Randi Zuckerberg's Blog, page 58

Now, About Those Resolutions…

As we begin wrapping up 2013, we look back at the things we can improve upon and would like to do differently in the next year. Here are few helpful tips for creating and reaching those attainable New Year’s resolutions for 2014:

Step away from the smartphone

If you spend each and every day with your face hidden behind a smartphone, tablet or computer, make an effort to interact more with the important people around you. Try planning a family night. As much as we love our gadgets, it seems to be turning our family members into strangers. Introduce some more human interaction in your household. Most importantly, keep those phones away from the dinner table!

Actually keeping that “Get Fit” promise

Devices like the FitBit or the Fuel Band are small electronic devices discreet enough to carry around, or even stylish enough to wear on your wrist, that measure and report on your daily activity. They connect to your phone or computer and provide metrics on your daily activity. It allows you to monitor how close you are to obtaining your set daily fitness goal. Sometimes it can be as little as walking the dog or walking up and down stairs instead of taking the elevator.

De-clutter!

Don’t save all that cleaning for the spring. It’s time to clear out inbox of the 700 unread emails that have been sitting there for months. Maybe start some tabs and begin filing your emails in a more efficient system. This can be difficult for some, because if you’re like me, you have a flooded inbox of sale alerts and shopping deals from different retailers. Get rid of that electronic pollution and gain back control over your emails. Another way of freeing up clutter in your life is trying to go paperless. You can easily pay your bills and access important documents from any device with a Wi-Fi connection. Payment systems like PayPal allow you to store a history of your transactions over multiple cards in one easy place or send money digitally through the PayPal app. No need to have bills from different carriers sent to your house. You can even scan old papers and convert your paper files into digital files for safe storage — or at least, as a backup.

Learn something new online

Embark on exciting, self-improvement projects. There are lots of quality courses for every age, interest and attention span for free online. Try learning a new language this year – maybe you’ve been planning a trip to South America. Why not start practicing your Spanish now? If you can’t think of anything, find inspiration through the best Ted Talks or even try including your kids with fun and engaging YouTube videos like the Spangler Science channel.

Seriously, keep those promises!

University of Scranton research suggests that just 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals. To assist you in keeping these goals you can look to apps like Everest, which encourage you to simplify your goals to be more manageable. Each challenge is broken down into steps which you simply swipe to complete. Stop hitting that snooze button, today is the day you begin reaching these goals. There’s a nifty app that can help you get out of that bed and eliminate that pesky temptation to hit the snooze button every morning. With the Charity Alarm App you have an extra incentive to get out of bed because for every time you hit snooze, you automatically pay $0.99 to a charity of your choice.

Posted on 1/3/2014

Written by Randi Zuckerberg

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5 Things To Do Now To Make The Holidays Next Year Less Stressful

The holiday season is my favorite time of the year but it is also when I stress the most! Shopping, gifts, decorating, wrapping, holiday cards… every year the list is the same and every year there are too many to-dos and not enough time do them. I’ve finally realized that the only way to remain sane in the weeks leading up to the holidays is to plan ahead!

Here are five easy steps you can take now, to save yourself time and stress next holiday season:



1. Buy ornaments, gift wrap, tape and holiday decorations now. This is the best time of the year to buy anything holiday related because many items are severely discounted. If your children are as rowdy as mine, you inevitably broke a couple of ornaments this year. Replace those ornaments and add to next season’s décor now and save yourself the headache next year. And don’t forget to buy tape and gift wrap to avoid next year’s inevitable emergency trip to the store. Store everything in your holiday box and enjoy one less errand next holiday season!

2. Set a calendar reminder on November 1st to start the holiday card process. This is a great reminder to get started early so that you are not cramming at the last minute to get your cards out the door. Additionally, many stationary providers offer higher discounts for orders submitted by mid-to-late November. In this reminder it is also helpful to indicate the number of cards you ordered this year and whether you need more or less next year. If you work with a photographer for your annual family picture, also set a June 1st reminder to book your appointment.

3. Create a “Best of 2014 Pictures” folder. Each time you download new pictures from your phone or camera take an extra five minutes to filter through and save the best “keepers” in a “Best of 2014 Pictures” folder. This makes it easier to put together photo books, calendars, framed pictures, and holiday cards at the end of the year.

