Save Money to Earn Money: A Sense for Savings

I've started a new blog on how to save money to earn money.  As Benjamin Franklin says, "A penny saved is a penny earned."  Check it out and sign up for email updates.  I will shared tips I've used to save money during this recession.  I have a huge list that keeps growing every week!  Sensible savings is becoming a huge part of our family's budget management.  Hopefully it can help you, too.   It is called Sense for Savings.  For the first entry, A Penny Earned, visit here: http://senseforsavings.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-penny-earned.html

King of the Sketch

I was recently with a 13 year old girl whom I love very much and admire tremendously.   She is shrouded in privacy, so I can't reveal who she is to me.  But I can say that she is an amazing artist who gets better by the minute, because she literally draws every second she possibly can.  I've seen her even use a scrap piece of paper and the bottom of her shoe as a drafting table.  Whenever something is in her head, she just has to get it out.  I wish I could show you one of her drawings, but she is extremely protective with them and only lets a lucky few see them.  I am one of the lucky ones who are blessed and inspired by her tenacious drawing produces.
On a recent trip home, I found myself with a ton of time to on my hands.  I watched her no-stop sketching and decided to pick up a pencil and pad myself.  I haven't sketched in several years, even though I have been painting.  It was so relaxing to watch the pencil move quickly but cautiously across the page.  Scribble here. Line there.  Should this be darker?  Does that look weird?  His nose is too long.  The shadow is wrong.  It was a process that took me right into the present.
I don't necessarily think this lion sketch is the greatest.  But it does represent a moment in time where I let loose for an hour and just let the lead flow.  I have found myself sketching a bit more---mostly basic apples, spheres, bowls of eggs--mainly to study the importance of lights and darks to apply to my painting.  You can't feel the depth of a pig's eye socket or the meaty nose of a cow without the highlights and the shadows.
I guess there is something to that theory in life: putting together our bright times and dark times to create a whole, solid life that looks like you could actually touch it.  Enjoy your moment: now.  www.TracieSeedArt.com

Occupation: Mother

The following is a speech I made at my son Dakota's christening in 1999. It was Labor Day Weekend and the pastor asked several people to talk about their professions. Among the executive, the fireman, the accountant, there I was with leaking breasts and spit up on my shoulder. Though I am terrified to speak in public, I was proud to do it on such a special day for our family. Through streaming tears and shaking hands, this is what I said:

When I filled out my son Dakota’s information sheet at his first pediatrician’s visit, beside the words “Mother’s Occupation” I carefully printed “M-o-t-h-e-r” without a moment’s thought. The Doctor, upon reviewing our records, commented that “at-home-moms” usually write N/A or the word “none” in that space and that I was the first to write “Mother.”

What more of a nobler and prestigious profession is there other than Mother? Without Mothers, none of you would be here. There would be no Abraham Lincoln, no Mother Theresa, no Frank Sinatra, and no Pastor Linda. Every world or religious leader has a mother. Every policeman, actor, teacher, CEO, nurse has a mother.

Each day I look at my son’s hands and think of how much potential they possess. I watch him learning how they work, how he can hold things and manipulate toys. Each day I tell him that he will do great things with those hands—wonderful, beautiful things. He can bring peace with those hands, write the next best novel of his time, hold his baby with those hands—and if my husband has anything to do with it, be the next Tiger Woods.

In Gensis 1:26, God says, “Let Us make man in Our image according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” A perfect job for a little boy don’t you think? Like God in many ways “Dakota, has the whole world in his hands”—the power to create and destroy, the power to love and nurture. And I, his mother, with the hand and grace of God, am there to help guide and direct those little fingers to greatness.

So for me, my boardroom is the nursery, my bargaining table is the changing table. I negotiate nap times, schedule feedings, and stock up on diapers. I’m honored to have the profession of Mother.