Blog - Kara S. Anderson

Launching a kid (graduation. real time.)

by Kara S. Anderson 8 Comments

It turns out, getting into college isn’t actually the hard part.

I mean it is. Sure. There are visits and applications, and I guess like 18 years of helping your child turn into a college-ready person, but now that my oldest has been accepted to college, I’m learning that the hoop-jumping only increases as we get closer to August.

Part of me wants to go back to that day in February, the day before his 18th birthday, as we all stood around his phone at 4 p.m., waiting for the email telling us whether he got into his college of choice, and then the joyous relief.

It’s weird how memories work, because in truth, that day was mostly terrible.

I spent the morning crying in my office, certain that if he didn’t get into his top choice school that it was my fault; that I had somehow failed him through homeschooling.

***

And now I find myself here again, wanting to help, but not wanting to push – wanting so much to set him up for success as he prepares to leave home.

Wanting.

And yet, sometimes, for a moment, I am able to take a step back and realize this isn’t about me. This isn’t my journey.

I’m the Dumbledore in this story, not the Harry.

***

This is hard of course, so I am coping in my usual ways – tea and Voxer – sending out messages and pleas and saying things that build up until I’m ready to burst (Instant Pot Emotions).

My friend Vanessa reminded me that maybe it’s OK to help, because teen brains are still forming, but not help too much, because my own peri-menopausal brain struggles some days to keep up with the very basics.

How many times can one wash her hands and note we are low on hand soap, and still not be able to remember to order hand soap?

(3 times so far today)

My friend Mary reminded me that all kids are different, and to just focus on what my child needs and that sadly, there is no one checklist that is going to fit every kid in every situation.

And then my friend Shawna, who is a year ahead of me in all of this, provides reassurance that I am not alone and that it will get better:

“It was nerve-wracking and dumb for six months, but it worked out.”

This is my new morning mantra.

***

And that’s what I’m holding on to right now, that if my child really wants to go to this college (and if it’s meant to work out), that I can relax a little; stop making lists and tugging at my hair and thinking that there’s some magical way out there to make all of this easier.

Even the box my son’s graduation party invites came in reminds me: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Thanks Canva.

But also, SHUT UP.

***

Because let me tell you what no stressed mother needs ever: trite little sayings.

What I 100 percent do not need right now is some Hobby Lobby plaque telling me to Live, Laugh and Hug a Terrier to get through this.

What I do need is for it to just be done – in the rearview mirror – over.

Complete.

(Right?)

***

Until we get there I’m trying to remember:

This isn’t forever.

It’s an ass-kicker, but it’s not eternal.

At some point, he will either get all ready for college or not, and the difference will not come down to whether or not I worry hard enough.

It’s a high emotion time.

I’m so jacked on adrenaline, I could lift a car.

I am basically The Hulk with a bullet journal.

This is hard, yes, but it feels SO HARD because it’s such an emotional thing.

It’s OK to care so much.

All the feelings are me loving my kid.

So it’s not bad that I worry, and it’s not bad that sometimes I want to take over too much, and it’s normal to be a little bit of a lunatic right now.

BUT …

Ultimately, this is his.

It’s a tricky thing when your kids become adults, because you’ve know them pretty much the whole time (or at least a lot of the time).

You know exactly who they used to be, and all the weird things they did when they were 4, but you’ve only gotten glimpses of who they’re becoming.

You can see exactly where they might struggle, and so it’s really tempting to jump in, and yet maybe your therapist also tells you to “Stop trying to fix it all, Kara.”

***

I was doing a journaling class this weekend and the teacher asked a broad question: Knowing that everything turns out beautifully in the end, what would you change today?

I immediately knew my answer.

I would stop acting like a nut about this college thing.

I wold stop acting like this was all so hard, such a trial.

I would do everything I could to enjoy these days with my son before things change.

***

Sometimes, when I get quiet, and my brain stops spinning for just a few seconds, I wonder if that’s part of the hard too – I wonder if making lists and marking deadlines on the calendar is easier than feeling the big emotions.

I wonder if my brain is tricking me – sending stress hormones flying so I don’t have to slow down and feel the huge shift happening.

I heard author Katrina Kenison say that once our kids leave for college, it’s never the same.

She said it wistfully – sadly. You could tell it hurt her heart.

I heard this on the same day that my son was accepted to college. The same day I had cried – so scared that he wouldn’t be accepted. So scared I had failed him.

We had celebrated, and a few hours later I heard Katrina say “it’s never the same,” and I felt such a mix of emotions, but still the big one was relief.

Silly me.

I thought we had done something, and here we had actually started something.

***

As I was writing this, my son texted me to tell me he had found a piano on campus (he’s in early enrollment classes at our local college) and was playing for the first time in years.