4. Sign up for Amazon Prime and set a reminder to sign up for retailers’ emails. Amazon Prime is $79/year and provides two-day free shipping on millions of items. It is well worth it for the home, and a must-have if you own a small business. Sign up now so you enjoy all year and make holiday shopping next season much easier. This year many of the big retailers were providing significant discounts and deals via email throughout the months of November and December. Set a calendar reminder on November 10th to sign up for your favorite retailers’ emails so you don’t miss out for next years’ holiday shopping. And, set another reminder on December 26th to unsubscribe to those retailers who you are not interested in post-holidays. Save yourself the email clutter in the new year!

5. Save and format your final alphabetized address labels. This year you likely made edits to your holiday card address list including changes in addresses, additions, and deletions. Take the time now to finalize these edits in an alphabetized document that you save in Google Docs or another shared drive that your family can easily access next holiday season. If you are extra motivated, find a stationary site now that will address and send out holiday cards on your behalf next year (like Paper Culture or Minted). Download their template and format your address list now to save yourself a ton of time and energy next year!

Posted on 1/3/2014

Written by Anjali Varma

Anjali Varma is “The Modern Mompreneur.” Her website and You Tube channel provide parenting, lifestyle, and entrepreneurial tips for the modern mom trying to juggle it all. She is also the owner of a Kidville franchise in Bethesda, MD that offers classes, retail, haircuts, and birthday parties for young children. Anjali lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and 3 & 5 year old sons.  She holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a BBA from the University of Michigan.  You can find Anjali at www.themodernmompreneur.com, www.youtube.com/themodernmompreneur and @anjvarma.

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What’s In A Game?

Over dinner, my second grader announced that tomorrow was going to be “Bring a Game to School” day. I recall as a kid enjoying these break-the-norm events in elementary school, especially when it was close to the Holidays, Spring Break, or the end of the year. Likewise, if I were a teacher, I too would want to shake up the routine to grab the interest of antsy kids counting down the hours til Christmas. So, all and all, Bring a Game Day sounded like a cool idea.

As usual, the next morning in a household of five was a bit frenetic between dramatic wake ups, not-hot- enough showers, getting dressed, breakfast choices, and oh yeah, the constant demand by all three children to either “Watch your phone” or “Play the computer”. “No,” we say through gritted teeth, because “We need to get ready for school” and “Aren’t you excited to see your teacher today?” and the final pushback “Hey, the phone will be here when you get home!”; none of which seem to ever assuage a seven, four, and three-year-old. For the most part, Thursday was just another example of getting kids ready in the digital age.

Back to my daughter, who lets out a wail as we are about to leave. “I need to bring a game to school today, remember?!?!” No problem, I tell her, just hustle and get it, we have time before the bell rings. Now, here is where the plot thickens. My daughter bounds up the stairs, throws open our game closet, rustles around, comes running down with Chutes And Ladders, and explains as we scoot out the door that even though it’s kind of baby-ish, she thinks it will be good choice.

That evening at dinner, I ask my daughter how Game Day was.

“Terrible” she says. Terrible? Really? Did she get teased for her baby-ish selection? Did she lose (that’s an easy one to set her off)? Did some boy not want to play? Did the teacher cancel the whole thing?

Ummmmm…no. It was terrible, she begins to explain, because everyone else got to play on their phone (or Kindle or any of the other three devices she rattled off) and she didn’t, and oh by the way, so and so has such and such game and it’s way better than what we have on our phones….

Wow. Has it come to that in a brief span of five years since smartphones changed the world and tablets became Mom’s new handbag?

In the mind, and ears, of a second grader, does hearing Game day at school instinctively compel them to grab their digital device and excitedly stuff it into their backpack? Apparently so because in my daugther’s classroom that day, digital devices whooped board games 19 to 1. What would Parker and his Brothers of Monopoly fame think of all this? What about Sorry’s Henry, Hilal, and Herman Hassenfeld (that is, Hasbro)? I’m guessing their heirs have transformed these boring old board games into apps and are monetizing it. But I digress. Are games not the games they were thirty years ago, let alone five?

In retrospect, I take solace in the fact that I personally thought of the traditional board games in our closet when my daughter mentioned that it was Bring a Game day, so I have not lost my way. But more importantly, I take pride in the fact that my daughter thought that Bring a Game meant something from our jumbled closet and not Minecraft or Angry Birds or Plants v. Zombies or some other 99 cent time waster that we have afforded her on her iPhone (yes, her iPhone, sans cell service, although I’m sure she will bring that up in third grade that all the kids are texting- I’ll deal with that in 2014).

