Monthly Archives: June 2014

Books For Your Bedside Table through the Tween and Teen Years

In a little over a month, my fourth kiddo will cross over to the dark place known as Tweendom. This means for those of you keeping score at home that I will soon have a house bursting at the seams with teens and tweens. Please send reinforcements in the form of Diet Coke and chocolate.

I jest, but there’s truth here too. These years leading up to and including the teens can be challenging for you, your kids, your sanity, and your bottom line. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a guidebook or ten to help you navigate these unfamiliar and sometimes hostile waters?

Well, here they are! We are not promising that these books will solve all your problems but they are the perfect parenting books to help you through the tween and teen years.

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior

This is not a parenting book, but a book about the act of modern parenting itself. We’ve come a long way, baby, in terms of how we view and tackle this very fundamental task and Senior’s take is just fascinating.

Chock full of impressive research and held together by anecdotal stories of families, this is quite frankly my “Get a Hold of Yourself, Woman” book. Surprisingly easy to read and so so smart, this book reminds me that yes, parenting is hard, but it’s the thing I’ve chosen as my most important work.

I find myself revisiting this book time and again not only to remind myself that “mothering isn’t just something I do, it’s who I am” and to find solace in the fact that I am so very not alone on this road.

Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World by Rosalind Wiseman

This IS a parenting book and frankly anyone who spends any time around any boys age 11 through 18 needs to read it. With over 200 interviews with boys and strong research guiding her conclusions, Wiseman draws the adolescent boy in sharp relief and gives us not only a true picture of the more complex lives of boys, but some ways we can help them through the next few years.

My favorite insight is that we do boys a disservice by dismissing their emotional lives as simple when they most assuredly are not. There is even a free e-book for boys themselves to read about what to do in difficult situations.

I know what you’re thinking: Wiseman is kind of a superhero. Or a superstar. In any case, she has written a book that can save you and any special boys in your life.

Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World by Rosalind Wiseman

And Wiseman works a similar magic for girls. I read this book when I first started teaching middle school and it fundamentally changed the way I looked at girls, their friendships, and their struggles with each other and themselves.

Wiseman offers sage, sound advice for how to guide girls towards treating themselves with dignity and grace and treating each other fairly, but there is so much more than that in this book. Understanding girl power plays, how boys fit into the big picture of girl relationships, and the different roles girls play really helps anyone who knows or loves an adolescent girl guide her to her best, most authentic self. Thanks again to the wonderful and very wise Wiseman.

The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian

I often scribble pearls of wisdom from what I’ve been reading on whatever scrap I have available. This quote from this book has become my talisman over the past few years:

“As our lives speed up more and more, so do our children’s. We forget and thus they forget that there is nothing more important than the present moment. We forget and thus they forget to relax, to find spiritual solitude, to let go of the past, to quiet ambition, to fully enjoy the eating of a strawberry, the scent of a rose, the touch of a hand on a cheek…”
― Michael Gurian, The Wonder of Boys

Michael Gurian shares his larger vision of how culturally we are failing boys by not acknowledging and thus not meeting their biological and spiritual needs. Ellen and I both love books with a strong scientific bent that are also easy to read. This book meets those criteria and yet exceeds expectations too. It will be a beloved helpmate on the hormone highway you are now traveling.

The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters by Michael Gurian

This is a riveting read. Honestly. Bursting with excellent, updated scientific research about how girls develop, how their brains work, and how this all affects how girls relate to themselves and each other, this is as unputdownable as nonfiction gets. Ditto everything I said about The Wonder of Boys but yet uniquely wonderful in its own way. Magic.

The Drama Years: Real Girls Talk About Surviving Middle School — Bullies, Brands, Body Image, and More by Haley Kilpatrick

Anyone who has been anywhere near a middle school lunchroom knows that The Drama Years is the perfect title for a book about girls navigating the difficult tween years. This book is one of the best I’ve read for helping you and your daughter through it.

Haley Kilpatrick is the founder of GirlTalk and she is on a mission to end the drama and change the outcome for our nation’s young women. Sharing her own personal anecdotes from middle school and drawing on conversations with middle school and high school girls about what actually happens and what helps, Haley Kilpatrick has created a book with real insights and a clear path for helping. You will love the real, honest talk and the great, usable advice.

Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years by Michelle Icard

This is the newest book on my bedside table, but I have already recommended it so many times that I’m out of digits to tell you all the reasons I love it. But here are five.

