This weekend, to help cheer up the cold winter, my friends Sharon, Kendra and I decided to have a mama/kid sleepover! We figured it would be like taking a trip together but without having to leave town.
So, one afternoon, we all piled into Kendra's house uptown (her husband was on a work trip). As we arrived armed with travel cribs, backpacks and rowdy kiddos, she joked, "This is either going to be the best idea we've ever had or a total disaster."
After playing and exploring the neighborhood, that evening we made pizzas. Kendra's awesome tip: Buy fresh dough from your local pizza place! Smart, right? It was easy, cheap and tasted great.
The kids each made mini pizzas with sauce and cheese...
And we made some for the mamas, including one with cheese and grilled red onions. Delicious.
(Eeks! Those cheeks!)
But the highlight was the Nintendo Wii dancing game that Sharon brought. Have you played it? You try to do the same moves as the dancers on screen, and the game somehow tracks you to see how well you do.
Nailed it.
Here are the kiddos rocking out. They did it for HOURS while the mamas talked and ate cookies in the kitchen (and sometimes peeked in).
The next morning we had bagels and bacon. It was so much fun; I can't believe we had never thought of it before! We could really relax and hang out without having to rush home for naps and bedtimes. The only catch is that we got approximately zero hours of sleep that night:) But it was worth it.

Would you do this? Do you already have grown-up sleepovers? Or travel with friends? I'm so into it!

What are you up to this weekend? Last night we saw the incredible movie Her. Have you seen it yet? The color palette was exquisite—everything was dusty pink, orange or red—and the story was so compelling. (As the NYTimes review said, she's just a voice, "but oh what a voice.") We really loved it. Also, thanks for all your fun comments this week—it's so nice to be back! Hope you have a good weekend, and here are a few great posts from around the web...

Kate Middleton is just as awkward as the rest of us.

This twitter account made me laugh.

LOVE the color of these boots.

What it's like to be a contestant on The Bachelor. (Answer: Crazy.)

Are you Type A? I'm busted.

What a gorgeous dress from the Golden Globes.

Seinfeld and George were spotted at Tom's restaurant!

Kids winning at hide and seek.

(And why children cover their eyes when hiding.)

The prettiest pink lips.

My mom gave me this book for Christmas and I'm excited to dive in.

If you want to keep your New Year's Resolutions, rephrase them as a question.

What it's like to be a parent, according to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

Directors reveal: The toughest scene I wrote.

A few people asked about how to handle winter blues. Here are seven ideas, and apparently taking Vitamin D really helps too!

(Images from the movie Her, via Diana)

What kind of accent do you have? While growing up in Michigan, my brother, sister and I picked up slight Michigan accents. We'd say things like "maahm" instead of "mom," and "caehr" instead of "car," and "Bab" instead of "Bob." After living in New York for twelve years, I've basically lost it, but sometimes when I drink too much wine, it can randomly bust out again. Yes, Michigan!

George Mason University collects speech samples from around the world, and everyone has to read this paragraph: "Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station."

Have you taken the fascinating dialect quiz that has spread like wildfire online? What answer did you get? (It pinpointed that I was from Michigan.) And in the video above, actress Amy Walker does 24 different accents (some are better than others). The California one made me laugh out loud.

What kind of accent do you have?

P.S. What British people say versus what they really mean, and Toby in conversation.

(Speech archive found by the brilliant Kottke)

This past fall, when I was feeling bummed out, Alex and I started a tradition to try to cheer me up...

When we would lie down in bed at night, we each had to say:
* two things you're grateful for overall
* two little things you enjoyed that day
* one reason why you're glad you're married to the other person

It was so nice to end the day with this little chat, and we would tell each other anecdotes and compliments that we might not have otherwise. And it really was a pick-me-up! Even though I'm (thankfully) starting to feel better now, we're planning to keep it up.
Do you do anything like this? Gratitude journals are supposed to be awesome. (Here are six surprising tips about how to keep one.)