In the continued battle of Dad (and Mom) versus Devices, I’d like to think Dad prevailed today. Now, I get she is forever on guard when Game Day rolls around again, but today, a victory. There is something both intimate and educational about sitting together, many times one on one with my child, and playing a game in the physical world where there are rules, strategy, luck, and wisdom to be shared. Albeit Chutes and Ladders doesn’t have much strategy to it, but I can assure you that game has afforded me the opportunity, in but a 15 minute session before she bores and wants to move on, to illustrate a valuable lesson in life that you should never quit even though the landscape looks grim.

Posted on 1/3/2014

Written by Matthew J Beshear

Matthew J Beshear is a Dad. And a husband, too. And along with his wife, they struggle each day to find the balance for their children between an ever evolving world of digital, devices, and technology and breathing fresh air, interacting with other humans, and learning how the real world works.

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Your New Year’s TECH Resolutions

A new year, a fresh start… While most people are making resolutions that focus on exercise and diet, here at Dot Complicated we’re challenging ourselves with tech resolutions– that is, changes to the way we use technology so it enhances our lives, rather than detracts from it.

We asked readers what their tech resolutions are for 2014– here’s what you said.

David Ryan Polgar ‏@TechEthicist5h: New Years Tech Resolution: never check my phone while in mid-conversation–be fully present & engaged.

Mel Carson ‏@MelCarson6h: Mine’s to use devices less around my 2 year-old. She’s already saying “Put your phone down, Daddy!”

Retroette ‏@retroette13h: Turn off all tech by 10 pm. (Big fail tonight, I’m afraid.)

Mommy’s Event BFF ‏@MommysEventBFF17h: Stop checking my phone when my children come home from school and don’t get back online until after they go to bed.

Sueanne Shirzay ‏@SueanneShirzay: My N Y resolution is to use my phone to actually call people.

Daniel ‏@idanielroman: Stop checking Twitter before bed.

Raffe Gold ‏@raffeg: Be less of a promoter and more of an engager.

Jyoti Maheshwari ‏@j11tweets: My new year’s resolution is to take at least one cell phone-free vacation every year.

mackmckelvey ‏@mackmckelvey: No devices at the dinner table. Any dinner table, anywhere.

alicemwu ‏@alicemwu: I’ve started putting my cell phone in my dresser to stop myself from looking at my phone

aprilfresh ‏@aprilfresh: Find a “home base” at home for my iphone. If it’s not following me around, I won’t check it as often.

Katie Kempner ‏@katiekempner: To stop checking my phone when I am spending time with my kids and really be present in the moment.

Tam ‏@oiler0218: My new year’s tech resolution is not to use my phone in the car AT ALL. #safetyfirst #donttextanddrive

Angela Pontarolo ‏@Apontarolo18 Dec: Mine is to truly and consistently be present. Tech down & listen.

Joree Rosenblatt ‏@joreerose3318: Not to tell my kids “hold on” when in middle of a text. They’re more important. Mindful parenting

Blessing Oshin ‏@ThinkFeminist18: Mine is zero social media except ‘Twitter’ for 2014. I know you FB folks won’t appreciate that, but…

Zeke Quezada ‏@ZekeQuezada18 Dec: No more weekend tech moments that interfere with my kid’s activities.

Tanya Barrios ‏@tbarrios47: Not check my email until I get to work!

Carla Naumburg, PhD ‏@SWMama: My tech resolution is to put away my phone from when I pick up my kids at school until I get them to bed!

We love these! What’s your New Year’s tech resolution! Tweet @dotcomplicated or let us know in the comment below.

Posted on 1/2/2014

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Making New Year’s Intentions, Not Resolutions

The New Year…it’s that quintessential time to reflect on the past, look towards the future, and probe deep inside with a lens of self-inquiry, introspection and honesty. It’s the season to make resolutions for all the things we want to change, do better, let go of, or fix about ourselves so we can achieve a healthier state of mind, body and soul. There is only one problem with New Year’s resolutions…they usually never work!

According to Statistic Brain, 45% of people make resolutions but only 8% of people are successful in keeping them. Why is it so hard to stick to resolves that are so beneficial? It’s because people can’t make a drastic change overnight. It’s common to wake up January 1 with the determination to make it to the gym at least 5 days a week, cut out your extra 2 cups of coffee, limit alcohol to only the weekend, call your mother more often, and of course curb your spending habits. People don’t normally stick to their surefire goals because it’s simply not natural to shift habits that quickly. It takes time, patience, practice and the retraining of your brain to actually create new neural connections that lead to lasting change. This does not happen magically as the clock strikes midnight, while you are drinking champagne, kissing the person next to you as confetti falls from above.

