The Overnight Garden

Dear My Toy Garden friends!

There were four moms. Each with a toddler tucked in a high chair next to them making a perfect mom/toddler/mom pattern around the table. A sunny day and a fun outing prompted Nicholas and I to stop for lunch at a favorite spot of ours and landed us at the neighboring table to these moms. Their conversation began with how much they all loved Amazon Prime and how much money it saved them. My shoulders sagged a bit. Next came how crazy their children were about Elmo. My shoulders dropped a bit more. Another shift in conversation and the toddlers became a bit fidgety. An arsenal of snacks appeared....all highly processed with a rainbow of color additives accompanied by sippy cups filled with milk. When that was followed by the handing over of the Iphones like synchronized swimmers, I confess I think I sighed an audible sigh.

Let me insert here. I am not perfect. I am far from it. I impulse buy candy bars at the grocery checkout, drink beer, find excuses not to exercise and lose my temper with my children. No one is perfect and no one should ever expect to be. What I also am is a learner. My choices today are colored very much by my daily commitment to learn something new. Who I am today is a very different person...thankfully...from who I was a year ago, 5 years ago...to think back 10 or 20 years, I laugh at myself. My habits then included a 2 lb bag of M&M's weekly and a daily stop at McDonald's for a small fry and an ice cream cone.

Imagine with me if you would a garden. One filled with gorgeous flowers carefully planned and cared for whose colors spill from one bed to the next drawing the eye onward and inward at the same time. How did that garden get there? Were seeds planted one day and then magically all was amazing the next? Sadly, there are no overnight gardens. Gardens, like behaviors, are grown over a long period of time and are ever changing. Seeds are planted. Watered. Plants begin to grow. Weeds are pulled. Plants are pruned. Plants moved to other areas to grow better. New plants are selected and cultivated. Over time...weeks, months, years...beauty grows in gardens and in our lives.

This week I invite you to look at your behaviors...your life choices. Are you a people or a sheeple? Sheep graze with little thought of their course. People have the gift of learning given to them. Choose one area you'd like to know more about....child development, nutrition, media influences, exercise, schooling, religion, anything....and devote 10 minutes a day to growing your garden.(See this previous Power 10 newsletter.) Make your daily choices grounded in facts that your mind is hungry to know rather than blindly following others. You'll soon be enjoying the beauty of your knowledge and will find choices you once had are hard to imagine doing again.

I invite you then to take it one step farther and go plant some seeds in someone else's garden to see what might bloom. I did have a conversation with the moms that day about dairy and if just one of them paused to think for a minute and perhaps consider learning more, my little seed might have grown some roots. Go share your seeds that you are passionate about! Bouquets are always best when they are shared aren't they?

Rendevous With my Neighbor

    Is that a knob?  Oh, it's the cat!  Where is that teacup handle?  Yes!  There it is!  Conversations you would recently have overheard at my kitchen table.  You see, my neighbor, Libbi and I are moms like many of you. We have laundry to do, meals to plan, children to chase, schedules to arrange.  About a month ago, we decided to be rebels and chuck all that aside for a blissful hour here and a treasured hour there.   A text or two between us and a rendevouz was planned!  My kitchen table during naptime on a Sunday afternoon.  What awaited us?  A 550 piece jigsaw puzzle!  All adult size pieces.  :-)
     For 3 Sunday afternoons, she and I laughed together, talked together, puzzled together.  Neither of us could remember the last time we'd done a grown up puzzle.  And you know what?  We liked it!! Alot!  We had so much fun watching the picture slowly develop below our fingertips, one side ebbing forward and then the other.  First she finding the errant piece and then I.  When we got to the last 10 pieces, we lined them up in a row and had a grand countdown to celebrate.  We can't wait to do it again!
       I share this story with you this week to invite you to do the same....play!  Don't let the children have all the fun.  One of the most frequent comments we get from people is "I don't have any children."  or "My children are all grown up."  So?!  You need to play too!  Here's a few of about a billion articles you can use as frig art or slip into your boss' mailbox.

From the Huffington Post... 
     "Play isn't a character defect; it's the builder of character, developing persistence, competence, mastery and social skills that take us beyond perceived limitations."  

     "When it comes to beefing up your happiness, it's hard to do better than engaged play. Not only does it align you with your deepest needs and deliver fun in the moment, but the social component of play is a huge predictor of increased daily well-being, the research shows."

    "Studies show that playfulness can increase performance on the job and stoke creativity by breaking up the mental set that keeps us stuck. It resets the brain. "

From First Things First....
      "studies show that a life lived without play is at increased risk for stress related diseases, mental health issues, addiction and interpersonal violence."

       Dr. Brown author of Play!
      "But Dr. Brown's research began with a study of Charles Whitman, an engineering student at the University of Texas who climbed a tower and murdered 14 people. An examination of Whitman's past indicated that although he was a leading Eagle Scout, play was missing from his childhood, "systematically suppressed by a very aggressive, disturbed, and cruel father."
     "Brown subsequently accumulated the play history of 6,000 convicted murderers, car drivers who killed people, and Nobel Laureates. He also found that most of the memories of survivors of the attack on the World Trade Center were of play."


