Welcome, weekend! I'm ready for you. This week has been a bit of a doozy BUT, as of today, the kids are done with the high pressures of exam week here (it's almost the end of the school year for Aussie students) and G just arrived back from his 2-week transcontinental business trip so I'm looking forward to some good, relaxed weekend vibes. But first, here are a few things to launch you into the weekend (and a couple for next week for you Thanksgiving celebrants):

- Try this experiment to become a morning person.

- Are children like dogs and teens like cats? 

- Learning to let your children reveal themselves (and, relatedly, remember our show me who you are post?)

- When my teen needs a ride

- Lots of truth in this post about mastery and choices and piano lessons: "Look, the truth is that your kid can't be a black belt in karate and a ski racer and a soccer player and a pianist and an "A" student and a dancer and in the school play...you can go broad or you can go deep; that's your choice. But you need to know that learning to play the piano takes place in the deep end of the ocean."

- Make an easy Thanksgiving garland

Instead of candles at the kids' table, you could make (or they could make) and use these adorable paper pyramid lanterns

- And I'll leave you with this gem from the inimitable Erma Bombeck: "The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together." 

Enjoy your own band of characters this weekend! See you back here on Monday. xx