseconds deciding what to wear. Usually it was something that would easily accommodate a clip-on microphone. And black pants. And a shirt that wouldn't show my nervous underarm perspiration. I live in fear of my nervous underarm perspiration. Kiss my ass, clinical-strength deodorant, you don't work.

But this conference. Oy. This one has thrown me for a loop. Do I wear what I always wear and at least look authentic, or do I try a little harder? (Trying a little harder for me usually means accessorizing as opposed to rosettes and purple tights, just to draw the line.) Yesterday I peeked into my closet and tried to figure out if I could work in my Kohl's deep discount knee-high gray slouchy boots that are so cute and totally remind me of 1982 but that I bought without having anything with which to wear them. And I sort of glanced through all the incredible bracelets I inherited from Gran, who loved labeling her jewelry with time and location of purchase. And then I looked at my hair and wondered if it is short-cute or mom-cute and all this thinking about my appearance started making me hyperventilate so I had to go videotape the little angel and her friend making the world's best Barbie movie, or at least arguing over set construction for fifteen minutes before giving up.

I can't believe I'm worrying about this. But I'm sort of worrying about this. WTF?

The polls are open until 8pm; I urge you all to get out and vote in today's important U.S. Senate Special Election. Whether by sling, stroller, or on foot, we always bring Laurel with us to the polls and are heading out shortly to cast our vote. If you’re unsure of where to vote, simply enter your address in the Secretary of the Commonwealth poll locator.

I'm working on my novel as often as possible now. Over the weekend, Beloved and I dropped the little angel with Ma and Pa and Blondie and checked into a hotel in Omaha for some much-needed alone time. Over dinner, I told Beloved about the progress of my novel, and specifically, the high school characters.

"I think they need nicknames," he said, with the brilliance with which he'd said I needed to point out the narrator lived close enough to town to see the water tower, but not close enough to read it. "Kids -- especially boys -- rarely call each other by their given names."

I chewed on that with my sea bass, thinking how I'd never in a million years have thought of it, but it was one element of authenticity -- among many --  the rough draft is currently lacking. He's right, of course. It's a young adult novel, and I've forgotten how to be a teenager. 

So here I sit, momentarily distracting myself with this post, trying to remember what it's like to be a teenager, to live with names given me by friends that were not my own as we tried on identities like Halloween costumes.

Today, from parent educator Hetti Wohlgemuth of Alphabet Soup 4 Parents, because it’s never too late to resolve to communicate better:

Earlier this month, Bob and I listened to an NPR show about making and keeping resolutions. The advice? Keep resolutions to a bare minimum and keep resolutions specific. While resolutions such as losing weight, becoming a better tennis player, and communicating more effectively are all good in theory, these resolutions raise red flags. They’re too general. However, resolution number three is critical to me -- I believe that good communication is the underpinning of all great relationships (and certainly parent-child partnerships) -- so I want to break it down into smaller, more tangible components.

Resolution #1. Learn to accept your kid’s feelings. We need not (and shouldn’t) accept all of our kids’ behaviors, but we do need to acknowledge and authenticate their feelings. Kids have a right to their feelings and denying them definitely won’t help anybody. And apparently it works for grownups too. Over the holidays I started to rant about my brother to one of my daughters. I stopped and said, “I guess this all sounds so childish to you.” She responded, “Not at all, Mom. Your feelings are your feelings and nobody can take those away from you. At least that’s what you always told us.” And magically, when she uttered those sentences, my feelings dissipated. Really. There is power in the simple act of acceptance.

Resolution #2. When attempting to comfort and communicate, avoid clichés and long winded advice. Children rarely want advice and if they do, they’ll ask for it. And it’s much healthier to listen and allow kids to figure out their own next baby or big steps. My father was a very caring dad but he had a propensity to repeat clichés that ended up sounding dismissive, and a propensity to offer plenty of ill-fitting advice. He meant well, but the advice was based on what suited his -- not my -- style. Simply let your kids know you hear and support them, and perhaps give them a little prompt in problem solving by asking what they think a good solution would be. Kids and adults feel better about themselves when they come up with their own solutions.