First, Michelle Icard establishes herself from the very first page as a woman you can trust and want to share this journey with you. Warm and empathetic, Icard is also funny and real. You’ll wish you could invite her over for tea or, in my case, Diet Coke.

Second, as the creator of Athena’s Path and Hero’s Pursuit, social skills camps for middle school boy and girls, Icard has tons of real, practical solutions to share for lots of common middle school issues.

Third, I love this book’s central theme of shifting your parenting to the role of assistant manager. It’s such a recognizable, perfect metaphor for how your role needs to change during these years and she explains just how to do this perfectly.

Fourth, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received about parenting this age was to remain neutral when receiving information. Icard has given a great name to this strategy, “Botox Brow”, and she weaves in stories, examples, and advice for how to pull off this essential coping skill.

Fifth, Icard likes kids, even middle schoolers. We have that in common. She shifts the paradigm and the assumption that there is something wrong with kids at this age. Kids are just fine, but the way we have been dealing with them at this age has to change. She then goes on to give a ridiculous amount of ways to do help do this.

Honestly, I could go on, but you should just fire up the old credit card and order this one for yourself now.

So there you go: a collection of parenting books to keep you company through the next few years. Short of an endless supply of calorie-free chocolate, it’s the best option.

Happy Tweening and Teening!

-Erin

Got Tweens and Teens? Have we got a reading list for you!

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How to Save the World Without Really Trying: Pitch the Paper Towels

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Having five kids means different things to different people.

To my parents, it means that they have lots of grandkids to brag about.

To my friends, it means I’m the one who never completes her sentences and is always begging for a carpool .

To my kids, it means hearing fifty times a day “siblings are a gift!” and understanding that they will not be taking a trip to Europe on my dime.

To me, it means that in addition to five times the love, I have five times the bills, trash, and complaints.

But I am not naive. To the world, having five kids means that my carbon footprint is personally responsible for the planet bursting into flames in the next fifty years. To make matters worse, we have a relationship with paper that pushers of other evils would crave. We can’t break ourselves of the kind you need for writing the papers and taking care of <ahem> business, but we needed to divorce ourselves from the kind that mopped up the spills. A thimble-full of water, a spilled cup of milk, and a gallon of any similarly precious liquid would necessitate the use of the same amount of paper towels. We needed to break this habit and quick if not for the state of the planet than for my sanity.

There was no building up to this one, so we just stopped. Cold turkey. When it came time to purchase the next jumbo pack from Costco, we just didn’t. It took about a month for us to get used to it, but we haven’t really looked back since.

Step 1: Make a place to store all the things you’ll need to make it work.

You are gonna need a bounty (see what I did there?) of reusable napkins, rags, and towels. Decide before you start where you will store everything. This little number was less than $10 at Walmart.

Step 2: Make rags.

We cut up old, damaged, stained t-shirts to keep as rags for those spills and other things you really just want gone forever. I could go on, but really you know that some of life’s messiest messes aren’t even going in your laundry, they are going in the trash. You need these rags for those moments.

Step 3: Stockpile napkins, towels, and washcloths just for kitchen use.

How many you ask? Well, we have found our sweet spot to be enough napkins for each of us to use one at every meal for ONE FULL day. For our family of 7, that’s 21 napkins.

We had over 30 at one time but the current number is 28.

As for towels, this is the whole stack of 12.

We have 10 washcloths.

Step 4: Make sure your washing machine is good to go.

I’m just gonna spell it out. I do laundry every single day. If you don’t, you are gonna need to adjust your stockpile accordingly to your family and your laundry patterns. And please don’t tell me that there are people who don’t need to do laundry every day, it will just make me sad. Or throw a napkin at you.

You really don’t want to be stuck in an awkward situation where your friends or family are left high and so not dry. Like with salsa dribbling off their chins.

Step 5: Have at least SOME of your napkins available for your guests when they need them.

I’m still working on this one. Most of the times, it’s a Hunger Games-esque situation where guests are competing for the last napkin. Or just begging for one.

“Thanks for the salad! Let me see if I can cram a fourth of it into my mouth.”

“Is it too much to ask for a napkin?”

“Well, the 15 minutes it took you to find this didn’t seem long, AT ALL.”

