Brainsplosion.

My neighbor, who has three perfect children, has "summer rules." I was about to text her to ask for a copy of these rules, and then I thought I'd crowdsource instead. My neuro-atypical self doesn't do well with extreme structure, and I need a lot of options before I find what works for my family. The whole happy-mom-happy-kids thing rings loudly in my head, and, while my kids' happiness is for sure my life goal, I find that if I don't have the ability to WRITE/ART/MUSIC/ALONE TIME even just a LITTLE bit, then I'm a terrible parent.

So.

I gave my kids a couple of weeks of screen time fun, just to enjoy summer.

But I'd like to employ SOME sort of structure. It can't be rigid, or I won't be able to follow it. I was a pretty bossy child, and even my mother always said told me I raised myself. Self-employment was inevitable for me, and it works well. Kids have thrown a wrench in things, and I'd like to see what other people are doing.

• Do you have a checklist? 
• Do you have a magnetic chore chart?
• Do you sign up for one virtual summer camp and then let your kids have free reign the rest of the day?
• Do you have "must complete X,Y, Z" and then you get "____ minutes of screen time"?

Be specific, friends. I am a very literal person, and I'd love to see what y'all actually do. Feel free to DM or email if you don't want public posts.

Also, Y'ALL, I've started blogging more over at my Patreon: just for Patrons. Consider $1 a month to help an artist who is a good person and gets loads of views and Spotify plays but only makes $189 a year from digital streaming? I give exclusive content and early access and giggles, and it's worth it! You can join anonymously if you're, like, an ex-girlfriend of my husband's who likes to keep tabs and has found yourself actually enjoying my content but you don't want me to know that! Or at least watch this quick video??

What is it you miss the most? I miss interaction, which is strange because I'm mostly introverted. I can't imagine how the extroverts are handling this, and I empathize. We are settling into this new normal and are extremely privileged in so many ways -- mostly, however, because we have a roof over our heads and a family unit. I wish my parents were alive, so we could have moved in together and communed. But I'm also grateful they are already dead because I am freed of the anxiety of wondering if they will be coronavictims.

That doesn't mean I'm free from anxiety, however. Last night a utility pole caught on fire on my street, leading to a transformer blowing and a lot of flickering lamps and not sleeping until things were sorted out (around 2am?). It's funny what scenarios an anxiety-ridden brain can dream up in a matter of seconds.

Tell me this: You -- you who are out there quarantined with young children -- how are you coping? Is it screen time? Is it forgoing all school Zoom meetings and learning when the moment strikes (that's us)? Is it sticking to a rigid schedule? (That does not work for us because one-minute off-schedule yields massive anxiety to both me and Graham, apparently we have the Kaelin time issues.) Is it letting go?

Lake Side in Lake Zurich, Switzerland

Here's the thing about having a horrible year: you are slapped in the face with your own mortality. It's an obvious life lesson, but to have both parents -- a generation -- wiped from your family tree in a matter of months maybe just makes that whole Life Lesson font a bit more bold.

Last summer, just days after my dad died, I started to escape. First, I buried him on Father's Day (not the brightest thing, but I didn't have much of a choice), and a few days later I left town. The family and I drove to Florida. We played in pools and beaches and cast magical spells upon each other. We drove north and took the long way home, coastlines and mountains. We came home, then packed and hit the road for a tour of a few shows I had booked in Scotland and Switzerland. Then I played in Colorado, had Christmas in Texas with David's family and finally went on one final trip, a writing retreat near Glendalough, Ireland. 

I came downstairs to Big Brother helping Little Brother with ABCMouse. This sight helps me breathe deeper.

I keep thinking of essays I want to write. I think of them at 3am. What is it that you think of at 3am? Or for you is it midnight? Or 5a? Or noon? Our brains are working overdrive, trying to survive, to breathe, to keep our hearts beating and our families fed.

It's Anxiety, and it's invaded most of us. We can't sleep. We worry about everything. Our brains jump to worst or all scenarios immediately.

Here's a photo of my kitchen for now!

Checking in, my beauties... how are you doing? I have now been pretty much self-isolated for over two weeks. I've been focused on keeping my littlest guy breathing for the past two weeks, so apologies for being absent on the blog. Believe me, I have things to write. Things seem okay now though, and I'm starting to feel good because: I have a functional kitchen!!

