I love cooking. This love came from my mom who had us helping in the kitchen as soon as we were able to stand. And that was deepened with my first cooking class when I was six.     My challenge as a parent is how to offer this same experience to my daughter without getting stressed out. By talking with my mom and cooking with Gates for almost two years, I've come up with these tips to ensure we have fun when we're in the kitchen together.   What tips do you have for cooking with kids? What are your favorite recipes to make with kids?  

Every year I pause to reflect on what I've accomplished. And this holiday break is no different. Here are my top ten posts from 2015--all focused on appreciating the haves in your life and embracing life's unpredictability.     Before I pull together the top ten posts of each year, I put together my top ten. Sometimes the posts between the two lists are pretty much the same. And sometimes, like this year, the lists differ greatly (only two posts in common this year).   What was your 2015 like?  

I've always liked the end of chapters. As you turn the page to the next chapter there's so much possibility. One's story can go so many directions. That's why I love compiling my top ten posts of the year. They show me where my story went; they give me the opportunity to see whether the plans I had at the start of the year came true.     What did you accomplish in 2014?  

If I'm not creating, I get stabby. I'll jump down your throat. I'll sulk. If as an adult I could get away with it, I'd stamp my feet and scream until I got my way. But, I no longer have time for any of that.   Rather than focus on what I couldn't do, I decided to look at what I could do. I could commit to 20 minutes three days a week to create: a 20-minute practice in seeing.     How do you fit a creativity practice into your routine?  

I started this final post of 2013 with a hypothesis in mind when I first outlined it a couple of weeks ago. My hypothesis was that your top five most popular posts would line up pretty closely with my major life events from 2013. As I began pulling the most popular posts, I realized I'd missed the forest for the trees; I'd ignored 2012, looking at 2013 as a whole--a journey.     The top ten posts from 2013 showcase unscripted lives -- mine as well as two guest contributors: Michelle Wear and Jennifer Hurlburt. Lives with ups and downs. Lives made up of little details. Lives where we don't have enough time. Lives where we embrace the chaos and try our best each day. I'm incredibly touched by you and the posts you found most interesting. Beginning with the tenth most popular post, here we go!   10. Around Our Home: Our First Dining Table Growing up our family gather together each night around the dining table for dinner. There we'd share stories from our day.   ...

At any given moment, I have a pile of partially read and unread books and magazines sitting on my bedside nightstand. I typically choose a book or two around a theme that I want to explore more fully and eventually write about and to distill into a pithy 140 character or less soundbite for posting on my wall as motivational art. These quotes end up displayed on our kitchen counter for a week.     When cubes was in the hospital, I began posting weekly maxims for me to ponder with magnetic letters on a silver-platted serving tray in our kitchen. (An evolution of 2012's Sunday Scrambles for Gates Flickr series.) It started out as a way to express creatively how I was feeling: just add coffee and shaken not stirred to infuse a serious situation with a little humor.     cubes spent many a waking hour connecting to the world outside the hospital via social media; he began commenting on the maxims I was sharing on Instagram. Looking for subjects other than health or wo...

In last year's reader survey when you asked for more DIY projects, I was a little nervous. DIY made me anxious because I tended to think of it as something creatives did. (I didn't fully embrace the creative label for myself a year ago.) Thank you for challenging me to grow and for the enthusiastic response you showed to these projects. These were some of the most popular posts not just for DIY, but for the entire year.     When it comes to writing, I find it takes between two to four hours to conceive of, develop, edit, and publish a story. That estimate doesn't include styling a photo shoot, taking photos, selecting images, and editing. It doesn't include prototyping a DIY project, documenting the steps, and storyboarding how best to share those steps. The same goes for recipe posts.   As you might imagine a lot of DIY projects and recipes never make it to a blog or a publication. This is true not just for me, but for other creatives as well. The path from idea to ...