So there you have it: A Lazy Girls’ Guide to Saving the World. One Paper Towel at a time. If your family size is in danger of tipping the scale from comfortable to catastrophic, it may be your best option short of a reaping every week. So just follow these simple steps to saving the world. Then you can be a super-hero. Like me.

-Erin

Pitch the paper towels. Then you can be a superhero. Like Erin.

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Catcrap Crazy Pintershizz on Pinterest

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What is it about cats that makes them synonymous with crazy? Is it their aloofness or their murderous tendencies? Is it merely because of the alliteration? The term “Crazy Cat Lady” rolls off the tongue while “Crazy Dog Woman” or “Crazy Gerbil Guy” aren’t even things. Well, the gerbil guy may be a thing, but we’re too afraid to Google it.

We’ve had our own run-ins with cat craziness. Heck, Erin can’t even keep the cats in her house straight. She had an imposter living with her for a while. Wait, does that qualify her as a Crazy Cat Lady or just crazy?

Either way, that story is not as crazy as some of the cat inspired items you can find on our pal Pinterest. That mess is just catcrap crazy pintershizz.

1. Let’s start with the cat crap.

We know people live in small spaces and want to hide the litter box, but this is how we see this one playing out . . .

Imagine a Norman Rockwell perfect holiday. Everyone has feasted and now the family has settled down to play Scrabble, but wait, there is a dispute over the word “scurrilities.” You, the host, jauntily proclaim, ” I cry foul! Spellcheck doesn’t even recognize it . . . FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, AUNT LINDA, THERE IS NO DICTIONARY IN THAT CABINET! PUT ON YOUR GLASSES!”

Source: betweennapsontheporch.net via Sisterhood on Pinterest

2. You need a sharp pencil to keep score.

After almost grabbing a handful of litter box party favors, imagine the hoot Aunt Linda will get when you send her to sharpen her pencil in this gem.

Source: fab.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

3. Tastefulness is key when decorating.

No one likes potty humor? Tell that to the whoopie cushion industry, but we can’t guarantee Aunt Linda will understand.

Source: consequentlyslapdash.blogspot.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

4. Continuing with the “Steal Your Soul” sub-theme.

Any ol’ (crazy) person can decorate in a cat theme, but it is the true genius who weaves a subtle sub-theme, drawing you in with its complexity. What would go better with the above demonic cat toilet seat than a Stepford Cat toilet brush holder? Buy a spare for Aunt Linda. She’ll enjoy the company when she visits the loo in the dark hours of the night.

Source: staringdown40.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

5. Taking it to the next level.

Anybody with money ~~to burn~~ can buy cat themed items, but those dedicated to their decorating make their own accessories. USING CAT HAIR. Imagine the chuckles “Allergic to Cats Aunt Linda” will enjoy when you tell her, “Sure I have Benadryl. It must be hard to see with your eyes swelling up like that, but it’s in the little box on the back of the toilet.” Wink, wink.

Source: etsy.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

(If you need more laughs today, please click on this pin to see the Etsy store for this!)

6. Maybe you should issue a warning.

If you had this doormat, maybe everyone wouldn’t be buggin’ and saying Aunt Linda’s trip to the ER was all your fault. Were you really to blame that she forgot her EpiPen?

Source: perpetualkid.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

7. Take your show on the road.

Maybe the problem is you’ve been hiding your light under a bushel basket. Let the world know you love cats and tell the haters to stop their wheezin’. (We are talking to you Aunt Linda.) Regardless, this accessory pumps up the “Meow Factor” of any outfit.

Source: pbase.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

8. Hold the phone!

Why carry around a facsimile when you can have a purse that is (almost) the real thing! Relax, it’s fake. Stop Googling Sarah McLAughlin phone number! Bonus: it won’t contribute to Aunt Linda’s anaphylaxis at all and she can stop muttering she’s writing you out of the will.

Source: lovelyish.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

9. When subtle isn’t enough.

May we suggest the Crazy Cat Lady uniform? Wouldn’t this be a great gift to cheer Aunt Linda up in the hospital? It’s better than flowers because you really have to be careful about people’s allergies. Apparently.

Source: tumblr.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

10. We feel like that outfit is missing something.

Fill in your own jokes, but don’t write them in the comments. Our kids read this blog. And Aunt Linda’s sense of humor seems to be on the fritz.

Source: romwe.polyvore.com via Sisterhood on Pinterest

Finally, Aunt Linda’s Revenge . . .

This is the only gift she’ll be giving you next year.