However, New Year’s resolutions really do have a purpose and place in your life. You can and should change all the things about yourself in order to live optimally and authentically to become your best self. But you don’t need a specific date on the calendar to start making those changes. You need awareness to notice what isn’t working for you and the intention to make it better.

I hate the word “goal.” I actually get really annoyed when my husband asks me what my goals are. I tell him that I don’t have goals because it implies that if I don’t meet them, then I haven’t succeeded and clearly I’ve failed. I tell him that instead of setting goals, I set intentions.

Having an intention keeps me present and grounded in my moment-to-moment actions. And because I have a strong mindfulness practice, I constantly am inviting inquiry to my inner state, being aware of what is arising in my present moment experience and deciding with intention and skill how to proceed forward. Having intentions, rather than goals or resolutions, keeps me in the here and now rather than in the future. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know I have control over this very moment. I also have the faith to know that what is meant to be will be, and if I don’t reach a particular “goal” it’s because my process is about the journey, not the destination, and that my path will lead me to where I’m supposed to be.

So, when thinking about the New Year and all the things that you are resolving to change, I invite you to cultivate a mindfulness practice. This will provide you the tools to stay present, heighten your awareness of self, live with more attention and intention, and develop a greater connection to your mind, body and spirit. Don’t just fixate on finite resolutions that will determine you as a success or failure for having kept them or not. Rather allow yourself to be, to breathe and to intend on having the best year you are capable of having. And take it one moment, one breath at a time. That truly is all you have power over, and as long as you’re breathing and being aware, you will stay very close to your intentions. And even if you miss the mark from time to time, don’t give up, rather forgive yourself, and remember you are human. Resolve to come back to your intention and make a new choice in the next moment.

Recently I have been reciting a new mantra during my meditations, and I offer this to you as a tool for sticking close to your intentions: “I breathe in what nourishes and heals me; I breathe out what is spent.” Focusing on these words naturally helps you make choices that lead to achieving your resolutions. By setting this as your intention you will make the lasting change towards being your best self and achieving a healthier state of mind, body and soul. Isn’t that what we all resolve to have anyways? Happy New Year to you and yours!

Posted on 1/2/2014

Written by Joree Rosenblatt

Joree Rosenblatt has a Master’s in Counseling Psychology and is a mindfulness educator in the Northern California. In addition to working at a K-8 private school teaching mindfulness to students, she teaches her original curriculum to adults, and onsite in corporations, and speaks publically on the Fundamentals of Mindfulness and Mindful Parenting. Joree’s true passion is raising her two daughters, mindfully of course…well, most of the time! Even though she already is a rock star mom, Joree practices mindfulness every day, and when all else fails, she remembers to take a moment and just breathe.

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Does Your Family Have A Plan This Holiday Season?

When my oldest daughter was three, she pointed to a mini-Christmas tree decoration at our local supermarket with excitement.  “Can we get a tree?” she asked.  “No, sweetie,” I explained, “we’re Jewish.”  After further pleading failed to sway me, she wailed, somewhere around the cereal aisle, “I HAAAATE being Jewish!”

I was mortified.  I was upset.  But most of all, at that moment, I wanted nothing more than for her to stop screaming those words in the supermarket. So I grabbed a miniature tree and told her we were getting a Hanukkah Bush.  On the drive home, I called my husband to warn him about what I was bringing home.

I obviously had not thought through how to handle this incident and, as a result, committed one of my many rookie mistakes of parenting: I simply reacted in the moment.

What I realized that day, years before my daughter would ask me to re-tell the story of the supermarket scene, is that I needed to think through this holiday thing more intentionally.  What did we want to teach our children about our heritage and our beliefs, beyond a Hanukkah bush?