From now until the end of 2013, I'll be wrapping up the year with some of the most popular posts of the year. Today I kick off the Best of 2013 series with the top five most popular recipes.     Bringing everyone together at the dinner table to share a home-cooked meal proved more challenging in 2013 than I had originally thought. I ended up cooking and baking less in 2013 than I had wanted to. But, I'd like to think that the meals and sweets I did share with my family made up for the lack of desired quantity with quality.     Top Five Most Popular Recipes of 2013 The most popular recipes of 2013 according to you were: Non-Traditional Delicata Squash Holiday Sidedish Braised Boneless Short Ribs with Brussels Sprouts Chopped Apple Pear Cake Stroganoff Lamb Chops with Chickpeas and Cous Cous Are your favorites here? What recipes do you like making for your family?   From My Mom's Kitchen: The Beef Stroganoff Incident Until I started writing this post ...

Today marks the official first day of Spring. Here in the Bay Area, signs have been visible for almost a month now. Where many have still been shoveling snow, we've been able to wear skirts without tights and picnic in the park without jackets.     When I'm feeling blue and in need of a pick me up, I like to bring fresh flowers inside. Last fall and over the winter, I added orchids to rooms as their blooms can last for months versus just a week or so. At the moment, two of my three orchid plants have died. The third, bloomless, is growing nicely, abandoned and forgotten in our laundry room.   I'm going to celebrate Spring by taking a walk around the neighborhood with Gates and seeing if we can capture a rainbow of blooms with my camera.   How do you celebrate Spring?   Top Six Blooms from 2011 Seen Today Flowers Series If signs of Spring aren't yet visible in your neighborhood, here are five of the most popular blooms I've photographed from around the Bay ...

Thank goodness it's Friday! I don't know if your week has been anything like mine, but if it has, with plans turned upside down, I empathize. This week has been a little crazy with an under-the-weather toddler in the house. So, rather than leave you without your font fix, I'm pulling reader favorites you might have missed from the archives.     As Gates has not been her chipper self, and without her usual naps, it's been tricky getting photo shoots set up or having uninterrupted time to design bunting and invitations. Don't worry though. As soon as I get caught up, I'll be sharing a downloadable Zoo Animal birthday party printable with you. In the meantime, thanks for understanding, and enjoy these five+ fonts! Awash in Watercolor Impact Label: Retro Labeling Font for Your Organization Needs Kitchen Kapers: Outline Font for Bunting and Foodie ABC Prints Big Noodle or Telegrafico: Display Fonts for Pasta Feeds and Armchair Traveling Kelmscott Roman: Retro ...

As humans we can't help it. We look for validation in what we do in numbers. How many people viewed my post today? How many people commented? If all is quiet, we wonder is anyone out there. The end of a year is the perfect time to look back on what worked and what didn't work.     By the numbers, you (and SEO) seem to like the posts where my personality comes through and I'm keeping it real, whether it's a struggle to find inspiration, educational artwork for Gates' nursery wall, what I'm getting in the mail, or my challenge to be happy with what I have.   Top Ten Posts from 2012 Here are the top ten posts from 2012 by popularity: DIY: Magnetic Message Boards Join me for the Mindful Consumption Challenge Sunday Scramble: Look Outside for Inspiration Thursday Purseday: Bring on the Orange Reflections: Pulling the Family Card Thursday Tools: Toss that Resume for a Graphical Bio A Good Mail Day: Unsolicited Information Overload Tuesday Shoesday: Fun in the ...

Deciphering the theme for the 2012 Photo Challenge from my Flickr gallery, one would think it had something to do with food. The majority of my photographs are still lifes of fruit and vegetables, blueberries, oranges, habanero peppers, strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, squash, brussels sprouts, basil, and more.     The 2012 Photo Challenge was simple. Choose a color for a month and shoot it as many or as few times as you wanted. I thought this was a much more doable challenge than the previous photo challenges; there wasn't a daily or weekly commitment to a specific subject. Life doesn't always cooperate - presenting the perfect subject in the wrong light or the most amazing light and the wrong subject. After the first two months, rather than intentionally choosing a color and shooting it, I photographed color as I came across it.     For me, the challenge isn't about forcing myself to take a photo every day, it's about motivating myself to create. Remember...