It made me recall this post, and specifically what he told me then:

“Mom? I feel like I was born with music in my heart and every time someone pushes me, the space for it gets smaller and smaller.”

***

It’s all a good reminder that so often, our kids don’t need us to push.

They just need us to see them – to be there as they grow into who they are meant to be.

But friends, this is not the easy way.

In fact I will tell you that if you want a quick, simple method for raising your kids, you should pretty much do the exact opposite of me.

Stop listening.

Bark orders.

Keep ’em in line and put them in onesies that proclaim their futures before they can hold up their own heads: “Lil Linebacker” and “Baby Beauty Queen.”

***

But all that always felt desperately wrong to me, and so I tried this other thing …

It’s a killer. It breaks my heart. I worry sometimes that I’m getting it wrong.

I worry right now.

I worry and I want.

***

A few weeks ago, my son started growing a bonsai tree because of course he did.

Bonsais start differently than I expected – when they sprout, it’s not in the way you’d think – these thin little green tendrils – so fragile.

I can’t help it. I want to care for this little plant. I want to protect it from curious cats and follow the directions step by step to ensure it thrives.

But …

It’s not my plant.

If I were to take over – even if I just tell my son what to do and still let him do it – it’s no longer his plant.

A bonsai tree can live to be more than 100 years old.

So you can see what I’m getting at here.

At some point, we have to let go.

***

I swear to you, he just texted again wondering about getting a degree in neuroscience.

He’s got a roommate. He’s figured out his meal plan.

He knows which dorm he wants to live in and why.

He’s thinking about majors. He’s doing the work.

I am support staff.

Dumbledore.

Here. Always.

But also, staying here.

He’s not a fragile little bonsai sprout. The past 18 years weren’t nothing.

He strong and ready and I’m …

I’m getting there.

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Risotto, spring and graduating a kid

by Kara S. Anderson 5 Comments

My friend Jes taught me to make risotto 17 years ago in her family’s little cabin in Wisconsin.

We had traveled there with our friend Tabitha and our 3 babies for a girls weekend (plus infant plus-ones), and Jes had planned dinner, but then needed to nurse her daughter – and so she gave me directions from the couch while The Rolling Stones played in the background.

Although I’m Italian, we never had risotto growing up.

I knew basically what it was, though, so as I stood at the little stove I fretted – the the rice soup in front of me wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do.

“Just keep stirring,” Jes commanded, and I did, and eventually something magical started to happen.

Later, I heard Alton Brown talk about trying risotto for the first time as a child. He was convinced it had to contain heavy cream.

Just rice couldn’t create the smooth texture of risotto, right?

He’s right.

Risotto is kind of a miracle.

But it’s a slow miracle.

***

Last week, when it snowed again, I became temporarily convinced that spring is just not going to happen this year. That maybe it will just snow until July, and then it will be so steamy and terrible, that we’ll all wish we could go back to flurries and 40s.

But as I head out on my daily walk, I see little signs here and there – a robin, a green sprout of something.

A confused daffodil.

Yesterday, a little girl in a cosmos-patterned dress and helmet, riding her bike.

We all know, somewhere deep inside, that eventually weather will change. It will get warmer, then cooler, then we’ll want snow for Christmas and not much after that (unless you are a ski person.)

***

If you want to cry, try ordering a graduation cap while Landslide plays in the background.

I didn’t do this on purpose, but these days when I think of something, I have to do it or write it down. Otherwise it becomes air + yet another nagging worry that I’m forgetting something.

I spend a lot of time lately worrying about how much I’m forgetting. So I take fish oil and do Wordle and tell myself again and again that this is a result of the last two years. I found immense comfort last week here.

But back to the cap – my oldest is graduating, and I’m listening to Landslide and I normally don’t do things like that to myself.

It’s best right now if I focus on tasks (order a cap, order a cake, print 18 years of photos) and not on the enormity of what’s happening – that my son is graduating, and then leaving for college.

It’s better to choose balloon colors and send invites than to consider that next year at this time, he’ll be in another city – that he’ll have a separate life and that maybe, if I am lucky, he’ll choose to keep me apprised of what is appropriate for a mom to hear.

***

I think most graduations feel big, but homeschool graduations have an extra layer of delicious Raspberry Relief tucked in between the spongy white cake layers of Thank God.

This was never a sure thing.

The older I get the more I realize how few guarantees there are in life, and a homeschool graduation was never promised.

Most of the time, I was sure I was failing in some giant way – not pushing math, not buckling down on Geography.

My biggest fault was always that I was too easy on my kids, and now I’m glad because they still seem to like me and somehow we’ve met all the goals anyway, enough for the first kid to graduate and get into the college he wanted to go to most.

But today I’m thinking of all the time I spent worried – it was making risotto for 15 years straight.