Regardless of each family’s beliefs, holidays provide a unique opportunity to teach our children about our individual and shared family values and traditions. (Sometimes I forget this in my self-inflicted panic over the eight nights of Hanukkah.)  By teaching children about holidays and brainstorming ideas for a plan together, the celebration evolves from accidental to purposeful. It is not about making a logistical plan for who buys which presents for whom (although that can be useful, too). A family holiday plan is about actively making meaningful memories. It can be creative. It can be altruistic. It can be playful. It might include, among the endless possibilities:

• creating a family holiday scrapbook or journal about the holidays with photos and stories that you add to every year

• having children record family members’ stories of the holidays using a simple phone

• baking together and giving the treats to teachers or others

• giving out certificates of time as presents, e.g., going on a picnic, having a pillow fight, helping to make breakfast in bed for a family member

• collecting unused household items to donate and delivering them together

• writing special cards or creating artwork as gifts

• putting holiday questions in a bowl in the center of the table for a holiday dinner, e.g., What are you thankful for this year? (to be passed around and discussed)

• going caroling or visiting others who are in need of some holiday merriment

• having a family night to decorate for the holiday

• simply reading together by the fire with no electronics on hand

I used to underestimate how important family tradition is for my children during the holidays.  Several years ago, I started writing poems for each night of Hanukkah with a theme for the night.  Clues in the poem led to a hunt around the house to locate a present or a “certificate” for a special activity or event.  (Now you know why I panic about the eight nights of Hanukkah.)  I did not necessarily intend for this to become an annual tradition, but I quickly discovered that as memories of the gifts faded, the themes and clues did not.  Our family plan has evolved over the years. The gifts are now smaller, but the themes and clues are more meaningful, and everyone partakes in the planning and the giving, especially the children.

Whether it is through themes and clues, a holiday story, a trip to visit others in need . . . there is no magic to the specifics of a family holiday plan.  But you will find that making the plan is itself magical.

You don’t need to bribe, cajole, or trick your kids into focusing more on the meaning of the day than the gifts. If children take part in creating the holiday plan, this will happen intentionally, with the kids enthusiastically leading the way.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once reflected that while plans can be worthless, “planning is everything.”  And so too, bringing children in on the holiday planning changes everything.

Posted on 12/20/2013

Written by Katherine Eskovitz

Katherine Eskovitz is an attorney and writer turned Momtrepreneur as the Founder & CEO of little BLUEPRINT. A graduate of Yale Law School and Cornell University, Katherine practiced law for seventeen years as a federal prosecutor and partner in a national law firm. She turned her courtroom skills and experience as a former speechwriter to writing for a new audience: children. Katherine’s Have a Plan Books, which can be purchased at www.littleBLUEPRINT.com, combine her passion for research, writing, and photography. A native New Yorker, Katherine lives in Santa Monica, California with her husband and three young children.

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Outsource Your Photo Editing For Cheap

Tech has allowed us “ordinary folk” to outsource those tasks that you may not relish doing– whatever chore you dread, you can find a service to help you with it (normally for a pretty reasonable price). Munchery lets you outsource cooking. Exec lets you outsource house cleaning. TaskRabbit even lets you outsource IKEA furniture assembly.

Next up in the round-up is Polish My Pics. This service is for people who love taking pictures, but who never have time to edit them.  The service culls, edits, crops and then lightly color enhances your stash of digital photos when you simply don’t have the time.  All you do is upload your pics to DropBox or Google Drive, and their team takes care of the rest. The process is easy. The prices are affordable. And turnaround times vary between 3 hours to 2 business days.

My favorite part of this service is the fact that they discard all duplicates and blurry pictures and sends you back a file full of only the beautiful, edited photos that are ready to upload to your favorite social site or print to frame. They also send you back all the original photo files, so nothing is ever lost.

It feels a little weird to send out my pictures for some unknown person to see and work with, but the benefits of having my pictures processed so quickly far outweigh my initial weirdness. So often I never do anything with my photos because I don’t have the time to edit them. The Polish My Pics photo editing service starts at $7.50 for 50 photos.

Posted on 12/17/2013

Written by Liz Wassmann

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Top Pins Of 2013

Pinterest recently announced a compilation of it’s top pins of the year– everything from the top tattoos to the nail art that we couldn’t get enough of. You can check out the year in review, see what was trending and what you missed.

Here’s a sampling:

Taco cupcakes, churro waffles, and beer-candied bacon in  Food
The Caves (Jamaica), a geothermal spa (Iceland), and Temples (Myanmar) in  Travel
Tulle, boho, tartan, and collars in  Women’s Fashion
Bowties, colored pants, and hipster haircuts in  Men’s Fashion
3D printers, wearables and motion sensors in  Technology

Click here for the full list of the top pins of 2013.

