This post is sponsored by Hallmark who shares my love of words on paper.

I initiated September last week, as all good premature fall lovers do, with a cozy evening drenched in all my favorite fall pleasures–the pipe smoke scented candles, sugared donuts, a fire in the fireplace (yes, in South Florida–I know) and the first seasonal viewing of the movie You’ve Got Mail. One cozy pleasure led to another and an orange spice hot tea later, I retreated to my office for another favorite–a card-writing session (it’s on my fall bucket list).

Recently, Hallmark asked me if I wanted to be part of their new Put It Into Words campaign, highlighting the power of sending and receiving cards for any reason, and I was all in.

Joining this initiative is something I passionately believe in because I know how much a card can change someone’s day–for both the receiver and the giver.

My favorite cards to send are my favorite ones to receive–not the obvious occasion cards like birthdays or anniversaries, but the heart of life that’s in between.

The acknowledgement of a week that sucked the life out of a friend. 

The recognition that your friend put on her running shoes and took her first go at a good run after saying for two years that she wanted to start running again.

A list of five things your friend does better than anyone else you know because you think she might need to be reminded.

A thank you to the mom who has now picked up your kid for swim practice six times and dropped him back off after because she knows you have a lot on your plate on Tuesdays.

An “Aw, crap” for the job your friend wanted and worked so hard to get but lost to someone more qualified.

Or maybe just a funny little llama that opens to read: “Remember that time we rolled down the windows and drove downtown, blaring Snoop Dog before we remembered that we were in a minivan, almost 40 and nothing about us looked cool? Yeah, that was funny. (Was that the day we bought crop tops at Forever 21?)”

I understand the art of card giving because I come from a family with a rich card-writing past–grandmas with baskets stocked with the perfect card for every occasion, my dad who never sends a card without decorating the envelope with elaborate colored drawings, and my mom who taught me early on how to properly spell “stationery” with the hint that “pens and pencils” have an “e,” not an “a”. My grandma was such a faithful card sender that even in her last years, when she was fighting dementia and certainly after years of never missing a loved one’s celebration had earned her right to put her cards and stamps away; she still sent them, still wrote her own messages, still tucked in three bucks for “something special.”  In fact, it was so important to her, for Christmas one year, cousins organized everything for a year’s worth of card-sending–a calendar with every loved one’s special dates to help keep her on track and cards ready to go, addressed and stamped…because it was about more than just a card. It was a ritual of expression that connected her to us and a way for her, as the world sped on around her, to stand out and be heard when she told us “I love you. I’m thinking about you. I sat down to write this with my hands and the whole time I did, you were on my mind.” Writing cards kept her heart alive when her memory was fading.

I understand what my grandma knew–that the act of writing words, preserving them on paper, and sending them to someone is a gift that’s more than just words on a card. It’s an experience, and when I open the door of the mailbox to find a colored envelope with a pretty stamp and my name scrolled in ink on the front, I get ridiculously excited. I know what follows…the whole sensory act of sliding a fingernail under the envelope flap to loosen the stick, of pulling out the card and feeling the weight of it in my hands, of taking in the colors, the design, the words, the handwriting. It’s knowing it wasn’t tapped out by thumbs on a device with half of the words predicted before they were finished…it was written–with loopy l’s and slanted y’s–for me. It’s keeping it propped up on the window sill long after I’ve read it so I can take in, as many times as I want to, the “I love you” at the end. Which is why I save so many of my cards.

I didn’t write anything particularly long in the cards I sent this past weekend, but I meant the few sentences I wrote. And though I can’t tell you yet what those cards did to brighten someone’s day because they’re currently on their postal journey, I can tell you what the card I got in the mail did for me last week.

It was from my mom–just a few sentences, sent for no other reason than to tell me she loves me, she’s proud of me and she’s so glad I’m her daughter.

I was over the moon. A hug in the middle of the day. The simplest gesture that went a long way…no one can have too many reminders that they are loved.

Want to join this initiative? Put into words the things you’ve been meaning to say…to your friend, your mother, your brother, your son, your kid’s teacher, that person who inspired you years ago (might need to do some research to find an address), the nurse who said the right things during a difficult time, your husband, your neighbor, your grandma. Tell them in words that they can hold and save and prop up on a windowsill. And if you’d like to hear other inspiring stories of how cards made an unexpected difference in someone’s life and enter for a chance to win free cards for a year and a $500 gift card to use on someone special in your life, check out more from Hallmark here.

