Back to School

Apple Pie will be launching a fall series on getting organized at home and planning a year to remember. Following this, we will discuss ways to spend the afternoon after school is out, and then a week of tea. I hope this will be an encouragement to reach for your personal best, while not weighing you down with unrealistic expectations. My advice is seasoned from twenty years of raising a family and hard-won. But that doesn't mean it will be right for everyone.

Let me say it here, before we begin, that I applaud any and every way in which a mother makes her home the unique expression of her own perspective and abilities. We do not need to look just like one another, and we shouldn't if we are being true to who we are. There are many ways to have a successful family experience. As long as there is love and integrity and steady effort, the children will thrive.

So I am not going to tell you what to do. But I am going to encourage you, help you hold on to the big picture, and give you some ideas that may help. I know some of you are viewing the year with anxiety and trepidation, some with reluctance and avoidance, some with eagerness and optimism. There is a place for you here, each one of you, a place that celebrates the sweetness of home and helps you be the mother you mean to be.

For those of you who do not want to read posts on planning and organizing, I am providing an alternative. I am launching a new sister blog -- The Moonboat Cafe. This is designed to be a place where you can go to relax and think about other things, rest from thinking about your home, and connect with the other parts of yourself which can get lost in the great effort of raising a family.

Apple Pie posts will run posts on the weekdays. The Moonboat Cafe will publish at least one post over the weekend, for those readers who like to read their blogs like a Sunday paper. If I don't post, it will be because our internet service was not working, or something else happened to stop me. Check back later, or the next day. I will be there, waiting for you -- my friends of the heart and spirit.

I am looking forward to it our visits.

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You are invited to go to The Moonboat Cafe today and read the first post which explains how it came to be. Just click on the link above. See you there.