David spent the entire weekend shifting cabinets over by inches so the refrigerator would open, designing a temporary countertop so we could install the sink, searching for p-traps and various other PVC pieces from neighbors so we wouldn't have to go to the hardware store, moving the contractor's tools into the basement so we could have our dining room back, and so I would stop crying at having to take a bath with a casserole dish. Our contractor wanted to stay away because Angus had been sick, and I wanted our contractor to stay away because he also works for the Archdiocese, who continued to hold mass despite public health warnings. Win-win/Lose-lose, for all (shrug emoji). The kitchen is not finished, but I made coffee and toast this morning and did dishes in an actual sink.

I've lost all of my income for the next three months (except my Patreon! and random thing but if you click on whatever ad links are surrounding my blog, I actually get paid like ten times more than I do for a Spotify stream, how weird is that?), but I am grateful to have a husband with a job and health care and my four-year-old (he turned FOUR last week!) is breathing normally again. We will manage.

Angus spiked a fever on March 8, so I've been basically holding his sick li'l' coughing body. He spent his 4th birthday alternating antibiotics and nebulizers and cough meds and acetaminophen. The poor kid is asthmatic and could not break the fever from the adenovirus he tested positive for. Chest x-rays showed bacterial pneumonia. No, he was not tested for COVID-19, and his doctors were doubtful that he had it (because he was positive for two other respiratory viruses). Nonetheless, I have been behaving as if he does have it because this is a public health issue and when we went in for swabbing on March 11, there were no tests in Kentucky yet. He was negative for flu and strep, but positive for two respiratory viruses and an ear infection which they believed led to the pneumonia. His asthmatic tendencies made it worse. It was an awful week of tears, stress, adrenaline, no sleep, and holding my sweet baby, who is currently dressed in a dinosaur costume and on Zoom with his preschool teacher for a singalong.

Other updates: Our sweet au pair left us in February. While we are grateful to have had her when my parents were dying, we are equally grateful that she is gone now -- and not trapped in our house during The Plague. Times are strange enough, and I'm so glad she gets to be back in Brazil with her family.

I wish Graham's school had closed a week earlier, but I'm grateful that Kentucky shut down schools on March 16. On a positive note, Graham has been begging to homeschool all year long because he's grown bored with the schoolwork. I'm a big believe in public schools, and I'm welcoming this opportunity to try out homeschooling without losing his place in the wonderful public school he attends.

Now that Angus is better, I'm looking forward to making music for you, recording, writing, posting, sharing on my Patreon. I've been wanting to do more Facebook Live concerts, but haven't been able to plan any since Angus had been sick.

I'm washing my hands and settling down to write a few postcards to my Patreons and edit up some travel photos I took in Ireland last month (long story!). I had a writing retreat I've yet to tell you about, where I got back in the zone and was ready to write write write the book and the album, and then I went straight into hardcore parenting and am once again out of practice with writing. But I'll get there. Take care of yourselves and wash your hands and STAY HOME (unless of course you're an essential worker in which case bless you times a million).


ENJOY my writing? PLEASE join my PATREON. 

Hyrdation. Markers. Bullet Journal. #smug

I've been grasping at planners -- planners because I've always enjoyed filling out forms and grasping because I feel like implementing some structure will make everything okay.

David and I laughed about us doing all the major life-stressors just back to back to back. We got married in Kentucky one July, moved to Scotland the very next month, had a baby twelve months later, did another international move when said baby was seven weeks old, were unemployed for a year, got back on track, then decided to have another baby, who is a total delight, but I'm only learning about him now because shortly after he was born, both my parents got cancer and I nursed them to their home deaths, and then we moved again, but have been living out of suitcases since May 24, and basically, everything is really weird.

I recap all of this for you, mostly for me, to type out that, yes, I've been through a LOT recently, and it is okay to feel like I'm slowly emerging from a decade of stress and chaos. Anxiety tells me not to get complacent because control is an illusion, etc. 

Anyway.

I'm trying to focus on things I can control. Which I guess is my actions, and only my actions? Did I get that right? (Still hunting for a therapist who can prescribe and who takes my insurance, but I read a lot of novels, so I feel like I'm pretty good at extracting life lessons.)

For some reason, meal planning feels like it would solve all of my problems.

I used Fresh20 for three years, and I really liked it. Eighty percent of the meals were yummy (all of them needed salt), and it was nice knowing I always had the ingredients for supper in the kitchen on any given day.

When our au pair moved in, we stopped doing Fresh 20 because she loved to cook and her diet was drastically different. I really enjoyed having family dinners, but then life got too complex. Now our au pair keeps to herself, and I'm trying to figure out what home life will look like when she departs. (We will miss her terribly!)