Good Morning! Ambassador of Fall here, checking in for Monday. This is it–the week with the actual first day of fall for those of you who like to follow the rules. As you know, I’ve been rolling out the red carpet for fall a little early to give it a proper welcome, of course. In doing so, I’m happy to report we found pumpkins at Trader Joe’s last week, and we simmered our second batch of wassail for the season over the weekend.

What’s this wassail you speak of, you ask? If you’re not familiar with wassail, basically it’s a hot mulled cider. My mom used to make it, and I associate it with all things fall and cozy. Traditionally, drinking wassail was an important part of “wassailing” in parts of England years ago–a Yuletide ceremony that involved singing and drinking and was believed to help bring a good cider apple harvest the following year. The word wassail actually comes from the Anglo-saxon phrase “waes hael” which means “good health.” This scene in Little Women summarizes all the wassail feels…deliciously cozy. And yes, sometimes when I make wassail, I reenact that scene.

Traditional wassail recipes have evolved over the years, and there are a number of different ways to make and serve it today. Years ago, wassail was made from mulled ale, curdled cream, eggs, roasted apples and winter spices, and was served from large pewter wassail bowls. Today, it usually involves hot apple cider, citrus of some sort, sugar and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice), and sometimes bourbon or whiskey is added.

I’ve used the same basic recipe over the years (although recently I’ve cut the brown sugar completely out of it because sugar is the dragon, and I am the dragon slayer). My kids finally like wassail too now, and I love that we only drink it in the fall and winter, so they’ll have all those cozy end-of-year memories with it.

Fall Wassail

3 cups apple cider
Juice from 1 orange (or 3/4 cup of orange juice)
Lots of Orange Zest (I love lots of pieces of citrus peel in my wassail, especially once it cooks down)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
Optional: 1 tbsp. brown sugar, dash ginger, dash nutmeg, bourbon or whiskey
Float/Garnish: 2-3 cinnamon sticks, orange or apple slices, dried apple rings

Pour all that fall goodness into a pot, bring it to a boil, and then let it simmer for a while. Your kitchen will smell like the essence of Autumn.

Make it once, and you’ve already passed Wassail 101 and are ready for Advanced Studies Wassail which involves ditching the measuring and pouring a little of this and shaking a little of that into a pot. You can’t go wrong with variations of the ingredients–it will turn out delicious every time.

Best served with a big wooden ladle.

And how cute are these little pottery cups, perfect little sipping size for the kids. These are The Toddler Cup from East Fork Pottery. Everything they make is beautiful.

Garnish cup with a little apple ring.

I make a pot of wassail with our Halloween chili every year and pour a big travel mug to take trick-or-treating

You know what goes good with wassail? The 2018 Fall Playlist. I curated a big list of songs I’d have looping 24/7 if I were, say, trapped in a cabin in the mountains sipping wassail while I sat in a window nook, watching the leaves fall. You can also play it right from this post. Go ahead, give it a try…while your wassail is simmering.

As I climbed out of bed yesterday morning, carefully moving little legs that were tangled with mine–legs that appeared between me and Brett at some point in the middle of the night–I thought about our little family bed and how much I’m glad it’s a part of my kids’ childhood story. I know some parents have strong feelings against it, but I do know one thing–whether kids do or don’t shuffle their way into their parents’ bedroom in the night, the family bed decision isn’t one that’s going to send a 30-year-old into therapy someday. Neither is giving your child a pacifier or deciding not to send your child to preschool or saying no to the bright red double-velcro ridiculously obnoxious Paw Patrol sneakers simply because you think they’re ugly. The fact is, we will carry some regrets about our parenting, and we will look back when they’re no longer little and wish we would have read to them more, had more pillow fights, or said yes that time we said no. We will know certain heartaches our children went through were because of decisions we made, but we will also know that the heartaches we wish we could have spared them from are the same ones that shaped them into resilient, compassionate, strong adults. We do our best and know that regrets are ultimately part of the human experience, and life gives us many opportunities to make up for them. That said, there are a few trivial parenting regrets I carry with me as we’ve packed up the baby and toddler years–silly things that won’t necessarily put our kids in therapy, but ones I wish I could go back and do differently to make things easier today or to bring more joy to the early years. I thought it would be fun to share them, if not for the simple reason of sparing new moms from my regrets.