“I’m not a chef,” I told myself constantly. “Who told me I could do this?”

***

Last night I made risotto for dinner.

I know every step now. It’s autopilot. I zest my lemon and the little yellow curls land right in the cup I used to measure my rice.

That’s how it goes when you’ve done something for so long – you figure out all the short-cuts and ways to keep clean-up at a minimum.

Maybe in a few years, I’ll feel confident enough to tell you that’s what I did with homeschooling my kids – that my method wasn’t about my own grand failings, but instead about finding a way that worked for us – (shortcuts + minimizing emotional clean-up.)

But I’m not there yet.

***

I have realized that separate from homeschooling, our kids are like seasons – they are going to grow and change and in so many ways, we have so little control.

It’s better that way – I promise.

Letting your children grow into themselves is the way to go – this I know for sure.

(I know it’s tempting to control and push. You’ll want to make them cut their hair for the photo and force them to wear a little outfit you picked out, but if you do that, you’ll just find yourself years later looking back on manufactured memories.)

So why not let go now just a little, and have faith that they are becoming who they are meant to be and know that really, that has a lot less to do with you than you want …

***

And then with homeschooling, consider risotto.

You have to attend the pan pretty much the whole time. But it’s not as complicated as it seems.

You add some butter or oil and shallots.

You measure the rice and stir.

You carefully add stock and stir some more.

Salt and pepper.

(Lots of pepper.)

More stock.

Maybe asparagus or peas. (If you wanted mushrooms you should have put those in at the beginning, but it won’t be so bad if you add them a little late).

The more you make it, the more you’ll realize the exact moment to toss in some cheese …

I will tell you –

many, many times I have made mistakes in this process –

never once have I had to toss out a batch of risotto.

Because now I know the secret:

Just keep stirring.

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Is a food making your anxiety worse? (with a free tracking printable)

by Kara S. Anderson Leave a Comment

Is there a food that’s adding to your anxiety?

That’s the question I was asking myself recently, when I started looking up some of the stuff that can happen when you are intolerant or sensitive to a food (or food group, like dairy or nightshades or whatever).

And there it was listed – a possible side effect of a food intolerance can include anxiety.

Plus other stuff was listed. A food intolerance can give you headaches. It can make your tummy hurt. It can make your muscles and joints sore. It can make you really tired.

And of course all of those things can add to anxiety because our busy, protective anxiety brains may decide those things indicate other health issues.

Important. Please Read ⬇️

Now. Before we go one step further – I am not a medical professional of any type.

Please do not take anything I write here as a substitution for proper medical advice and care.

If you are in a crisis or need help, please call 911, go to the nearest emergency room or call the National Alliance on Mental Illness Helpline at 800.950.NAMI or text NAMI to 741741.

No Cheating. Sorry.

Now, assuming that you have proper medical care, but are living with anxiety, one thing you can do if you believe food is worsening your symptoms is to eliminate the food and track how you feel.

I’ve seen conflicting reports on how long you should eliminate a food from your diet, but in most cases, two weeks to 21 days seems to be the minimum recommendation.

And certainly, if you start to notice a big difference in how you’re feeling, you can continue longer.

I don’t want to get bossy about how to do an elimination diet and/or adding food back in, so if this is your first time trying an elimination diet, be sure to research all that’s involved. (There are about 80 million books on this topic.)

But two tips: Nope, when you are doing a true elimination diet, you can not cheat. You can’t have just one Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, or one piece of pizza or one bite of anything if it contains the food you’re eliminating and get proper results.

Also, only eliminate one food at a time, otherwise, you won’t know specifically what food is potentially contributing to your anxiety without way more investigative work beyond the scope of this free printable.

A FREE Printable Tracker

I made this free printable food elimination tracker for you if you suspect that something you are eating is perhaps making your anxiety symptoms worse. (I say eating, but it could be drinking, like in the case of caffeine).

To use the tracker, simply track the date, anything going on physically, anything going on emotionally, any other thoughts, and rate your anxiety.

(You can print out as many of the tracker pages as you need, but I recommend you only check in once or twice a day, so this doesn’t become burdensome. You’re already shifting your diet and that takes a lot of effort.)

Based on my experience – give this time. It may take a week or more to see any changes. Drink lots of water. Maybe take some epsom salt baths to help your body detoxify.

*Again – I am not a medical professional.*

But, if you notice that you are feeling better without that thing – a food, food group, caffeine, sugar, etc., in your body – Wahoo. Because you feel better!

But also, don’t just decide – “OK, gluten is BAD forever” or whatever.

Just use this as some information, and proceed responsibly.

You know how to do that. You’re a grown up person and you’ve made it this far, with ANXIETY, so just keep going.

Talk to a doctor or medical professional. Tell your shrink. Call your mom.