P.S. Encouragement and the no-complaining challenge.

(Photos from our friend's cabin a while back)

How gorgeous is this engraved locket? I don't wear much jewelry, but Alex gave me a locket for Christmas, and I really love it. He put family photos inside, and it feels surprisingly heartwarming to wear it all day. Have you ever worn a locket?

Lately I'm grateful for:

Sunday afternoons at the dog park.

A loving cohort who cares for one another and drives each other crazy.

Friends named Mary.

Having friends with extra beds in the NRV when I'm too tired to drive back to Roanoke.

A husband who claimed to me last night that he is "capitalist by trade, socialist by heart."

Visits from mom and sister.



A pleasantly sweet cooperating teacher to spend this semester learning from.

Dirty pawprints on my sheets.



Free geography swag from fellow teachers.

Brothers who finally read books I took them months ago.

A dad with a little friend in his belly and the opportunity to show off my nursing skills this weekend.

Pictures like this that make me giddy.

Dulce et Decorum Est

                Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Erin Boyle of Reading My Tea Leaves and Gardenista and her husband live together in seriously small quarters—a 240-square-foot studio, to be exact. She agreed to share her surprising tips about how to make it work (and not drive each other crazy)...Read More >

My aunt Lulu is visiting this week (we're all ecstatic!) and of course on Monday night we drank wine and watched The Bachelor. She was totally into it, but kept saying, "Who are these poor women? Why would they put themselves through this?" And I remembered this fascinating New York Times article by Andrea Seigel about the psychology behind the reality TV shows, including the Bachelor...

*****

Just as “Survivor” isn’t really about enduring life on a deserted beach, “The Bachelor” isn’t really about dating or marriage. It pretends to be about romance by using props like red roses and satin evening wear and shimmering-wet driveways so that it looks as if the mansion just got hit by a John-Cusack-movie rain, but it’s really about science — which you might even think of as the opposite of romance, especially if you aren’t a scientist. In fact, if “Survivor” is about being unable to escape who you really are when you’re dropped into uncomfortable conditions, then I would say that “The Bachelor” is about forgetting who you really are when everybody around you gets lost in the same overpowering fiction. The show is this generation’s Stanford Prison Experiment.

“The Bachelor” is the prison guard, and his potential fiancées are the inmates. I’m not suggesting that the dynamic is inherently abusive, although it can be—this past season, Bachelor Ben would shut down any woman who expressed fear of his rejection, which was especially weird, seeing as how he was rejected himself during the previous “Bachelorette” season while down on bended knee.

From the first night of the season, the producers keep the alcohol flowing, and the contestants stay awake until it’s nearly sunrise, working hard to get the attention of one person. One person who has generally been pretty lackluster. With every new season, people complain that “The Bachelor” has proved to be a terrible model for building lasting relationships, which is like complaining that politicians are just trying to win votes. The show could improve its track record only by setting out to make matches between S.-and-M. partners.

I’ve always believed that if you’re truly in love with someone, you shouldn’t be able to answer the question “What do you love about him?” with any kind of real satisfaction. The things you’re able to articulate should leave you at least a little hollow. Contestants on “The Bachelor” will usually have to answer this question for his family, and there will be the usual adjectives like “kind” and “generous” and “funny.” It’s not that I think anyone is intentionally lying, but that they’re describing traits that belong to the set of circumstances more than the person. “The Bachelor” is kind because he has no reason not to be; if he becomes disillusioned with you, he can just send you home. He’s generous because he has a production team purchasing intense, expensive experiences for your dates. He’s funny because you’ve both been flown to a charming village in Switzerland and a funny little cow wandered up behind your picnic. If you want to insist that the show is about falling in love, then it’s more accurate to say it’s about falling in love with being on vacation.