Regret 1: Not investing in the most important item in a nursery…a good rocking chair.
I was only a couple months pregnant when Brett and I went to the fanciest kid furniture store in town, and I fell in love with a crib and dresser. It wasn’t cheap, so I knocked off my plans for a nice rocking chair, convincing myself I could find a cheap one on Craigslist. I bought an inexpensive wooden one, but it wasn’t very comfortable, so it lasted a couple months before I got rid of it. I nursed Lainey from the couch or the little love seat we inherited from our neighbors, and when Nella and Dash were born I made do with wherever I could find a spot to sit with them which was often my bed heaped with laundry. Looking back, I realize how precious and fleeting those baby years were–how magical those hours of sitting and nursing were, and I wish I would have bought a less expensive crib and had the perfect chair instead. Rocking babies to sleep in a chair made just for that purpose is something worth investing in. Those chairs are where you nurse them, hold them close in the middle of the night, soothe their fevers, and read them Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny until they can recite the words themselves. So if you’re pregnant and starting to plan your nursery…you can jazz up any basic crib to be beautiful. Put your money where your memories will be…get the good rocking chair.

Regret 2: Bumping Nella from a crib before she was ready.
We got ahead of ourselves on this one. We moved Nella to a bed when I was pregnant with Dash because I thought making her more independent was the right thing to do, and also the little kid bed we moved her to was so darn cute. But she loved her crib. She slept so good in it, the crib was always her safe place, and there were countless mornings when she woke up babbling and we let her stay and play simply because the crib was where she was happy. Her sleeping patterns were never the same after we moved her from the crib, and Brett and I to this day mention several times a year, “We should have never taken the crib away from her.” I think we feel rushed as parents sometimes to get to the next milestone, but if I were to go back, I’d have let her sleep in that crib for as long as her heart desired. Don’t rush the milestones. Let them be babies.

Regret 3: Letting “Foods I Think They’ll Like” be my guiding force for what I introduced to them.
I poured applesauce in their first oatmeal because I thought it would be bland, I skipped over mashed peas to give them bananas because “Ew, gross,” and I didn’t think to offer avocado when they cried for something to eat because, duh, she wants a biter biscuit. I don’t expect my kindergartener to request steamed beets and a salad in his school lunch, but I know my kids would be less picky eaters if I wouldn’t have jumped to make their first foods flashier.

Regret 4: Not teaching them to pick up after themselves.
Oh, Debbie is loving this one. This one is haaarrrrrrd to go back and teach if you don’t start early. And to be honest, I never really thought about it as something you have to teach. I just picked up toys, all the time, wondering why I was picking up toys all the time. I realized late in the game that picking up after yourself should be A: modeled (okay, I guess I’m out) and B: taught. Taught looks like constant reminders: “Okay, if you’re done playing legos, you need to put them back in the lego bin before you pull out the puzzles.” Or “Could you please come inside and put your blocks away before you ride bikes?” I caught on and did this more with Dash, and it’s remarkable how much more instinctive it is for him to put things away without even thinking. His room is always clean. I wish I would have done less picking up after my kids and made them do it themselves because we’re catching up on learning now, and it’s a long, slow struggle.

Controversial parenting decisions I feel pretty good about though? Having a family bed, letting Lainey have a pacifier until she was 4, holding my babies all the damn time, introducing a phone to Lainey in sixth grade (lots of thoughts on that for another time, but so far, a few weeks in, it feels like very appropriate timing!)

Wait, I thought of one more regret, and this one’s important. Those precious baby pictures you took? That whole first year with all the milestones you managed to capture? The photos of toothless grins and cake-on-face first birthday celebrations? Are they on your hard drive? BACK THAT SHIT UP. I learned the hard way with Dash’s first year. Thank goodness for what I edited because I had backup copies in Lightroom, but I still lost a lot.

Any trivial parenting decisions you wish you could go back and redo? Dish ’em!

Oh, and a little P.S. for your weekend. I’m launching the second run of Ordinary Magic, a month long program near and dear to my heart intended to spark joy and creativity and bring purpose and community to women who are feeling a little stuck or want to take some time for themselves. You can read all about it here as well as testimonials from women who have been a part of it. This program is for women of all ages! Most participants fall between 25-55, but there are also women in their early twenties or 55+ in the Ordinary Magic crew. You’ll meet new mothers, empty nesters, entrepreneurs, artists, nurses, teachers, retireers–you name it. If Ordinary Magic calls to you, it’s right for you, and we welcome you!