I tried The Fresh20 again last week. It didn't work out for me because of schedule changes (maybe it's my weird last-minute gig schedule that makes structure difficult to apply?). I tried two of the mail-order meal kit things, and was just too freaked out by the amount of packaging to continue them (though it's a cool idea).

What do you families out there do? Do you just have Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, Watermelon Wednesday, or whatever? And repeat the same dishes every week?

Who's got it all organized?

Of all the meal kits I tried, I liked the Purple Carrot recipes best (I need meals that are healthy), but I really really can't stand the plastic and the oil miles. I'd love to be able to create the perfect week of meals without any food waste AND without any plastic. I think I'm going to have to sit down some time, get all the recipes I liked and figure out how to buy a Purple Carrot-style meal-plan, but order it from Kroger. It may involved having a neighbor share with me because what if I only need one stalk of celery??? I'll report back with a grocery list and recipe cards if I ever get that organized.

Ugh. This just leads me to wondering why I didn't take HomeEc instead of IB Calculus? Harumph.

I like my Planner Pad. Not perfect for me, but the best I've found for balancing jobs.

Ben Sollee & Mark Charles in my Dino-kitchen Rehearsing last night for KENTUCKY USA.

This morning was a big Mom Fail! It was my first morning to get both kids to school. I am flying solo because David travels for work. I got the boys dressed (slight delay because the AquaMan underwear were dirty, and Batman or Frozen just wouldn’t do today), fed, and teeth brushed and hands washed just in time ... to see the school bus pass by.

I then immediately declared myself an awful domestic manager and couldn’t believe that with only two children I couldn’t even get the one to the bus.

Thankfully we bought a car in November (an EV! Because Graham is a hardcore environmentalist activist and a gas car was ”unacceptable,” which is why we were car-free for 8-years. It’s amazing. I’ll tell you about our car another time), and that saved me this morning. But because LAKESIDE, the car was parked a block away, and Angus thought the car had been stolen. He cried.

We had to — omg — WALK about fifty meters to the car. I got both boys to school on time and all was well, but my nerves were so shot that I spent the entire car ride apologizing to the boys for panicking and being immature. I asked for their help in creating a good morning routine that would keep everything pleasant. They are 3 and 7. I am 41.

I know perfectly well that plenty of parents do this while single parenting (I solo parent and that’s different), and with a lot more children, going a lot more places. So WTF is wrong with me that I couldn’t manage two at school?

My quest for routine is so challenging that I want to homeschool, purely so no one would have to get out of PJs until noon. (Actually for other reasons too: because Graham is bored to death in school and I want to go to Shakertown or Dublin on a weekday. But that’s a whole other blog too.)

ANYWAY. This week is a heavy work week for me, with regular lessons and emails and accounting and I should be hustling corporate gigs for, like, INCOME and stuff. But I’m working on Kentucky USA, which is like Kentucky Homefront, but instead Ben Sollee is hosting it and the Kentucky Center for the Arts is helping. DETAILS HERE; https://www.kentuckyperformingarts.org/all-shows/kentucky-usa-0120

I’m going to be behind the piano, and singing a song, and providing cool music cues, but I did not executive produce which was a nice load-off my brain. (Kentucky Homefront isn’t over at all, but I love that Ben and I can collaborate for a common goal. This town is too small for competition, and I’m thrilled that he asked me to be part of his show!)

me, being stressed out.

Is this how writers do it? They rise at 3:30am? Mindful and determined? I rose at 3:30am covered in pee (not mine) and annoyed. At age 42, oops I'm actually only 41 but I'm gonna leave that in there instead of editing, I now know it is fruitless to attempt sleep. I could read for two hours and then perhaps fall asleep, but then I'd only get an hour in before it's time to wake. It's ok. Australia's on fire and kids in Michigan still don't have drinking water, so my lack of sleep is not that problematic.

And we wonder how the dinosaurs all died.

I've spent a couple of weeks trying to turn 1%-5% of you readers into patrons on my awesome Patreon community. Wouldn't you just feel so good about yourself if you pledged $1/month? It's kind of like when you buy a Powerball ticket: the joy you get out of wondering what you'll do with the money is totally worth the dollar. (Although I have a $100/month tier where I'll give you an online piano lesson!)