Source: ooh-shiny.net via Sisterhood on Pinterest

-Ellen and Erin

*No Aunt Lindas were actually harmed in the facetiousness of this post.

Laugh at the whole Pintershizz series here.

When Pinterest weirdness and crazy cat ladies collide, the Pintershizz will fly.

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Reflected Light: Seeing My Father in a New Way

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My father tells the worst jokes. Oh, and he has never met a pun he didn’t like. He also wears dark socks with cut-offs, is prone to reading the rules of board games, and thinks that Berger cookies are a legitimate food group. My dad is, in short, a bit of a disaster.

I am only telling you all this as full disclosure though. I’m about to get all kinds of sappy about him now. It would be a disservice to my dad if I didn’t throw the glaring in with the glowing. To really appreciate the true measure of the man, you have to see him from all sides, right? Well, the truth is that being my father’s daughter means that I know I was born under a lucky moon.

Check out my ironclad arguments.

Exhibit A: He sends packages like this one every week to my kids.

Exhibit B: He foots the bill for a family vacation every year.

Exhibit C: He bought himself a little shore house so we can keep making the family memories.

Call this one Portrait of the Young Men Jumping . . . Into 50 degree water

My dad also remembers every name, child, and birthday of nearly everyone he has ever met. He sends birthday cards, remembers to make the check-in phone calls I always forget to make, and extends the small gestures that distinguish the truly benevolent from the merely nice. I know my dad is a kind, generous, and considerate person. But being close to someone sometimes makes them hard to see. Sometimes, like actual moons, you can only truly see a person in reflected light.

Last summer, my family received an invitation to an award ceremony for my dad.

Despite the fact that I would be driving four hours round trip in one day to be there, the only thing I regret is that I didn’t drag the rest of my crew along with me. If and when you get the opportunity to hear people speak about someone you love, run, don’t walk there, and grab a front row seat.

My father’s day job is a Circuit Court judge. It’s a career that appeals to his innate sense of justice, rewards his sharp mind, and jives nicely with his natural proclivity towards reading all the rulebooks. He might be a pain in the ass to play Monopoly with, but he is a damn fine justice. This night and this award, however, was honoring some of the work he was doing on the side.

This is what it looks like when the family takes over your courtroom.

It turns out that my father isn’t just committed to my family but to the very concept of family itself. He doesn’t just love and protect his own children but commits himself to the safety and protection of all young people. In addition to his day job, my father was instrumental in bringing mediation into family law in our town. Broken families were given an instrument for putting the pieces back together and that had everything to do with my dad. That reflected light was looking pretty bright.

But there was more. Under his leadership, Family Services created a Pro Se clinic where families were empowered to create their own agreements. He also created a court roster of mediators who could be called on to help settle disputes through mediation. I was practically basking in his glow and this was just from reading the program.

Then his friends, colleagues, and some of the beneficiaries of his good work started talking. Of all the things we might wish for in our life, to be spoken of fondly by our friends should be at the top of that list. I wasn’t surprised by their sentiments so much as touched deeply by them. They knew my father in a different and profound way. But more beautiful and instructive than the words they used were the way they spoke them.

With joy. With warmth. With light.

And so the night continued with its special glow. My brother, my mother, and I were so touched by the well-wishers who waited for the chance to tell all of us just how important his work had been in their lives. People from all stages of my father’s career came out to honor the role he had played in their lives and in their careers.

These are just some of the people who have clerked for my father over the years.

Even with his bad jokes, my dad can work a room.

Now, several months later, I still hold the memory of that night close. I love my funny, sweet, generous dad just the way I have always known him, black socks and all. But I cherish seeing him, even for one night, the way others see him, as a man of honor, character, and wisdom. It’s just another way I truly know I was born under that lucky moon.

-Erin

Sometimes we can’t truly see those we love until we see them through others’ eyes.

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Lean In is So Last Year: The Real Lessons For Our Daughters

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Last summer, Leaning In was the “new black” of attitudes and catchphrases. God bless Sheryl Sandberg for kicking over the proverbial corporate ladder–women are not limited to one straight shot to the top.

We girls are creative, we can forge our own path. Think of it like swinging from a jungle gym–there are different pathways and places to play for everyone. And the best part? You don’t have to be on the playground alone. According to Sandberg, the way to the top is with your sister girlfriends in hand, or in circles as she likes to put it.

