23 March, 2012 | 2 Comments

Internet party at your house – thoughts

If you thought you liked my entertaining tips, you’ll love my style tips. I’m guest editing the Style United Facebook page.

Tips focus on inner beauty, time saving beauty shortcuts and vintage style.
(All the things I love the most.)

I’ve been slowly going through my archives and finding all kinds of gems.

Like this Thai Soup Recipe, and this Pad Thai Recipe and this poem I wrote the weekend I met James.

I’m so happy I have a record of these moments. And as I’ve been all mentally jammed up when it comes to this site, especially after working for the place that matches up brands with online authors.

Brands need great writers.
Great writers need income.
I help match them up and it’s rewarding with a big R.

But like I said, my motivations with this site got all… stuck.

So I’m keeping helenjane.com as our record of my life, the way it was before, the way I used it in the beginning. A digital record of my life since I was TWENTY ONE. Let’s hope I have it until I’m ninety nine. It’s a record. A big R Record.

Ha! Those big R’s reminds me that Nora Lea’s preschool class is working their way through the alphabet week by week. (The alphabet! Already!)

Signs hang in their classroom over the past year that say:

DON’T FORGET YOUR C WORD.
THIS WEEK WE COVER ALL F WORDS.
etc.

So I laugh and feel uncomfortable and wish we had better euphemisms for words that are symbols of real things.

In short:
Style United
Favorite old posts
The C Word

15 March, 2012 | Comment

Crepe paper flower crown

Thanks to the inspiring Cakies, I made a floral fairy crown for my beloved Nora Lea.

We followed her directions all the way to jubilant imperfection.

And now one little forest nymph wears her crowning decoration.

14 March, 2012 | 4 Comments

We have kites to make.

Hey mama! Let’s make a kite!

Uh, kite?
Like, the kind in Mary Poppins?
Like the big diamond shape that you need a big field for?

No! a KITE.
The kind you make with a grocery bag and yarn.

Oh, a KITE.
A kite with a grocery bag and yarn.
A BAG!
YES! I can DO THAT!

Criminally easy, right?

Tied one end of a piece of yarn to one handle of the bag.
Tied the other end of THAT SAME piece of yarn to the other handle of the bag.

Ran around like fools for at LEAST 37 minutes.
You could use 37 minutes, couldn’t you?

I thought you could.

Now let’s fly some kites!

5 March, 2012 | 4 Comments

Baby, be righteous

First attempt at a blanket fortress this weekend found Papa a primo nap spot and Dottie a place to complete her Sudoku puzzles.

I started the herculean task of cleaning up my archives. I was so happy to find the illustrated alphabet project I completed for Nora Lea when I was pregnant with her.

Favorites include:
Dichotomy, Date Night, Doodling
Interested, Inspiration, Idle
Martyr, Mealtime, Mantras
Useful, Unique, Ubiquitous

Amazing, how much the state of blogging changes.

Back in 2008, it was so much different.
Much different than in 2002.
Than in 2010.

Funny for me to see how few posts back then actually had imagery. Our meager download speeds couldn’t manage the giant image-based posting that is normal today.

Now, it’s so different.
Providing Value and Authenticity and a Personal Lens But Always Remember Your Brand.

Now, you must be a category expert as well as a coder, writer, Photoshop expert, photography and graphics expert, content strategist, you must be camera ready, articulate and infinitely friendly but not a bath mat. You must have numbers you don’t know you have to have on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Spotify, Rdio and you better not give us Too Much Information (that’s just gross). You must not say yes too often and never without payment but if you say no, you are probably unkind. At the same time, there’s a hungry peanut gallery, dying to criticize your every move, or worse, they have no idea you exist.

We demand a lot from our bloggers.

I’m cutting you a break, you blogging minxes, you.
Take a deep breath and tell your story and know you’re doing a-okay by me.
Grin.

Ooh! And if you want to know more about money and blogging and maximizing and all the official stuff I do with my day job, I’m speaking at the Mom 2.0 Summit. It’s a gorgeous event, I chalk it up to that other blogging minx Laura Mayes knowing her details.

(Let’s drink something slushy on a beach together and celebrate your blog.)

28 February, 2012 | 2 Comments

Conn Creek’s Premier Napa Valley Party

Paul’s a master party thrower.
He knows what the people want, he delivers.
At this year’s Premier Party, there was an old Hollywood band, perfect lamb chops and a really tasty barrel lot for the sampling.