Drops of Awesome – The Book – Coming Soonish

Posted on October 8, 2013 by The Daring One

I’m thrilled, in that YayButOhWOWIHaveTonsOfWorkToDo sort of way, to announce that I just signed on with California-based publisher Familius to create a book based on the ideas in my blog post, Drops of Awesome. I cannot think of a better partner for this project. They are amazing!

Here’s me signing the digital contract with the help of my closest advisors minus one because he’s manning the camera. And when I say “manning”? Yow! You’ll have to take my word for it.

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The post, based on inspiration that has helped me change my entire outlook on life, resonated with a bucket-load of people around the world and your stories and kind words have really informed the direction I’ve decided to go with the project. There were a ton of options and I considered each one over the past year and tried writing a couple of them.

Christopher Robbins of Familius first contacted me back in January, interested in having me write for their website and possibly pursue a book project. Familius is a new publisher with its sole mission being to help families be happy. I loved the idea and it jives with what I aim for here on DaringYoungMom.com, but I wasn’t sure about the project. Drops of Awesome has a lot of religious significance for me personally, and their company does not cater to a religious audience. They believe that all families are important and that there are universal practices that can help make all people happier. I believe this too, but I just didn’t know how to separate Drops of Awesome from its religious underpinnings or if I even wanted to.

So we exchanged a few emails and when he told me that they were branching out into children’s fiction, I sent him pages from my completed YA Novel Dark Bird and my Middle Grade work in progress.

Six months passed.

I continued being Awesome. A bit. Drop by drop.

I spoke about Drops of Awesome at women’s events large and small in Oregon and Washington and had a blast doing it, meeting new people and hearing their stories. Interestingly, I heard from agnostics and atheists in person and online who were just as enthused about incorporating Drops of Awesome into their lives as any of the Christians who’d read it.

I worked on a Drops of Awesome book in its various forms and started to feel stuck. The religious version of the book was not going well. I sounded like a bit of a wind-bag, honestly. It’s a small idea and I was trying too hard.

Then, out of nowhere, Christopher from Familius emailed to set up a phone conversation about my fiction. As we discussed the work I’d sent him and I got a better idea of their mission and the work they do, I told him I was open to discussing a Drops of Awesome project. I’d been feeling more and more like it was something I could and should open up to a broader audience.

He suggested that I consider writing it as a journal or gift book.

Hmmm.

We agreed that I’d mull it over and get back to him in two weeks with a proposal. As soon as I started working on Drops of Awesome as a journal, things started flowing. Suddenly, it wasn’t me writing a book, preaching at you. It was me co-authoring a book WITH you. I’d share ideas and then invite you to share your own. Rather than being a book for you to sit down and read passively, it was becoming a well for you to draw from, but also a bucket where you could capture all of your Awesome, a journey of self-discovery for both of us.

Design is really important to me and having a book that looks fresh and feels good to hold, manipulate and write in is crucial. Before we negotiated a contract, we negotiated paper samples. It had to feel right and be writable on-able. It had to fit in your purse.

Most of the ideas behind Drops of Awesome are universal, regardless of your background or beliefs. These concepts resonate with people from every walk of life because we have more in common than we have differences. We all have important missions to fulfill in our lives. We are all uniquely qualified to achieve our highest personal goals. But, we also all fall prey to many of the same destructive thought patterns.

-Many of us obsess over and wish we could change the past, but we can’t.
-Too many of us spend too much time listening to that voice inside our heads telling us we’re not good enough, that our best efforts are failures because the one thing we’re not doing is the only thing that matters.
-We verbally abuse ourselves in ways we would never think about using on others.

If the entire world would adopt an attitude of living in the moment, putting our best foot forward one tiny Drop at a time and then celebrating those efforts, the entire world would change for the better.

So, what I’ve come up with is a concept for a book that will be interactive, playful, and hopefully as life-changing for you as getting to this point has been for me.

The book is set to release in Fall of 2014 and I’m excited to share it with you! In the meantime, I will be blogging here and at Familius.com about the concepts in the book and the progress of the project. I have also created a resource page on this blog for my LDS readers, who want to experience Drops of Awesome through the lens of spiritual belief.

Go forth! Be AWESOME!