Well, we saw the power of a posse play out on the runway of this summer’s BlogU Conference:

Leaning In and Leaning On Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Erin: Yeah, we brought out the bold for that sentiment.

Ellen: Although, now I kind of have the quippy sharks from Finding Nemo running through my head: “Fish are friends, not food.”

Erin: You know what? That works, too. You don’t have to devour another woman or bite a chunk out of her mojo to make yourself look better. As the idiom goes, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Ellen: And that is what the BlogU conference personified in spades . . . or oars or whatever will keep this metaphor going.

Erin: But don’t turn away, non-bloggers! These are NOT blogging truths. These are lessons that every woman needs: Collaboration is good . . .

Ellen: And absolutely possible. As part of the BlogU faculty we were lucky enough to be in the test lab that proves women can work together without ego, manipulation, or power-gaming.

Erin: We saw it happen. With thirty-six women. I mean just look at us.

Okay, this is some of the women. We can collaborate, but darn it if we can be on time for a picture. You can see the full BlogU Faculty here.

Ellen: And behold . . .

Real Lessons For Our Daughters

Some are silly, some are serious, but as we like to say, “Sensible and funny are not mutually exclusive.”

1. You can make your dream happen.

Lean In is So Last Year: The Real Lessons for Our Daughters - Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

Meredith from Mom of the Year (she did so much work!) and Stephanie from Binkies and Briefcases. (Photo by Motherhood, WTF?)

It’s great to dream, but action is what changes your life and the lives of those around you. Stephanie Giese from Binkies and Briefcases is the mastermind and owner of BlogU. She went from “You guys, I’ve always wanted to create a blog conference” to “I’ve booked us a space” to “Wow, that just happened” in less than a year. Many hours in between were spent herding cats. Yeah, we just referred to the lovelies above dressed in retro threads for the NickMom prom as unruly cats, but they know it’s true. Especially Karen Alpert from Baby Sideburns. See if you can pick her out in the picture above. Just give it a try. Oh heck, we’ll just lean in and help you out.

Eye of the Tiger

2. Making dreams happen is a lot of work.

“That just happened,” doesn’t just happen. Planning, striving, and putting in the hours is required. Each of the women on our keynote panel has “made it” in the blogging/writing world, but they nakedly shared just how much work their successes required. It could be said that they had some breaks, but what they actually did was make their own luck. Then they put their noses to the grindstone to capitalize on it. They did not just dabble, they cannonballed into their dreams.

People I Want to Punch in the Throat, Mommy Shorts, Baby Sideburns, Divine Secrets of a Domestic Diva

3. Buuuttt, there’s always room for silliness and fun.

You can be a powerhouse but still kick back and have a good time. Movers and shakers sometimes just have to, well, shake it. There is a definite confidence required to be silly. Silliness is what lightens spirits and binds girlfriends together. It is what you can hold in your heart to get you through rougher times.

This is a collage of blogging fabulousity. Just note, the chick with the pink bow is Ellen. Here’s the rest: Rants from Mommyland, Hollow Tree Ventures, Nicole Leigh Shaw, Kelley’s Break Room, House TalkN, You Know It Happens at Your Too, My Life and Kids, Kissing the Frog, Frugalista Blog, There’s More Where That Came From

4. You can relive your youth.

But there will be one difference . . . you’ll be free from the apprehensions and turmoil of youth so it can be even better. There is nothing more attractive than confidence.

Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms - Friends Let Friends Let The 80s Happen

Kelley from Kelley’s Break Room and Kerry from House TalkN are masters of transformation.

And if your prom dress still fits, it makes it even easier to relive the glory . . . or live something even better.

Last century’s bad teen attitude boosted Janel from 649.133: Girls, the Care and Raising Of. to today’s prom queen.

5. Sometimes it is freeing to just be with the girls.

It feeds your soul to hang out with your girlfriends. And we’ll take that one step further with a secret that took us 20 odd years to realize: Prom is better without the guys. All you really want to do is dance in a circle with your friends. NickMom was generous enough to give us our own prom where we made that happen. We love our husbands, don’t get us wrong, but a fun night out with the girls can be a very good thing.

The Faculty, Ellen dancing with Kelley from Kelley’s Break Room and Anna from My Life and Kids, and Amy from Funny is Family striking a pose.