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For Me, There’s No Such Thing As Over-Sharing

“The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual.” – Earl Warren (14th United States and 30th Chief Justice of the Governor of California. 1891-1974)

If only Mr. Warren knew then what has come to be true now. Those advances in “electronic communication” have propelled our society into a world that was unfathomable 50 years ago, even 10 years ago. Technology has changed how we communicate with one another and how we project ourselves to everyone around us. The media in all its forms often debate the underbelly of the Internet; cyber-bullying, over-sharing personal information and blatant disregard for privacy. But can social media actually enrich our lives?

My short and long answer is both an emphatic “YES”. Social media can be reflective, positive, informative, balanced, compassionate, vulnerable, empathetic, funny, witty, sweet and insightful all at once. It can be the gateway to family members you haven’t spoke to in person for years. It can be the connection to friends from all aspects of your life; from kindergarten to junior high to college and beyond. It can be the place where you can share content that resonates with you, or share stories in the news that inform you. It can give you access to your friends’ lives, their families, their homes, their kids, their cats, and their cars. Prior to 2004, you’d never have access to any of that unless these same friends lived up the street and around the corner.

I’m one of those people who “over-shares” content on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve been told my life sometimes reads like a sitcom online. With a busy freelance career and five kids under the age of 13, I have plenty to post. Sometimes it’s silly, mundane things like what kid broke what appliance (it’s actually the same kid who does all the damage but that’s another story altogether). Other times, it’s to promote something related to my work. But most times, I post what’s in my heart and mind in any given moment.

My entire life I’ve been guilty of behaving like an open book, sharing everything with whoever would listen. My parents have long since passed away, and I don’t have a large, close- knit family circle that talks and sees each other every day. Social media sharing was meant for someone like me, who needed to feel some sort of connection to the outside world, especially when my inner world is so small and closed off. I started blogging about my son’s life-threatening food allergies years ago because I felt alone in my struggles. At that time I knew no one else who had a child with this serious medical condition. I was talking to a wall whenever I tried to discuss how hard and isolating the food allergy world was. So I took my feelings online and created a website that eventually attracted thousands of visitors and opened the door to book deals. My accidental career as a cookbook author came solely because of my need to rant about these things to someone, even if it was a blank computer screen.

For years, I “over-shared” on Facebook about how much I despised the oppressive and unrelenting Chicago winters. I lived my entire life in the Midwest, with the exception of one sunny year in Arizona and four months in an equally-as-sunny Israel. I was notoriously moody and grumpy from January through March. My friends avoided me then because they knew there was no way to help a girl who suffered terribly from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and still continued to live in one of the most un-sunny places on earth. When I got my first book deal, I was struck with the notion that maybe my other dream of moving out west with my family might be possible too.

So I put my house on the market not once, not twice, but three times over the course of a couple years. The market was in terrible condition, I had my fifth baby, wrote another book and my life was full of one crazy story after another. I posted daily about my struggles of trying to sell my house, find a house across the country, get my five kids to that new house as well as acclimated in brand new schools in a new region of the country. Moving to Orange County from the Chicago was certainly more of a culture shock for them than I anticipated. I posted my struggles and triumphs along the way, and gained courage from my friends’ positive comments from all over the country.

It was an extraordinary time then, moving my family of seven across the country to live in the “world’s best climate”. At times the process was lonely, heartbreaking and sad. Sharing those tough times online, and being transparent online not only helped me get through it, but also helped others who were reading and following along. I had at least three friends privately share with me how watching me go through those trials and tribulations gave them hope and perspective, and helped them follow their dormant dreams too.

I still continue to over-share and post about my life. Some days I regret the fact that I am an apologetically open person, and have often almost pulled the trigger on shutting down my accounts. But most days I am happy to share my life with others if they care to read about it. Social media can be a dangerously personal thing that leaves you exposed to the world. But for me, I believe we are all vulnerable creatures, needing and desiring to be heard and to feel connected to each other. And for me, social media, when used responsibly, is an incredible way to share experiences and learn from them.

Posted on 12/17/2013

Written by Kelly Rudnicki

Kelly Rudnicki is the author of The Food Allergy Mama’s Easy, Fast Family Meals, The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book and Vegan Baking Classics. She is also the founder of the award-winning blog www.foodallergymama.com, a freelance writer and an advocate for food allergy safety in schools nationwide. She ives in Southern California with her husband and five children.

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This Family’s Christmas Card Is Cooler Than Yours

This family uses the tech tools at their disposal to make a Christmas card that their friends and family will never forget. I’m predicting that next year, christmas videos will be all the rage.

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