It's probably self-centered altruism, but I love to buy people drinks, coffees, subscriptions, whatever. After fifteen years of giving away my blog content and my music for free, I figured now it's okay to tell y'all that I make my living with writing and song, and it would be super cool if you joined me on PATREON to access exclusive content. It's very easy to sign up and you can stop at anytime (but please don't). And that's my pitch: now I'm done. (This week I posted a special episode of Brigids90ProofKitchen where I tasted a super-rare single malt!)

Someone reminded me yesterday that art might actually be valuable in the apocalypse. I've always told David just to shoot me if it comes to Zombie Wars or Climate Nightmare because I feel like I'll be dead weight to him. I can't start a fire, and I definitely can't run.

But I think what I could do, should it come to Dark Ages, is bring a little joy to the struggling families who are just trying to make it through the day. Maybe it's my anxiety talking here, but if we destroy our world and only the Eagle Scouts survive, it might be useful to the souls of the Eagle Scouts to have a troubadour come through and tell tales of yore and write new folk songs "The Day The Koalas Died" -- OMG AUSTRALIA, Y'ALL I AM FREAKING OUT THIS IS WHY I CAN'T SLEEP.

It sounds like I'm joking, but I'm totally not.

I don't know ... I kinda still feel like I'd be deadweight to my family. But if they choose to keep me alive, then I'd pack up my travel guitar and ride my bike around the region putting on shows, trying to make people smile just enough to remember that they have to plant their own food and learn archery and defend their fortresses from zombies.

Enough morning ramblings. Everyone. Be mindful of your oil miles this week. That's my focus. Walk if you can. Knit mittens for koalas. Hide under your weighted blankets and take a xanax. No, don't do that. Ok, maybe do that. Read a book. Take in an Australian refugee (are we to that point yet?). I welcome Australian families to come live with me, but then you'd have to live with me, and I can be a little much.

But like I said ... enough ramblings. FULL STOP.

This feels like a proper blog entry, and I haven't even written it. Those popular blogs-that-they-turn-into-movies are journeys, right? I'm on a journey today. Technically, I returned home from a month abroad yesterday, but it's today that the journey begins.

I have unfulfilled needs, dreams, passions, desires, recipes, DIY projects and much more trivial things too. For the past several years, my own life has been put on hold.

Maybe that seems surprising to you, dear reader, who have seen jolly photos of me enjoying a dram of whisky or gallivanting in the Alps with my genius 6-year-old. Remember the joy-filter of social media. However honest I attempt to be, I still don't want to be the constant internet whinger in your newsfeed. Posting photos of joy may be the only thing that cheers me up, and in a world where self-care has been low on the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

I've been in survival mode. Making sure my family is fed and loved and that my parents weren't forced to unnecessarily suffer. I was a death doula, and I am so grateful for that opportunity. I'm thankful to have been with them for their last choices, days, breaths, words, meals, hugs and smiles. It truly was an honor, a privilege, and I'm beyond thankful that I was able to do that for them. Not everyone's career allows such flexibility.

Still, my own needs have been unfulfilled -- purposefully, and sanctioned by a therapist -- and it is now time to begin a new journey of resconstructing my own life.

Yoga? Writing? Music? An organized pantry? What will adulthood look like for me?

Today I am searching for routine. But as someone who hates predictability, I struggle to find a self-care routine that I can actually follow. Does that even make sense? Or does it only make sense to the other ADHD-creatives out there who long for an organized life, but have zero interest in making it so?

Does anyone out there have a life syllabus for the non-independently-wealthy?

And now for random photo from delightful gig I played in Kentucky less than 24 hours after waking up in Switzerland:

Our amazing au pair has started venturing out into the world a lot more lately, now that she's a lot more confident in her English and navigation skills. She's also encountered something fun out in the wild: other au pairs!

FLEXIBILITY

People have many reasons, but I think the most compelling reason for us is the flexibility it offers. Standard daycare/preschool hours do not work for my family because 1) David travels a lot and 2) my job is usually split shift -- I do admin/writing in the mornings, and then I gig in the evenings. I generally work a lot on weekends, and my schedule changes week to week. Because I've been caregiving for cancerous parents as well, I need the stability that an au pair provides in case I have to rush out last minute to a doctor appointment. (My mom died two months ago, and the chaos that was that week would only have been manageable with another adult in the house!) It's like having a third parent for the children.