6. Patting someone on the back is better than stabbing them there.

There is a whole lot of room at the top. Check out all the boys stretched out there enjoying themselves. If we want a Barcalounger there too, we need to help each other out and acknowledge the girls who are getting it done. Giving someone credit for her hard work does not diminish your accomplishments. And if she has what you want? Work for it! Save the petty jealousies for reality TV.

But “having your back” does not protect you from photobombs. Nor does it mean Erin gets help carrying heavy boxes when her friends are cutely dressed. There are limits. The crew: Anna from Random Handprints, Kerry from House TalkN, Karen from Baby Sideburns, Courtney from Our Small Moments, Anna from My Life and Kids, Jessica from Four Plus an Angel.

7. Get out of your comfort zone.

Sometimes we convince ourselves to think small, dream small, speak small. When you start out dreaming of going to the moon; don’t talk yourself out of it. Sure it can all be scary, but that’s why you hold hands before you jump.

So if your friend jumped off a bridge . . .

And never let yourself get too comfortable resting on your laurels. You are never too accomplished to accomplish something new. Keep leaping. Ilana from Mommy Shorts overcame her fear of public speaking at BlogU . . . and she enjoyed it. Prepare. Breathe. Leap.

Ilana felt so freed she ditched her cocktail dress and borrowed this polyester dream. Refer to point #3.

And last but not least . . .

8. Cupcakes are exciting at any age.

And good girlfriends tell you when you have frosting on your face. Never, ever, never, sweet daughters, forgo an opportunity to have that cupcake, to take that break. Enjoy the sweetness and enjoy the laughs.

Erin and Toulouse and Tonic. Even ladies will tear into a good cupcake.

So thank you Sheryl Sandberg for getting us all riled up last summer. When we made it to BlogU this year, we saw for ourselves that leaning in and leaning on are not mutually exclusive. There’s nothing sweeter than the taste of success especially when you got there with your friends. That might be the only thing that trumps cupcakes.

-Erin and Ellen

Lean In is So Last Year: The 8 Real Lessons For Our Daughters

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7 Delicious Summer Recipes to Be Excited About

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We’re summer girls, so we are super-excited to say this: Summer is here! Even if our kids are a little confused, we know exactly what this means: food, fun, and lots of free time!

We need good eats to power us through all this fun!

In addition to pulling out the flip-flops and trading in our jam-packed schedules for some lazy-hazy days, we are also psyched to get our summer eats on! These recipes are perfect for any day of the season. So whether we are chilling out after any of our adventures in surf and sand, catching up with old friends, or just enjoying a lovely evening at home, these 7 delicious summer recipes showcase the best of the season and are a surefire hit every time.

1. Caprese Salad-on-a-Stick

This is one of Erin’s favorite summer potluck dishes. She takes it to nearly every party and it gets gobbled up in no time flat. These are super-easy to assemble and deliver big on flavor, but they are best with fresh in-season tomatoes and basil. So pull up a chair, put on your favorite tunes, and get toothpicking.

2. Red Sangria

Ellen dreamed up this lovely cocktail to complement all of the yummy eats she serves at her annual Labor Day party. It is so good you’ll want to make it for special occasions all year long, but this IS summer’s drink with all of the fresh fruit and its reputation as the most perfect chilled cocktail ever. So grab this recipe for your own summer shindig.

3. Watermelon Salsa

This salsa tastes like summer in a bowl which means that when you make it out of season, it tastes like . . . well, a refrigerated truck from Sausalito. Fresh watermelon is one of the keys to this nearly perfect recipe for salsa. So vow to make some this summer. It’s a promise you’ll be glad you kept.

4. Whiskey Sour Slush

Erin’s family keeps a batch in the freezer all summer long. It’s the perfect frozen drink and our friends request big batches for all summer parties. Now we are sharing her dad Ed’s recipe for all the world to see. Just make sure that you thank him next time you see him around. We actually DO make this drink year round, but it just tastes the best on a hot day in the summer. Go figure.

5. Eastern Shore Crab Cakes with a Twist

We’re both Maryland girls, so we grew up eating the blue crabs every summer, but Ellen is a legit Eastern Shore chick. This recipe might cause a minor uproar as she deviates from the traditional much-beloved recipe, but it’s such a delicious variation that we think you’ll agree that she is more than forgiven for taking her liberties.

6. Steamed Crabs

But we like our crabs straight up too. Whether you flavor them with a little Old Bay or a little Kosher Salt and Cayenne Pepper, a crab feast is the epitome of a Maryland summer. . . just make sure they’re steamed. Boiling? ::shudder::

And if you are old enough to hold a crayon, you are going learn how to pick your own crabs. Even if your Mom and Dad moved you to Pittsburgh.