Posted in all about me, aspirations, Blogging, work, writing | 17 Comments

It’s All Fun and Games Until…

Posted on October 3, 2013 by The Daring One

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Posted in family fun, kid stuff, near-death | 1 Comment

What Story Will You Tell the World Before You Leave it?

Posted on October 3, 2013 by The Daring One

I’m not dying. Or, more correctly, I’m dying very slowly. I should make it in 60 years or so. But I do think about life and death a lot. My grandma recently passed away and I have a cousin a couple of years older than me who’s battling cancer (AND WILL WIN!).

I think about how precious time is and how much I have to learn and to say and I hope that I get it all said before I turn ninety-five and slump over gracefully in my sea kayak at the exact same time as Dan and our spirits sail off into the great hereafter together.

Some people know they won’t make it to 95. Some won’t make it to 15 or 7. And they know it. That’s why I love the Red Fred Project by Dallas Graham. It’s a collaborative, story-making endeavor to design and publish 50 books created by 50 children with critical illnesses across the 50 states. It is a magical process and they need your help!

You can’t not donate after watching that video. Am I right?

It’s a labor of love to help these precious kids share the stories that are inside of them. The books are beautiful and well-designed and all proceeds from the sale of each book go towards the medical expenses of each child. Here’s more from the website:

“Why are we doing this? Most of these children will not become fire-fighters, doctors, cheerleaders, vets, baristas, teachers, Olympic hopefuls or college students that pal around eating pizza until 2:30 a.m. in their dorm rooms. Due to their illnesses and physical challenges, some of these children will not live long, cannot move as others do, and have unique ways of interacting and operating in the everyday world. But what these children DO HAVE is star-dust material—these children have creative, powerful, inventive minds and spirits. They know incredible things BECAUSE of their life challenges. I want to know how they view the world and help them create an original, one-of-a-kind book, publish it, place it in the child’s hands and say, ‘Way to go! You’ve published a story; you’ve created a book.'”

This Kickstarter project has only TEN days left and has not raised nearly enough money to be funded. If you or anyone you know has even an extra dollar to donate to keep this project going, please consider making a donation. These kids are worth it.

Posted in beauty, get serious, writing | 2 Comments

Just Draw a Doggone Dragon

Posted on September 26, 2013 by The Daring One

For the first time ever, Magoo has a teacher who is requiring participation in the PTA art competition, Reflections. It’s always been optional for him in the past and when he said he wasn’t interested, I said a quiet prayer of thanks not to have one more thing to mount on styrofoam board and told him that was just fine with me.

Laylee, on the other hand, ALWAYS does reflections. Sometimes she does art, sometimes poetry, and one year she composed a song because, “Hardly anyone does songs, Mom. I decided this was the easiest way to make it to State.” This year, she is using the shotgun approach, entering a piece in pretty much every artistic discipline.

Then there’s Magoo. I asked him what he wants to do and he said, “Make a movie.”

Now, I majored in film in college and still aspire to pick up where I left off and direct documentaries when I grow up, after my kids grow up. However, I was not thrilled with this choice. There are a few reasons for this.

1. The entry is due in four weeks.
2. He has never shot footage of anything other than his own tonsils as he pretends to eat the video camera.
3. He has never used video editing software before.
4. And this is the big one – HE WANTS THE FILM TO BE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT OUR FAMILY A CAPELLA GROUP.

We love a capella. Our whole family loves it. We have not been able to get enough of Vocal Point since they were on The Sing-Off. (GO COUGS!)

And every time we listen to one of their songs and my sweet, adorable and betimes suspiciously-close-to-tone-deaf children sing along with the various parts, I talk about how one day we will have our own VonThompson Family A Capella group. I’m a little bit serious about this, but mostly kidding and I don’t dwell too much on logistics, like the fact that all the females in our family are altos or four-year-olds, and all the males in our family are Dan and Magoo.

Magoo can do a mean hi-hat sound and his beatbox skills grow stronger every day… but the actual formation of the group at this juncture is premature at best, deranged at worst. Making a documentary about the process, which ends with a video of our family performing an a capella version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller? Where all filming, editing, and planning needs to be done by this person?

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Oh, sweet mercy!

The problem is not that it will be bad and he’ll feel rejected when he doesn’t make it to State. The problems is that it will be what it will be and he will make it to state because what other third grader is making a film OF THEIR NON-EXISTENT FAMILY A CAPELLA GROUP for their project when they could do a pencil sketch of a dragon and put their dear mother out of her misery?

