Jenn

I would love to hear if your local Borders experience was the same as ours. I would imagine that advertising and selection is somewhat homogenized, but I would be curious.

Adam

What an interesting observation - I enjoy your thoughts as well. I would tend to agree with Richard about the roles. Now I’m curious . . In my visit to Borders this week I’m going to take a serious stroll down the children’s section to see what the offerings are.

Also happy to see that you are keeping your creative space neat and tidy - that must provide a great sense of achievement

Kim

I think gender bias in education is a huge problem. While young girls, have somewhat been liberated, through the work of the Woman’s Liberation movement of the 70’s, boys have not been freed from their societal assigned gender roles, as young woman have. Girls are now told, and rightly so, that they can be anything that they want to be, but that is not always the case with little boys. While girls are free to subsume new roles not tethered to traditional gender roles, they have also been allowed to keep what has been deemed traditional feminine roles (i.e. nurturing occupations, such as being kindergartener teacher). Granted my last statement is a generalization, but I think that it is very common to see boys being discouraged from imaginative playing that assumes a more nurturing role (because that role is also assigned to girls), while their current roles have been co-opted by the opposite sex. I would love to see boys also freed, as their female classmates have been from such expectations.

As always, I enjoy your thoughts.

I will definitely have to check that book out. I love the idea of doing something creative as a reward. Its so important to have that time. I feel like so often in my business I get caught up in the non-creative elements and it feels so good to get back to what the company is all about.

Good luck with the leaves! Now that the snow is melting I am noticing the need for a rake as well!

Jenn

I’ve found that when I make real progress with goals, it helps do give yourself a ‘reward’ - i.e. do something nice for yourself. One of my favorite books is Julia Cameron’s, The Artists Way. She urges folks to make time to do ‘Artists’ Dates’ - go out and do something fun, related or unrelated to your craft. It’s a great book; you might enjoy the creative ideas that Cameron raises based on what you do for your party planning business.

I find these Artists’ Dates to be inspirational and fun. Same goes for my notion of ‘rewards’ - do something nice for yourself, go out and have some fun because you’ve worked hard. And when you know there’s a reward at the end of all the hard work, you’ll want to keep ‘doing’ the hard work

Will keep you posted on the Spring Cleaning - first I need to finish mulching the leaves that are still falling from my trees!

As for keeping it clean, I have made it a priority to clean up after myself! It only takes a few minutes. I am intrigued by these “rewards” you speak of.

Thanks for the support and good luck on spring cleaning!

Jenn