         My Toy Garden specifically carries lots of items to stimulate your brain to keep it young and healthy as well as add a giant dose of laughter to your days.  Don't let those children have all the fun! Stop by on your lunch hour or while the children are at school and play a game with us!

Me Do It? No, You Do It!

Dear My Toy Garden friends!

 The clock ticks toward 8 pm and the next episode of the Bachelor is calling you. All you need to do is get the children snuggled into bed and then you settle on the couch for some grown up time. So close! The playroom is a disaster though...hmm... You have 2 choices. Choice #1: Pick them up yourself...again. This ensures that you will be the one picking them up tomorrow and the next day and the next. Choice #2: Use on of Toylady Janet's tips below to turn your child into a toy picking up machine making clean up time quick and fun and enable them to one day be able to live on their own. Which do you choose?
My secrets...
#1 - Follow the ideas from a previous newsletter of limiting the number of toys out and getting them organized into small labeled bins. Please see the My Toy Garden blog to read it again.
#2 - Set a Timer - Races are so fun! Bet you we can't clean this up before the time goes off? Your phone has a timer on it with a fun sound. Set it to quack, buss, doink or vroom and watch the toys disappear. Timers work well with many of the ideas below.
#3 - Create a Pile - Push toys into 2 piles. A small pile is less overwhelming than toys strewn all over the room. Say, "This pile is yours to put away and this pile is mine. When you have yours put away, you get to blank."  Make the blank something fun they want to do. Go outside, play a game, do a craft, eat a snack. Be consistent with your expectations and you'll see the pile disappear faster and faster.
#4 - Pick a Color - Try saying, "What color are you going to pick up?"  or "You pick up the blue ones and I'll pick up the red ones"  Giving a color helps them tune into a few pieces making the task seem more doable.
#5 - Pitch it - With toys with lots of pieces, it's much more fun to throw them than to pick them up. Keep blocks and such toys and then let them wind up their pitcher's arm and pitch them in. Keep score of how many make it in.
#6 - Special Basket - Have a special basket just for cleaning up. One for each child. Let them fill their baskets with goodies of the day and deliver them like a mailman to their proper homes. My Toy Garden carries cute shopping baskets that would work great for this!

And Then There's This...

Dear My Toy Garden friends!

     Kathy is job hunting again.  Writing her resume.   Collecting her references.  Looking at the Help Wanted ads.  This was not her plan.  Like many out of work adults, life handed her a twist and she finds herself unemployed worrying about the future for her husband and 2 children.   Kathy's employer was not a large company.   Her employer didn't downsize.  Her employer didn't merge with someone else and eliminate her job.
    Once upon a time, Kathy was a teacher.  An elementary teacher and she loved her job very much.  She poured her time and talents and compassion into her students.  She wanted something more.  She wanted to make an even bigger difference.   So she started to put her dreams into action.  It took a few years to put the gears into place and be ready to flip the switch but in 2007, it happened.  She and her husband celebrated the Grand Opening of Toys in the Attic! What a joyous time that was!  Old and new friends came to play, to connect, to be inspired.  The first year or two were all she dreamed them to be.
     Then the economy began to shake and stumble.  The town she lived in had it's fingers dug deeply into the new housing market.  As dollars got tighter, fewer homes were built.  The local families saw their paychecks shrink.  People visited Toys in the Attic less and less.  Kathy did what she could to let people know she was there for them.  She carefully selected uinque products that were affordable yet allowed her to pay her bills.  She was there with a listening ear, a hug, a parenting tip for the puzzled parent.  She gift wrapped for free.  She offered community events that provided much needed distractions.  It wasn't enough.
    People turned to online websites and big box stores to make what purchases they could.   Their dollars left the local economy of Kathy's small town impacting Kathy's budget and sending a ripple effect out to the schools, public safety departments and other groups that counted on sales tax dollars to fund their efforts.   A few weeks ago, after many months of doing everything she could, Kathy very sadly hung the "Out of Business" sign on the front door.   She posted the picture below on her Facebook page simply captioned, "And then there's this..."   Please send a prayer for her and her family as they seek the next steps of their journey.
    I wish I could report to you that this does not happen in our own backyard.  It does.  My heart breaks to see KissZCook on 116th now with darkened windows and empty floorspace.  Mudsocks Books on 116th and Allisonville announced 2 weeks ago that they are closing.  Anyone who did not go visit their charming bookstore with treasures tucked here and there complete with a store cat missed a very special experience.  An experience I guarantee you your Kindle or Nook will never provide.  After several emails clearly stating their plight, they will soon hang an "Out of Business" sign up as well.
     As I hear stories such as these, my prayers are said for My Toy Garden.  I'm so very thankful for your support and love in our first year and half and I know that it is only through your continued love and support that we will be here for many years to come making a difference in every way we can.  Please keep us and other locally owned stores in mind as you choose where to spend those precious, powerful dollars that you have.   Only you can prevent "Out of Business" signs.

Playfully,
Toylady Janet