And I should be excited about this. I majored in docu-freakin-mentary film production, for the love of Pete’s Humongous Reptile! Alas. I am not.

But when I tried to dissuade him, he shed tears, like actual moisture dripping from his ocular cavities. Now, what can I do? What would Martin Scorsese’s mom have done? I guess I teach him how to storyboard and get Wanda into some emergency voice lessons. She turned four earlier this month. Maybe she could be our soprano.

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Posted in aspirations, documentary, education, family fun, film | 3 Comments

Beautiful

Posted on August 28, 2013 by The Daring One

Today, as we’re leaving the soccer field, he asks if he can play at the skate park on the way home. He asks this most days after soccer practice and I always say no. Sometimes we’re in a rush to get somewhere. Usually we’re hungry, and generally there are a slew of tweenish and teenish boys and their female hangers-on doing cool tricks, smoking, and proving that they’re hardcore by dropping f-bombs as frequently as possible.

*Disclaimer – I am sure there are other lovely young people at the park skating, humming Taylor Swift songs, and saying things like “gosh” and “shucks,” and shunning all legal addictive substances, but they just don’t pick up as loudly on my Parental Freakout Meter. I’m sure YOUR kid, if he were hanging out at the skate park, is the Taylor Swiftiest and I’m not accusing you of raising a ruffian. I am accusing the other parents… who are not you. Please don’t email me about this, Citizens of My Town, USA.*

So, Magoo asks why he can’t hang out there and I say that it’s because there are bigger kids smoking and swearing and it’s not a great environment for him. And then he starts asking questions about smoking and addiction and cancer and all things cigarette-related that I’ve ever told him to scare him from ever ever putting a burning bundle of who-knows-what into his mouth and inhaling.

And then he says, “Can, you know, like, beautiful people smoke?” He’s sort of hemming and hawing. “Like, you know, beaut… Like if there was a beautiful…” Here he sort of trails off, gathering his thoughts and starts again.

“Monday at the fair I saw a woman who looked just like you and she was smoking and I was confused because I didn’t think that people who looked like you could smoke.”

I was quiet, trying not to choke up. So, when my eight-year-old boy thinks of what a beautiful woman looks like, he pictures me? I’ve heard stories where old men talked about their beautiful angel mothers and I think it’s sweet but I always thought they had to be old and looking back in retrospect to see their mother that way.

I’m not the hottest chick on the block. Rarely do random men flirt with or even really give me the time of day. I think what’s beautiful to Magoo and what’s beautiful to me about this story is that he knows I love him and that there’s a light in my eyes for him and that I’m trying to be the best that I can be most of the time. Beauty to Magoo is an effort towards goodness and that makes me so proud.

Of course I could not mention this to him. I had to ignore the accidental compliment, act cool, and tell him that, yes, beautiful people can smoke, but that over time it tends to make them less beautiful and more enslaved to addiction and disease.

And then I walked with an extra bounce in my step the rest of the night. That’s what beautiful people do, when they are not busy smoking.

Posted in around town, aspirations, beauty, Honesty of Children | 8 Comments

I Tried so Bad!

Posted on August 10, 2013 by The Daring One

Lately the kids in our family add “so bad” to the end of any sentence to mean they are really serious about what they’re saying. Examples:

Cousin Ellie while swimming – “Kick so bad, mom. Kick so BAD!”

Wanda – “OH MOM! I’m excited so BAD!”

*First off, I want to say, if you have a fear of spandex, skip this post and come back and read tomorrow. I promise not to post so many pictures of myself in uber tight clothing probably ever.*

So today, I tried so bad! I completed the sprint triathlon. It started with going to bed early last night, only to be awoken by a crazy loud thunderstorm. Stephanie, my training partner, said she got up during the storm and checked today’s weather report, nervous about the swim. I convinced myself that it was just a dream and went back to sleep, a sleep in which I apparently twisted my arm in half and pinned it beneath my body, because when I woke up, I had pain shooting up and down my arm, radiating from the elbow every time I put pressure on my arm to do things like lift a cup, or cut my eggs with a fork.