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

My husband and I are raising two little white boys in a privileged part of the world. It's important to me that they understand the world is bigger than they are. We can't travel with them the way I'd like (I haven't hit Powerball yet), so we love the idea of them learning about exchange students, immigrants, other cultures and other languages in a very hands-on way. Our au pair is not an employee to us. There are definitely some families out there who have more of an employee/boss relationship with their au pairs, but that is not what we entered the program wanting or expecting. She is not a nanny; she is a family member. (Some au pairs take great offense at being called a nanny, much like nannies are not au pairs.) In fact, "au pair," is French for "on par," meaning she is equal. We have her beans and rice at least once a week, and we eat them the way she suggests ... beans on the bottom! (Though this is apparently as contentious as where the clotted cream should go on a Devon scone)

LIVE-IN CARE

How does this work???

Hosting an au pair is still definitely not for everyone. 

We are a family who loved to host Couchsurfers, who AirBnBs, and who hopes to host exchange students when the kids are older. We love having an additional family member, and it so happens that the flexible childcare benefits align with our needs as well. But I totally get that it it's not for everyone! I was a live-in nanny at one point in my life, and I have a wonderful relationship today with the kids I helped raise. I love them like my own, and I'm so thankful that my children will have a similar relationship.

I hope that answers all the questions I've received. I'll respond to comments if you have more questions! Here is a link to the agency we used, which has the largest pool of au pairs to choose from. Ours is from Brazil, but they have au pairs from all the world.  (If you've already signed up, then you can go back and list The Caldwell Family in Louisville as your referral if you want, but no pressure, I swear!)

***Our family does get a credit if you host an au pair and sign up through this link, so just full disclosure. We totally love having an au pair, and I suspect we'll host one for as long as we need the childcare. But if you don't relish the idea of having another housemate, then it's probably not for you. We love having a friend for life though!

Educational component

This blog has suffered because I've had life going on -- something I understand never goes away (well, until it goes away permanently). Living in the present hasn't been the best advice, somehow, because the present wasn't wonderful. Also, there's something odd about purposefully trying to savor the moment or make a memory because it then leaves that memory always slightly tainted, akin to the old psychology Hawthorne Effect, but about memories instead. Still, I have tried to embrace the positive. It just doesn't really change feelings in the way I was promised. I'm glad I snuggled my mommy until her last breath, but those moments were still absolutely awful.

Telluride was a nice escape, a chance to delve into a different part of my brain -- less emotional, and more intellectual. It was a chance to sit around with brilliant creatives, and each either had a fascinating story to tell or had such confidence that they believed their story to be important, thus making it so. That sounded wrong -- each story was important, but I suffer from Imposter Syndrome, thus often keeping quiet because I assume everyone already knows whatever it is I've discovered.

Anyway, I do wish I had the confidence of a white man, but so does every woman I know.

The Original Thinkers festival/conference/magic was a beautiful weekend, not just in setting but in camaraderie. There were films, performances, talks, lunch meetings, cocktail hours, ping-pong parties, gondola rides, brunches, random conversations on 8-seater plans that made me swoon with the possibilities. It was the most diverse lineup I've ever attended, and it's obvious that the curators worked intentionally to not have white male panels. The women made the conference, taking the stage with power and PowerPoint to share stories of not just the underprivileged, but the completely disempowered -- people living in wartorn countries, campsites in Africa, downtrodden but not downhearted.

I particularly enjoyed meeting Jane Ferguson, Yael Lavie, and Roopa Gogineni (whose new film is playing in LA today if you are around the area), who are brilliant minds going into dangerous places to tell the stories of real people.


Also, HUGE kudos to the festival organizers, who absolutely nailed it. I've been to many a conference/festival, and this one was incredibly well-planned and executed -- from everything to swag bags to event times and, of course, event quality. Thank you for including me. It was a huge honor!

And now some random photos of the weekend:

Ah, a theatre full of brilliant teenagers -- maybe my favorite kind audience! Last night I played at Northern Kentucky University to a full house in their Greaves Concert Hall. The crowd was the Governor's Scholars Program, and I was their last "Convocation" of the summer. A convocation is a few steps above being a concert. 

If you've ever seen me live, you know I like to talk. But being given a platform to speak about my trajectory, ups and downs, other careers, family and work balance, etc., as well as an audience that asks the smart questions, always makes the evening a bit more well-rounded. I could have just played a concert, but I feel like it's important to talk about choices and things that got me to where I am. Also, I mentioned breastfeeding, and, like, 90% of the boys in the crowd freaked out and groaned, and I totally called them out for being ridiculous.