Resolution #3. Children’s messages often come coded and we need to resolve to uncode them (via Haim Ginott’s Between Parent and Child). When Bob and I were eating breakfast in NYC, sitting at the table next to us was a mom, her three-year-old daughter, and the mom’s friend, eating breakfast while the mom and friend talked and talked and talked. After a while the little girl wearied of playing with her doll and started to whine and cry, louder and louder. The child was not misbehaving, simply communicating in her own code that she was through with her toy, breakfast, and the restaurant. The mom deciphered the message and wrapped things up; things could have had a much less happy ended had the mom not decoded the message and responded appropriately.

Resolution #4. Resolve to get more self-care. Communicating effectively is productive but sometimes requires good concentration. And we can’t concentrate well if we are stressed and not taking care of our own needs. Last fall, First Lady Michelle Obama said that women can’t take care of others until they take care of themselves. She’s right about that. You know what to do: take a walk, a hot bath, a yoga class, breathe deeply, share babysitting, and maybe even get a manicure.

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Image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On Monday, enjoy family friendly activities in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the: Boston Children’s Museum, Discovery Museums in Acton, Children’s Museum in Easton, and Old Sturbridge Village. Also, the Boston Children’s Chorus will perform a tribute concert at Jordan Hall, and the Museum of Fine Arts is offering free general admission.

Today, Sarah shares a soup recipe to satisfy the whole family:

The eternal struggle to find a meal for dinner is one of the banes of the mom’s existence. For millennia, we’ve been combining this and substituting that to discover the holy grail of a single dish that will fill hungry bellies, fuel growing bodies, tempt picky taste buds, and soothe savage budgets, all while being prepared with a minimum of fuss, prep, and time. Oh, yeah, and the same goes for tomorrow. And the day after that.
Recently, however, I think I may have nailed it. I’ve made this recipe before, but it went so smoothly from fridge to chopping block to pot to table to tummies I was positively a-tingle.

You can substitute the veggies that your kids will eat, or veggie broth and firm tofu if you’re not carnivores, or whole wheat soba or spaghetti for the won-tons, but this has been a hit with my whole family (including my ravenous husband) every time for about a year now. And four servings plus at least three of leftovers cost $12 or so. It’s a must-share recipe.

With apologies to those of authentic Asian descent, I present:

Chinese Chicken-Vegetable Soup
Serves 4 plus leftovers
~25 minutes prep and cooking time

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

1 medium white or yellow onion, diced

½ red bell pepper, diced fine (optional)

2 boxes chicken stock (32 oz. each)

2 cloves garlic, whole, peeled

1 2” chunk ginger root

¼ c low-sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice-wine vinegar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil (or to taste)

2 boneless chicken breasts, in 1” cubes (or one package firm tofu, drained and cubed)

1 large or about 12 baby carrots, sliced

2 cups white button or other mushrooms, sliced

2 scallions, sliced on the bias

3 heads baby bok choy, chopped or 2 cups broccoli florets (frozen is fine)

1 bag Trader Joe’s chicken cilantro mini won-tons (or ½ lb whole wheat spaghetti, broken in half and cooked according to package directions…this also could serve as a way to use up pasta leftovers)

1. Heat oil in a 6-8 quart stock pot. Add onion (and red pepper, if using) over medium heat 3-5 minutes or until translucent and tender. Add chicken stock, garlic cloves, ginger root, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sesame oil, and simmer 5 minutes. Add diced chicken breast and simmer LOW about 3-5 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. (If substituting tofu, add at the end.)

Add carrots, mushrooms, scallions, and bok choy or broccoli and simmer 3 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add won-tons (or pre-cooked spaghetti noodles) and simmer 1-2 minutes. Add salt to taste. Pick out the ginger and the garlic. Serve in large bowls with spoons and chopsticks – my kids love the practice, and it helps them eat more slowly.

Tons of veggies, great flavor, fun to eat, easy on the wallet… this will definitely be appearing once a week at my house! Enjoy!

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Image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Apparently (and unintentionally), today is all about Blissdom! The lovely Amanda of Oh Amanda invited me to guest post for her BLISS*TASTIC guest blog series leading up to Blissdom, and the article went live this morning. Amanda asked me to share how I manage a local blog while making it attractive to a broader audience. I receive a lot of inquiries about this topic from folks looking to start geographical niche sites, so it was a pleasure to think more concretely about this topic and share my blogging niche & beyond approach. Enjoy!