I became especially fascinated with the 13th season of the show, when Jason Mesnick first proposed to Melissa in the finale, then decided that he was really in love with the runner-up, Molly, by the time of the update special. What happened with Melissa during those six weeks of engagement? “The conversations, which were so great on the show, were completely different,” Jason tried to explain. What I think he was really saying was, So we went to a movie in a normal theater. With other people around us. With bad popcorn. Walking out of the theater, she said, “That’s my new favorite movie!” I thought to myself, Really? That movie? And in that moment, I realized that was going to be our whole lives.

*****

Read the full article here, if you'd like. And the women are't even allowed to watch TV or read books; their only escape from the house is to go on a date with the bachelor, right? Talk about losing perspective! Do you watch the show?

This month, we're featuring delicious meals that you can make using a single bowl. First up: Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion, authors of the fantastic cookbook KEEPERS, share their recipe for lasagna that you can make in a skillet (yes!)...
Read More >

My sister sent this vocabulary test over the holidays, and our family went nuts for it. Since I know a bunch of you are word nerds, too, I wanted to share it...

Take the quiz here, and leave your score below!

P.S. Can you read emotions?

For the holidays, we went to Palm Spring and Los Angeles for two weeks. It was great to get a blast of California sunshine, and a few funny things happened during our trip...Read More >

Hello! I'm back from a three-week blogging break, which was by far the longest break that I've taken since starting Cup of Jo seven years ago. Thanks for coming back! How are you? It was a rare treat to be able to step back and think in an overarching way about the site, and I'm excited to be rolling out a few changes. Here's the plan...

This past fall, I was feeling pretty burned out. Part of that was postpartum depression (quite similar to what happened after Toby was born—more on that later—and I'm so thankful to have come out the other side). But part of it was that I was so swamped by day-to-day work and upkeep that I didn’t have enough time to write as many longer, more thoughtful posts or produce the types of original series I wanted to. I felt a little like I was on a treadmill!

When we were in California for the holidays, I realized that it might help a lot to bring on a few awesome, likeminded contributors. That way, they can contribute great posts, and I will have more time to write longer posts myself. Overall, the blog will keep the same tone and feel—including family anecdotes and personal posts—but there will also be more original content and series that I hope you'll really enjoy. We're just taking it up a notch, basically!

It will be a very slow and careful process, so everything will look the same for now. My hope is to slowly roll out new elements throughout the year. Please let me know what you think as things move forward! Obviously I want you to be happy and enjoy the site even more.

Meanwhile, I'd love to know: What are you up to these days? What’s on your mind? What are you excited or worried about in your life right now? What would you like to talk about or read about or discuss with other readers? Any topics you'd love to have covered? Or questions you have?

Anyway, I've missed you! And I have so much to share now after being off the internet for three weeks, holy smokes. It was awesome to get a break, but I’m happy to be back! Hope you're having a wonderful month. xoxo

P.S. Blogging as a career.
P.P.S. Thank you so much for the amazing job applications! I'll be reading through them this month and will get back to those of you asap.

(Photo by Kari Herer)

I don't make them. But I do try to do better than I did last year. And I try to get my shit together a little more each year. I've got a long way to go.

However, I was reading at this blog the other day about using January as your cleaning month. The only thing I have actually done is to clean up my inbox from all of those obnoxious e-mails and unsubscribing from them (Loft, Old Navy, Printstagram, Good Housekeeping, Ebay, etc.). And let me tell you, you will feel like a new woman (or man if Drew is reading this as my only male reader). Also, if you're like my friend Sarah you just need to clean out your inbox in general from the over 1,000 e-mails you're keeping "just in case." It stresses me out and it should stress you out.

Another thing Drew and I are doing this year is something I read on a blog whose name I can't remember but we are exchanging a list of 12 books we want the other to read and each month we're responsible for reading one. We have very different tastes.

Drew's all fantasy, sci-fi, and fiction. And I'm all historical, education, and non-fiction. So it shall be interesting. His first book is the Autobiography of Malcolm X and mine is the first of the Harry Potter's. Before you ask, the answer is nope. Never read them. If you know me you know my dear mama worried about wizardry/witchcraft/Halloweenie things in our youth. So that leaves my sister reading them at 20 and me reading them at 24. I hope they are still as magical at this age as everyone assured me they were in their tween years.