It also made me wish I was finished with a theatre project that I've been working on for a few years because I would like to be traveling the countryside delivering songs and messages to audiences like that. Sidenote: I rented a car and drove solo, and it was so nice to have alone time!

Playing Greaves Hall was funny because I'd played the stage at least 5 times previously, but always as a sideman -- usually playing piano or guitar while other students sang in the summer program "Showcase" nights when I was a Governor's Scholar there in 1995. I was the perpetual sideman, and it was liberating to be front and center with something to say.

Also, the scholars asked the most brilliant questions, and we talked and talked about what it meant to be an artist and a businesswoman and a writer and to want to do more than one thing with your life.

The theme of their summer was Reject the Single Story, which fit right in with my talk ... so I'm leaving you with this Ted Talk:

Remember how I broke up with yoga a few weeks ago? Well, I went back. I still feel the same, but I also still need the sweat and the alone time. (I even tried jogging, and 4 jogs in, I developed the same old horrible knee injury -- please don't suggest running ever again!) It feels good to have burned a bunch of calories and stretched and relaxed, but now my head is running with all kinds of questions about is this kind of yoga basically church, and that's why it get resistant and freaked out? Etc etc etc. Post-yoga, I turned to instagram to try to sort out my thoughts:

Sweaty post-yoga pose. I went back to my favorite studio today, and, bless her, today’s teacher didn’t ask us to talk to any strangers. I do like seeing friends there, but I also sure love a space on my mat where I can do what I want. I’ve been thinking how my entire life I’ve worked my ass off, have been so hard on myself whether it was in school (that A-minus was a failure), work (played a crazy-impressive radio show? Well, I didn’t ride that momentum to even bigger things, so i suck!), motherhood (why do i not understand what every single cry means?), caretaking (not spending enough time with my sick mother, am horrible daughter), and marriage (be PERFECT because he sure is). So when yoga teachers tell me to “stay in it” and “step out of your comfort zone” and “you can do hard things,” I get really resistant and my internal monologue says: Brigid, you’ve been giving it a 110% your whole life, so maybe slow down a bit and step out of the pose you don’t want to hold and relax and don’t do that. Because this yoga is for *you* and you need something different than this style is designed for. But then my inner-perfectionist says “ugh, the teacher thinks you’re weak because she said ‘stay’ and you chose to chillax.” This is my challenge in yoga ... I need some place in my life where I don’t have to give 100% because I’m already back to the inner monologue of “get off Instagram, and either go visit your sick mother or finish those contracts or write more songs or book more tours and DO IT ALL!” Oh, I’m a mess, aren’t it?? 🤣🤣🤣 But seriously, can I do this kind of yoga without subscribing to the preachy parts?? I do adore the owner and everyone I’ve met up there. (Hi if you’re reading, I love you and your work and what you do for the village 😬😬😬😘) #yoga #yogathoughts#yogaphilosophy #yogaisgood I swear

Where will Brigid be next?

Louisville: Thursday June 21 at Wick's on Baxter 8-11pm No cover
FACEBOOK EVENT -- click "interested" on it, pretty please?I haven't played a multi-hour club show like this in YEARS. But they asked me, and I'm in a yes-mode. Where else might you find me?

Buy me a coffee? I just bought a few coffees for some writers I like, and it set up this Ko-fi page for me automatically. Perhaps you would like to buy me a coffee, so that I might perfect and write more thoughtful and lengthy things than simply a whinging introspective blog. Buy me a coffee!

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It's Derby season in Louisville! Here's your expected-and-necessary version of "My Old Kentucky Home," this time performed on the musical saw and the banjo. I love that Steve Cooley, who is always up for recording my antics.

Today's blog is about self-employed ROUTINE. I'm finding this difficult. I'm settling in to having childcare and not having to panic-call any babysitters for a business meeting or rehearsal. Still, I can't seem to find a good routine of balancing admin work with creative work. Has anyone out there managed it? Would you share your tips? Or guest-blog for me?

I'm hoping to spend some of today developing a regular schedule. I'm also trying to remember all the self-employed tips I've published in the past -- and referring to my own blog posts for inspiration. It reminds me that once upon a time, I was very good at this balance!

Wee Graham proud of the apple tart he & our amazing au pair made last week.

A few weeks ago at the school fundraiser, I was talking to a parent who was struggling with childcare, and I said, "What you need to get is a Brazilian!" Then she looked at me in horror, and I realized that I was inadvertently sexually harassing her when really I just meant that we have a Brazilian au pair whom we absolutely adore.