7. Gazpacho

We are just gonna say it out loud: Tomatoes have got one season and this is it. When they have to travel from afar to get to your table, they get all petulant and put out and don’t taste anything like their wonderful, flavorful cousins who ripened on your vine this summer. If your garden is overflowing with these gems, then we can help you spin your gold into something really useful . . . like gazpacho.

Make sure you make some of these before it’s too late!

-Erin and Ellen

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Check out our books, “I Just Want to Be Alone” and “You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth.”

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What is Wrong With People? P.S. Suck It Mean Girls

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We interrupt this normally even-keeled blog for a good old fashioned rant.

Erin: “Raise your hand if you’ve been victimized by Regina George.”

Ellen: Are you quoting movies again?

Erin: It seemed like the perfect place for a Mean Girls reference. In any case, it’s high time for everybody to step back, take a deep breath, and knock this shizz off.

STOP BEING MEAN TO EACH OTHER, GIRLS!

Ellen: The basic sentiment is simple. We can all be pretty and smart and accomplished. All at the same time. Young ladies, you do not have to put anyone down to make yourself feel better.

Erin: There’s room for everyone at the table of awesome. Just concentrate on polishing your own star or, as we like to say, swim in your own lane. Concentrate on being the best you.

Ellen: What a wonderful world this would be if everyone just concentrated on their own character development. And while we’re at it, I am calling out all of the Mean Girls on that weapon of mass destruction known as exclusion. Maybe, maaaayyybeeee, in the olden days, like 1987, excluding someone was a quiet sort of maneuver, but . . .

Erin: “I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school. I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy.”

Ellen: Who thinks middle school is all rainbows??

Erin: Sorry, I slipped into another movie quote. Bad habit. But who are you kidding? We had whispering and passed notes back in the days before digital media and social sharing. Burn books were real.

Ellen: That’s right, those wonderful group project scrapbooks crafted to puts others down. Like Facebook, but with scissors and glue sticks.

Erin: Unfortunately, excluding a girl from a party or event or even a super-fun-joy-joy activity like making a burn book has never been a secret hazing. Shoot, they probably snickered about Gertrude being excluded from the quilting bee via smoke signals out on the prairie wagon trail.

Ellen: True, but in this age of social media, exclusion can be executed like a surgical strike to the heart via Instagram. So suck it Mean Girls.

Erin: But you know what? Mean Girls don’t corner the market on crappy behavior. There are also Mean Women.

Ellen: You’re right! But not just females either! Everyone gets a place in our burn book . . . I mean blog post. I find myself saying five times a day: WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Erin: I am so tired of the insincere use of polite catchphrases to make rude behavior acceptable. We need a call to action, like maybe a Stop the Rudeness Campaign.

Ellen: I’m feeling a list coming on . . .

Things That Have the Trappings of Politeness But Are as Worthless as a Screen Door on a Submarine When Only Used as a Cover to Forge Ahead with Rude Behavior

Erin: Yeah, that is pretty long. How about . . .

Stop Using Polite Catchphrases to Cover Rude Behavior

Ellen: I guess that works too. But if you are trying for brevity, maybe “Stop the Rudeness Campaign” would be better. Just sayin’.

Erin: And that leads us to our first point, Ladies and Gentlemen . . .

1. The Just Sayin’/No Offense/In My Opinion Trifecta

C’mon. If any one of these disclaimers passes your lips or ends your status updates, you might as well be giving someone the bird. If you have been isolated from pop culture sarcasm because you live on the frozen tundra of Greenland, there is nothing polite or good that has come before or after these phrases. They are the call words of the passive aggressive.

Even Ross was more subtle . . . just sayin’.

2. The Excuse Me/Push Through Maneuver

This one needs to be explained . . . thoroughly. If you need to move past someone or reach past someone, you say “Excuse me” then wait for it. Literally. The “Excuse me” is the signal to the other person to accommodate you. YOU need to get your panties out of a twist and WAIT for them to react. “Excuse me” isn’t a pleasantry if you are bleating it as you knock someone over like it’s a Black Friday sale, even if it is a Black Friday sale. Ellen fell victim to this many times while she was on crutches. It’s amazing how so few people realize that crutches can instantly become bludgeoning sticks.