On a normal day, I would have skipped working out and iced the arm, but today was TRI-DAY! So committed was I to this triathlon, that I asked myself the question, “If I were an 1800s pioneer woman, crossing the plains with ox and wagon, would I keep going with this level of pain, or would I tell them to leave me behind to be eaten by American dingos?” The answer was not dingos, so I knew I had to “tri.” Ah, that pun never gets old. Ever.

We got there bright and early and put out all our gear. I thought it was a good sign that my number was the cornerstone of the standard multiplication table. Then some nice massage therapist guy rubbed my arm and told me to try warming up and stretching. I told him I had been warming up and stretching by walking around laughing at all the thick-necked guys very showishly warming up and stretching. He almost laughed and I started doing tri stretches and waving my arms around like The Phelps. I only almost threw up as I realized that this WAS HAPPENING.

One of my favorite parts of the day has to be when I was taking one last break in the ladies’ room before the race. I’d had a feeling all morning that I’d forgotten something, and when I dropped my drawers, I almost had a heart attack. I wasn’t wearing any underwear! Now you’re not supposed to wear underwear in a tri-suit, but I don’t usually walk around in a tri-suit. You’re welcome. And I was caught off guard. Like, I started a mini-hyperventilation. How could I forget UNDERWEAR!? Oh. I breathed in and out and moved on.

When the swim started, I had planned to hang back and wait before jumping in, but was overcome with excitement and ended up diving into the melee, feet, arms and bodies all up in my face. Pretty soon we all got sorted out and I finished my ¼ mile swim in my fastest time ever! This included the swim and the run up to the transition area, an area that always reminds me of child birth, but only because of the name.

They say that transition is the “fourth discipline”, but I think the real fourth discipline is the massive nap I took when I got home. I did it so well. I even took off my tri-medal to maximize sleeping potential.

The bike was good, but hard. The fastest I’ve ever ridden 14 miles is an hour and six minutes. My goal for the tri was an hour and I made it in 59:17. Yay! I will not tell you what place that puts me in amongst the other competitors because what place that puts me in is – AWESOME! I did a stinking triathlon.

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Dan and the kids cheered me on at all the water stations and the finish line and I couldn’t help but run faster when I heard them. At one point, I ran by them as they cheered, took pictures and called my name. I pointed to each one in turn and yelled, “I’m passing you… and you… and you.” They were the only people I passed on the run. But it felt good to pwn them so hard. They were just sitting there, like they didn’t even know it was a race.

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A few seconds after I passed by, after I made eye contact with and berated each one of them, Wanda yelled, “Was that mom?!”

It was.

The only time I cried was during the run. I was really struggling to get going. You’re on a bike going a million miles an hour and then you try to run and it feels like you’re in a hamster weel with boneless legs. It’s the oddest feeling. Also, I had not one ounce of energy left. So I started out running, until I had cleared most of the spectators, and then I switched to a busy mom mall walk pace.

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Runner after runner passed me, some of them doing the Olympic distance, which is twice as far as the sprint I was attempting. They were like muscly, sweaty gazelles and I was like… not that. I only had to run a 5K to finish this thing and I was walking fast but slower… and a bit slower. Then the awesomeness started. Runner after runner, most of them male and much more fit than me, started saying encouraging things as they passed me.

“You’ve got this.”

“Looking good.”

“Keep going.”

“You’re doing great.”

“Finish this.”

They said these things quietly and continued on their run, but I just had this swelling behind my eyes, overcome with the goodness of people. If I were a hardcore athlete, would I take the time to tell the mom mall-walking her way to the finish line that she was good enough, that I understood she was doing something really hard and needed encouragement? I hope so. But I know these guys did and it made me cry and it made me walk faster and eventually run.

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The whole last half kilometer, I chanted in my head over and over again, “Walk in the shape of a run. Walk in the shape of a run. You can do this. It’s just walking in the shape of a run.”

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And I did do it.

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And I beat every time goal I set for myself.

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Over the past two years, I’ve lost 50 lbs. Over the past two months, I’ve gone from a 20 minute ¼ mile swim to a 10 minute. Over the past day, I have become a triathlete.

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And like the woman at the check-in table said, “This is your first triathlon? That’s exciting because whatever time you get will be your new personal best.”

You know what? She was right!

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Posted in all about me, aspirations, health | 25 Comments