And be proud of yourself even if you tried this experiment and your anxiety didn’t get better.

You are actively working to take good care of yourself, and that’s HUGE. High five.

Right now, it’s like this.

Finally, sometimes, when we have anxiety, we keep throwing figurative spaghetti at the wall trying to see if anything will stick.

Sometimes, we try so many things, that “fixing” our anxiety becomes a part-time job.

A popular phrase in meditation circles is “Right now, it’s like this.”

I like to remember that when I go into Fix-It Mode, because sometimes, there just really isn’t much we can do to “fix” our anxiety.

We can take good care of ourselves, and we can go to our appointments, and if we take meds, we can stay on top of that, and we can ask for help, but we may not be able to “cure” our anxiety altogether, even if we pray or take medicine or douse ourselves in essential oils, or exercise, or meditate, or do deep breathing, or pet a therapy llama or stop eating sugar.

This free printable is just one tool that I made to see if it would help me feel a little better, and I wanted to share it with you.

But that’s all it is – a tool.

Again, if you are in any kind of crisis, please call 911, go to the nearest emergency room or call the National Alliance on Mental Illness Helpline at 800.950.NAMI or text NAMI to 741741.

Sending you so much love,

Kara

Looking for more? Join me over on Instagram, (@karastephensonanderson) where we chat connection over perfection, anxiety, overwhelm and doing the best we can.

NEED HELP ORGANIZING YOUR FOOD LIFE? I GET IT. Check out my meal planning system ebook here

or click the image below.

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A simple guide to meal planning

by Kara S. Anderson Leave a Comment

It feels important to tell you that I did not set our to write a meal planning ebook.

Instead, I set out to save my own sanity.

It all goes like this:

I HATE meal planning. It is hands-down the worst part of my week.

For a long time, it took me about an hour and a half every Sunday, which feels extra cruel. Sundays are supposed to be days of rest, but instead, for me, they have long involved my least favorite task.

And so, I created a system because I just couldn’t do it anymore.

It was either this, or hire Alice from the Brady Bunch. And I can’t afford that, and also, I don’t think people do that anymore, do they?

Simple Meal Planning

When I say that meal planning would take me 1.5 hours once a week, I don’t want you to think that I am a fancy person, or that I am natural organized or that I even like cooking.

NONE of that is true.

I used to like cooking for about 3-4 years, before I was a person with 2 kids and living on mostly one income and in a bunch of mothering groups that told me that if I cared, I would never, ever give my children a McDonald’s ice cream cone.

It was a lot of pressure.

Hanger Help

No – I’m just a lady who likes to eat. Who needs to eat.

I mean, we all NEED to eat, but I am super sensitive to blood sugar swings, plus I’m a vegetarian, so if I don’t plan, things are likely to turn quite ugly quite quickly.

And so I have always meal planned, since my kids were little, which means I’ve been doing this for almost 18 years. Heaven help me.

But every week it felt like reinventing the wheel, until recently.

A Simple System

I decided that what I really needed was a simple meal planning system that I could rely on like a friend.

There would be no more pulling out 8 cookbooks every week, searching for ANYTHING we all eat.

Less Waste

Less waste was another requirement. I could not get all aspirational with my meal planning.

It seems lovely to think that we’re all going to eat more cruciferous vegetables, or that we’re going to suddenly all fall in love with whole grain pasta instead of the same, regular semolina pasta that FIXES THINGS.

The System

And so, I created a 4 step (and 1 step is optional!) meal planning system.

There’s a big of leg work upfront, but nothing worth it is won without a little sweat and swearing, right?

Just for YOU!

And then it occurred to me – wait – I bet I am not the only one who struggles with meal planning.

If I was going to go and make 17 printables (yup!) why not share them?

So here you are, friends …

Here is my newest ebook:

In this ebook, I share my simple system for making meals your family actually eats.

This 30-page ebook includes 17 printables, and will walk you through creating a list of meals your family loves, categorizing those recipes, using them for weekly planning and buying groceries that don’t rot in the crisper and mold on the counter.

Printables include:

favorite and easy meals lists
2 meal category planning pages
3 weekly meal plan page options in 3 styles – Sunday start, Monday start and blank
a meal prep plan sheet
a printable grocery list
a pantry inventory sheet
and a Recipes to Try Printable

Less Stress, More Food People EAT

My hope is that this ebook and planning system will be just what you need to take some of the stress out of meal planning and help you get meals your family loves on the table.

I know that it’s helping me, and I’ve made it very adaptable, because we all do things a little differently, but one thing we all have in common is that we need to eat and we all want the process to be as enjoyable as possible, right?

So head over now and check out my newest ebook, and if you like this kind of system, don’t miss this ebook’s BFF about cleaning.