Why is Ellen smiling? Rude justice may or may not have just been served.

3. The Doorbell Blitzkrieg

If you ring someone’s doorbell you have to give them more than two seconds to get to the door before you start tapping out Morse code like you’re on the Titanic. Unless it’s a yurt; but then why would they have a doorbell? And while we’re pondering questions, why don’t you join the 21st century, stand on their doormat, and just text them that you’re there like a civilized person? Sheesh.

Ellen: Whew! Felt good to get that out there.

Erin: Nothing like clearing the air to give yourself some breathing room.

Ellen: That just leaves one more thing: Good day and namaste.

Erin: Oh, and what would you add to our Stop the Rudeness Campaign?

Stop the Rudeness Campaign! Stop using polite catchphrases to cover rude behavior. #humor

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Block, Spot, and Stop Skin Cancer

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If I had to choose a food to play me in my Food Network biography, Swiss Cheese would be reclining on the casting couch. She’d be dressed in just a whisper of Dijon mustard and accessorized by some lovely capers.

Yes, this is the time of day when I desperately need a snack, but more importantly it’s the time of year when I get my semi-annual skin check. With my freckled, fair complexion and decades of inadequate SPF leading to major childhood sunburns, each visit to my dermatologist becomes a rousing game of Whack-A-Mole. I’m currently sporting three biopsy sites, hence my Swiss Cheese casting call.

But a pound of prevention is worth ounces of flesh, especially when that flesh is ugly brown moles. I use my skin checks as opportunities to remind my friends and the internet to do it too. I didn’t earn the preventive medicine award at my medical school graduation for nothing.

One friend replied, “Don’t worry. I go to play the death sentence roulette every year.”

I replied, “Great, wait, wh-what!?!”

She explained, “I know there are different types of skin cancer, but I feel if they tell me I have melanoma, they’ll just be telling me how long I have left to spend with my kids.”

This woman is a smart cookie, how could she be missing the prevention part of the equation? Well, queries to friends and Facebook revealed she was not alone, but while her worry was distressing, at least she was getting checked. The answers that rocked me to my clinician core were the “Why bothers?”

Somewhere between “tanning beds are evil” and “sunscreen saves lives,” the message that skin checks are a staunch line of defense AGAINST death from melanoma has gotten lost.

Now is a great time to get your skin checked. Prevention and early detection stop skin cancer. Block, Spot, Stop, Skin Cancer | Health | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

THE REASON FOR DERMATOLOGIST SKIN CHECKS: So moles may be removed BEFORE they become cancerous and melanomas are found so early they can be CURED by excision.

Did you get the prevented and cured part? Good. Now embrace the dermatologist part because self-checks are not enough. Unless you are way better at yoga than me, I can only view about 50% of my body. Even if I could check out my own derriere, it wouldn’t matter because when I tested myself on 28 pictures of moles, I only picked the cancer four times. And, remember, I have an M.D.

So here is how you sleep at night. Go to your dermatologist and become familiar with your baseline. From that point on, look for the “ugly duckling” or the mole that doesn’t belong. Moles grouped together generally look alike, but you can have more than one pattern present on your body–for example, a dark pattern and a lighter pattern. Look for the odd duck in a grouping: a reddish one appearing in a cluster of dark ones or a black one appearing in a pattern of light tan ones. Take note and call your doctor if you see anything new or find a mole with irregular borders, scaling, bleeding, or itching.

You can also test your skin cancer IQ here.

When it comes to skin cancer, prevention is key.

Stay covered up with hats, shirts, and sunglasses. There is great SPF protective clothing out there now. Find some here.
Slather on sunscreen of at least SPF 15. This means applying the equivalent of a shot glass (two tablespoons) to your face and body, and reapplying at least every two hours.
Avoid sun exposure between 10 am and 2 pm.
Never use tanning beds.

However, the skin cancer you get today is from the exposure you had in your past. So have you scheduled that professional skin check yet? If you are still not convinced, here are a seven reasons to make that appointment today.

Now is a great time to get your skin checked. Prevention and early detection stop skin cancer. Block, Spot, Stop, Skin Cancer | Health | Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

In the meantime, use measures to block the rays, self-exam and make your appointment to spot the “ugly duckling”, and know that prevention can stop skin cancer.

Now, embrace that pale is healthy and looking like Swiss Cheese for a few weeks is worth years with your family and friends.