A post from Meghan!

So my step-daughter L turned 13 on the weekend.

I know! It’s huge, right?

I’m not sure entirely how I feel about this. Mostly I’m excited for her (those years can be so great!), also slightly nervous (what if they aren’t?!) and more then a little nostalgic (um, wasn’t it just yesterday that I was a teenager?).

It’s strange to suddenly see your own teenage years as having taken place in ‘a simpler time’. I suppose this is just part of the growing up process, but still, you never think that you are going to say things like, ‘A cell phone?! Are you crazy? When I was your age we didn’t even have phones’, until the words fly suddenly out of your mouth. That is a *slight* exaggeration … we definitely had phones… in fact, the big battle when I was a teenager was to have a phone in my room. This must seem so quaint to today’s teens. And I didn’t even get one either, though, the compromise of a telephone, with ident-a-ring, bolted to the wall between mine and my sister’s room, with a long cord that could reach under the door, seemed to work pretty well. I think I knew one person in high school with a cell phone. No, to the teenager of the mid/late 90’s, the cutting edge of social networking technology was a pager. Anyone? Hilariously, I have tried to explain this to L, who replied, ‘But what is the point of knowing someone wants to talk to you when you don’t have a phone?’. I have to admit, I was stumped.

All of this is to say, that along side the iTunes and the must have clothes, I was happy to find something homemade for L’s birthday; something from a simpler time (haha!).

Enter Soule Mama .

I really hemmed & hawed about getting her third book. While I love to visit her blog for ideas and inspiration, I am not a huge fan of the musings on life (especially those penned by Soulepapa). If you have an aversion to earnest, semi-spiritual ramblings, this book is not for you. But if you can look past that, and it’s not easy as they both write an essay for each month, there are some great finds. So far I have found these three: the Potato and Leek Soup, the Everyday Oat Bread, and The Adventure Bag.

This bag is seriously fast to put together and there are soooooo many possibilities. Here, I’ve made it a Writer’s Bag, but it could easily be an Art Bag, Book Bag, Treasure Bag… whatever your little one (or big one) is in to.