The dead of Boston winter is the perfect time to head south, but that’s not the only reason I’m thrilled to head to Blissdom in a few weeks. I heard so many amazing things about this blog conference last year, and meeting lovely co-founders Alli Worthington and Barbara Jones this year provided extra motivation to attend. The agenda is fantastic; I’m so looking forward to listening to, learning from, and meeting other bloggers, and I’m also honored to be speaking on the life balance panel. If you’re headed to Blissdom (there's still time to register), do drop me a line; it would be lovely to connect in Nashville!

Probably not unlike many of you, at any given moment, I'm overwhelmed by errands. In addition to the length of my laundry list, I'm short on hours, and also wheels, given that we're a one car family and Jon has the car most weekdays. So I was thrilled to discover the excellence of RUNmyERRAND, a local errand service that recently saved my sanity (and advanced the awesomeness of my office). Read on for more about my experience with RME, as well as to learn how to be one of three winners to receive RUNmyERRAND credits (entry closes January 18):

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UPDATE: RUNmyERRAND is has rebranded and is now known as Task Rabbit.

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RUNmyERRAND is a fee-free online service that connects those overwhelmed by errands with people who want to run them. Simply sign up and purchase credits; these credits are the currency with which runners are paid and reimbursed for goods or services paid for during the errand (alternately you can reimburse for goods or services via cash on delivery). Post your errand details, including how much you are willing to pay for the errand (I recommend looking at the active errand roster to get a sense of going rates for various errands), and an alert is sent to the RME network. Then sit back and wait for runners to contact you about fulfilling the errand. Note that all runners must fill out an application then undergo a phone interview and background check in order to become a part of the runner community. Also, the RME site offers a rating and comments system -- for both runners and errand delegators -- to keep folks accountable.

So here's how RUNmyERRAND saved my sanity. I have been in desperate need of an office overhaul (like, really desperate...I'll be posting the horrendous before pictures once my office is finished). Around Christmas (naturally, the best time to take on new projects...), I decided to do something about it and narrowed in on some desks from IKEA. However, we were just back from Christmas travel and were about to turn around a couple of days later for New Year's travel. The last thing I wanted to do was drive down to IKEA and fight the crowds. And actually, we have a little car so not only would I have to drive and fight the crowds, I'd also have to rent a van or large Zipcar. I just couldn't bear doing any of this. So I figured, okay, I'll pay the exorbitant shipping, but lo, the IKEA desks I wanted were only available in store.

Enter RUNmyERRAND. I decided to give it a try after checking out the site and seeing some other IKEA runs in their active errand roster (and notably, the IKEA runs I saw listed cost less than IKEA shipping). Admittedly, though, I was a little nervous; I'm a bit of a control freak. Was this really going to work? Would the runner pick up the right desks and all the various components that go with it?

However, seeing as I wasn't going to rent a van and head to IKEA myself, I decided to have a little faith. I signed up, posted my errand, and literally within 10 minutes received responses from a couple of runners. Though the first runner didn't yet have a rating (turns out we were each others very first errand), I got a good vibe off his profile picture and decided to go for it. We exchanged a few emails to clarify details and later that day, my very courteous and friendly runner delivered two IKEA desks to my house. All the pieces were there and the desks were in perfect condition when I cracked open the boxes. Utterly convenient. Utterly awesome.

My office is still a work in process but it's already looking pretty spectacular with my two new studio desks set up. As a freelancer, I live and breathe the phrase "time is money." Outsourcing onerous (in my mind) errands that are no big deal to someone else while supporting the local economy? Totally worth it.

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THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Congrats to winners Leslie, Marianne, and Dylan!
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Now, want to be one of three winners to receive RUNmyERRAND credits? Here's how:

Visit the RUNmyERRAND errand ideas page, then email contests@bostonmamas.com (with 'RUNmyERRAND' in the subject), and name an errand idea you'd love some help with.

One entry permitted per person; local residents welcome to enter.

Entry period closes at midnight EST, Monday, January 18, 2010.

*Three lucky winners (drawn using Random.org) will receive 26 errand credits.