Other ways I'll try and better myself: being more thoughtful. I tend to get caught up in my business and forget that people are going through some serious stuff. Everyone remembers to check on you when your husband first leaves for basic training or when your divorce is freshly filed but what about in the months following. You still need a pick-me-up sometimes. My hope is to make more of an effort for all of my friends this year. Nine days in and it's a success. But we got a long way to go.

Also, the attempt to better myself that I know I'll break the fastest is the one where I say I'll try to enjoy cooking more. Yeah, it's all easy to research and prepare food when I'm sitting on my ass all day watching the Barefoot Contessa. But what about next week when I'm in class all day? I'll turn to Domino's, I just know it. But for now:

Chicken chimichimichangas (Drew insists on two chimis in his changa).

The filling and the finished product. Find the recipe here.

I found out where the Roanoke Mission is yesterday. I've been meaning to get over there for a while now to learn about their volunteer opportunities. But I didn't go in. I pulled up to the curb, my passenger got out, thanked me and in she went.

In an hour and a half we would be under a Wind Chill Warning. The wind right now will take your breath away and it did as I was trying to ask a lady on the street if she was keeping warm (stupid question, I just wanted her to say yes to make me feel less guilty). She wanted directions to a local home that houses homeless people. She handed me her printed directions and I did a crappy job of giving her what little knowledge I have of Roanoke city while Ike was about to break the leash bursting to pee.

Then as I let Ike relieve himself I watched her walk in the wrong direction. Half of me thought, oh you did what you could Meg. It's freaking cold out here and you've got laundry to do. Plus Drew took your car to work today. Never-ending excuses. But something bigger weighed on me.

I ran Ike back upstairs hunted for Drew's keys and headed to the parking garage. I drove around crying frantically, afraid I wouldn't find her. Despite my horrible directions, when I found her she was a block away from where she wanted to go.

I flagged her down and drover her the rest of the way. I went in with her to make sure there was room only to find they don't take "emergency cases." My new friend informed me the Mission wouldn't let people in for another couple of hours.

I offered to take her to lunch, to coffee, to drive her around. But she assured me she'd be fine in the cold until she could return to the Mission. Then I just said it I could hear voices of several sensible family members in my head warning me not to but I said "Why don't you come home with me until time for you to go back to the mission?"

She stepped over the piles of laundry I had separated in the hallway and sat on the couch. She accepted coffee and I heated up leftover pizza. She wanted to know if she could help me with the dishes before I drover her back to the mission. We watched "The Talk" and talked a bit. She ate one piece of candy and said I could drive her back.



I prayed a lot, despite the fact that before me was a harmless old lady who called me ma'am constantly. I had to believe Jesus placed her in my path for a reason. I had nothing to be afraid of.


Unlike others I have met since moving here, she seemed quite capable of independence. She is seeking a mentor. She wants to find an apartment. And our little visit today did little in the way of helping her long term. I need to become more informed about people's options and how they can get help. I need to know where to send people when they express a need because today I was of little help to her. Prayers appreciated as I figure things out here.

Is there anyone else who instantly wants to move wherever they visited last? Maybe I just don't get out much but after visiting most places I've been, I return ready to move there. This weekend it happens to be the Poconos in Pennsylvania. We made a quick trip up this weekend for Drew's bff's birthday festivities and it was lovely. The snow certainly helped. I'm so jealous of all places that have snow right now. Once we were back in Virginia today it was all stupid freezing rain. Blah!

Here's the only pic I took with a stranger's phone and promptly texted to myself because her phone took much better pictures than mine in the kerosene lit cabin. The trip was lovely and I'm so glad we went.



Oh, and also before you throw away all the Christmas cards you received this year (am I too late???) I have a suggestion: