My girl turned 13 on Sunday. Her birthday week was such a whirlwind of gifting and celebration and cooking that I didn’t have time to process the emotion of it all. It’s probably why as I sit down to write this now, the tears well up unannounced. 

My oldest and only daughter is a teenager. What?

We have just over five years left together before she likely leaves home. The reality is more than I can bear. It’s easy to be fueled by panic when you begin to think in these terms. It’s tempting to amp up and get crazy intentional about getting it right from here and out and making sure she’s prepared and knows what she needs to know. I want our relationship to be perfect and awesome so that her remaining time under this roof is nothing but pedicures and laughter and chick flicks. 

But if parenthood has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t rush or manufacture anything. Relationship takes time. Lots of it. Wisdom shows up gently and slowly. Too slowly for my taste. Figuring it out is laced with more failures than successes. Embarrassing, fall-on-your-face failures.

I may have a clue about what I’m doing by the time she leaves home. {Why is knowledge backwards like that?} 

And that’s why I’ve titled this post, “13 I’m Learning” instead of “13 Things I’ve Learned.” I’m nothing if not in process. 

Here they are, in no particular order.


1. The winds of adolescence are fickle breezes. 

{And by breezes I mean the tsunami variety.} This very week has brought everything from euphoria and gratitude to hysterical tears and silent treatments. Do your best to stay calm and take deep breaths. {You, not her.} The current weather condition will soon pass.


2. Remember. 

My adolescence was fine and good on the outside but a hot mess on the inside. I didn’t realize that I stood at the precarious intersection of hormones, change, insecurity, and mounting stress. I didn’t realize that my crazy was actually normal. It’s a wonder any of us survive. Remembering the volatility of my own internal waters all those years ago can help me have more compassion and grace as she navigates her own waves…even if she sometimes leaves us in the turbulent wake of it all. 

{Unfortunately, my girl learned from the best. It’s tempting for me to sink to her level instead of being the mature mom that I obviously am. Situations have at times looked like this: “I’ll see your 5 on the freak-out scale and raise you 50. Do not mess with me because I invented the freak-out. I am going to out-drama you, sister!” This is a very bad idea. Very bad indeed.}


3. Do not take it personally. 

I repeat, do not take it personally. Detach. As much as you can. Deep breaths. As many as it takes. Decompress. After the storm has died down.


4. Respect. 

She’s a little girl and young woman hybrid right now. Think about how awkward and confusing that is. And while she still wants to be cared for, she has a growing longing to be heard. Treating her like a child can insult her and harden her heart toward you. Lovingly respect her need to be heard. But it’s also vitally important that the respect is mutual. You’re still the parent. {Disrespect yields major consequences in this house, no matter how old you are.}


5. Be very honest about the facts of life and the realities of this world. 

Yes, it might be uncomfortable for you both. No, she may not want to hear it from you. Tell her anyway. She will learn things eventually and it’s better that she learns it from you, tawdry details and all. We had one such conversation this week. I wouldn’t call it fun but I’d definitely call it needful. My hope is that talking about “heavy” and uncomfortable things on a regular basis will make her more likely to come to me in the future when it transitions from theory to real life. I might be wrong about this but I figure I have nothing to lose by putting it all out there. I may, however, have something to lose if I don’t. 


6. Find the things that bring you together and prioritize them, no matter how trivial or superficial. 

Shopping, pedicures, watching favorite shows together–these are my girl’s love languages. I could {and have} rationalized that these are not exactly the most world-changing endeavors. But if these are the things that bring us together and keep our relationship tight, they’re worth every superficial penny. It’s not about the worthwhileness of the activity; it’s about the connection forged over time in the togetherness.


7. Hope for the best. Be prepared for the worst. 

Love and respect are unconditional but trust must be earned. Whenever I’m tempted to implicitly trust her, I remember my own duplicity all those years ago…and I think better of it. I respect her basic needs for privacy–getting dressed, having her own room, time to herself, etc. That’s pretty much where it ends. {Types the mom who has full access to her daughter’s iPad mini and every single app.} Guess what? Our kids are sinful.They will make bad decisions. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent; it means your kids are human. 


8. Notice the becoming. 

She’s creative, analytical, and infinitely curious. She loves being with her friends but recharges in solitude. Her strengths and weaknesses come out in myriad ways and God only knows what she’ll end up doing with her life. As a parent, it’s my job to notice her gifts, to foster them as best I can, and to teach her that God plans to use her uniqueness for her good and for the good of others and most of all, for his glory.


9. Know her limits and guard them as if her life depends on it. 

Because it just might. Rest, stress, activities, margin–you still have control over these. Today’s adolescents are woefully under-rested and over-scheduled. Our toughest battles this year have been over the good endeavors we’ve said no to. I second-guessed these displeasing decisions at the time and now I feel nothing but relief that we stuck to our guns. Our family life and family schedule and family sanity are all the better for it. 


10. Never underestimate the power of a mental-health day. 

This one is really a life lesson for all of us. After a particularly stressful and busy two weeks this winter, I dropped her off at school on a Friday morning like I always do, got home, and had a gut-feeling that I needed to bring her back home. It had been the most emotional morning in the history of ever. The stress and exhaustion had shown itself in all sorts of unlovely ways. I checked her out of school during first period, took her to Starbucks, and declared it a mental health day. I had a gut feeling she needed rest more than she needed school. The next day she came down with the flu. Which brings me to another point: trust those maternal instincts. You have them for a reason.


11. Keep telling her that your boundaries are rooted in love and protection, even if she hates you for it. 

Especially if she hates you for it. Keep telling her even if she doesn’t believe you and even though all of your rules seem to be ruining her life at the moment and even if you’re the “only mom” who has to approve every friend she accepts on Instagram. Also? Keep telling yourself that your boundaries are rooted in love and protection. When emotions are high and you could temporarily make it all better by giving her what she wants, try to think long-term. And please, hold my hand and remind me of this too?


12. Surprise her with grace. 

Draw the boundary-lines deep. Let natural consequences be the best teacher. Don’t rush in and save her every time she needs help. But for the love, weave grace through it all. Sometimes that does mean rushing in and saving her. Sometimes it means getting her out of school for the day. Sometimes it means purchasing something she doesn’t deserve and sometimes it means letting her out of consequences she does deserve. This is how the Father treats us; let his character spill over into our relationships with our own children. 


13. Love her for who she is and not for who you want her to be. 

{Even if you end up being the reluctant cheer mom.}

And really, doesn’t this apply to every relationship? And isn’t this how all of us long to be loved?

There’s far more that I’m learning but these are the thirteen things that floated to the surface for this post. 

My current season of motherhood is sure to be intense, but I’m full of hope that much of it will be intensely good. We watched the Oscars together Sunday night and I realized just how fun it’s going to be to hang out as grown-up {ish} girls together in the coming years.  

For all of you who may be on the other side of raising teenagers, what are the lessons you’ve learned? We’d love to learn from you.

And for your weekend reading, here are two of my favorite posts about teenage daughters that my friend Emily Freeman wrote last year. They are beautifully insightful.

I love these posts. They provide an opportunity to walk on the lighter side of life as I share the stuff I’ve learned this month.

1. If I don’t unpack a duffel back within 48 hours of returning from a trip, it may sit there for two months. 

We went to Florida before Christmas. My unpacked bag is still in my closet. I’ve also learned that slackerness tends to beget slackerness. The unpacked bag has managed to spread its slothful contagion to the rest of the closet and the entire area is now a full-fledged epidemic of clothing chaos. Every day I write “clean the closet” on my to-do list and every day it mocks me in its still-unchecked state. At this point I’m contemplating just leaving the duffel bag packed for our beach trip in June. 


2. I can cut my food budget almost in half without clipping coupons. {or making everything from scratch}


3. A dusting of snow down south will get you out of school for almost a week. And provide many days of jokes about “milk sandwiches.”


4. Papa John’s makes heart-shaped pizzas for Valentine’s Day. We may have started a tradition with this one.

5. How to fake a monogram. {for moms like me who don’t know how to sew} 

My daughter is a fan of the monogram. We took this ho-hum navy gym bag and turned it into something preppy and cute.

Just print a monogram online. Trace it onto an iron-on transfer sheet. Cut it out and iron. 

A word of warning: If you are ironing the monogram onto a nylon gym bag, please place a towel flat inside the gym bag to prevent melting the front and back of the bag together. If you realize that you have in fact done this in error, quickly and carefully attempt to peel the layers apart and try not to let the molten nylon burn off your fingerprints in the process. 


6. My favorite Easter treats are the Cadbury mini-eggs. Anyone else? The mini-bags are just 99 cents and buy one get one free this week at CVS. The mini-bags are great because you don’t have to worry about eating so many. Unless you keep going back to CVS to purchase additional mini bags, all the while rationalizing that they are essentially just samples. Well-played mini-bag. Well-played. 


7. When my 6-year-old confesses anything or hatches various plans to his best friend while standing in the front yard shrubs and I am working at my desk right next to the front windows, I can hear every. single. word. 

Yesterday’s bit of surveillance revealed that he got in trouble at school and had to move his clip. {Who has super-powers? This mom, that’s who.} When I brought it up at dinner, he looked at me as though I were telepathic. Please don’t tell him. I will only be able to blow his mind in this way for another year or two and I am taking full advantage.


8. I don’t feel ready to have a teenager. But like it or not, my girl turns 13 on Sunday. 

The embarrassing and ironic part is that on any given day, I feel we are complete equals regarding our emotional maturity level. I fear that I may never outgrow being easily overwhelmed, ridiculously irrational, and paralyzed by everyday decisions. As you might imagine, having two of our kind in the same house is all sorts of fun and not at all overwhelming for anyone, especially not my long-suffering husband.


9. How to watercolor without being a real artist. You’ve probably heard of Waterlogue by now. If not, it’s an iPhone app that allows you to turn any photo into a watercolored work of art. 

Here’s a photo I snapped with my phone of Cinderella’s castle.

Here it is in Waterlogue. 

I’m addicted. 

My friend, Richella, did a great tutorial on how to print Waterlogue photos and turn them into real art for your home.


10. What celebrities would look like as normal people. With the Oscars fast approaching, this link just seems timely and right. I’ll give you a peek. 

Brad & Angelina.

 

You’re welcome. If you tune in to the red carpet interviews this Sunday night and begin to feel just a tad frumpy and less-than in your sweatpants and drugstore mascara, close your eyes and visualize your favorite celebrity sans million-dollar stylist, personal trainer, Spanx, and couture gown. Picture this middle-class, middle-America Brad and Angelina, the ones who never got famous and splurged on a portrait session at the Walmart photo center. You’ll feel a thousand times better. 

Happy Oscars weekend, friends!

The Backstory {Because I’m a writer and even a post about groceries has a backstory.}

I’m no guru about anything. Unless there’s a guru status on laundry-avoidance because I’ve got that one nailed.

I’m not a decorating expert or a financial expert or a parenting expert. I’ve got a knack for certain things but not to the extent that I can professionalize any of it.

I’m a real wife and a real mom and a real homemaker, somewhat of a hacker and a slacker. I’m long on dreaming but short on patience and follow-through. And though I love finding better ways to do everyday tasks, I become easily overwhelmed by complicated systems and binders and planning sheets. Don’t get me wrong, I actually love organizing and plannerly products and to-do lists. I can browse the aisles of Staples for hours. But I’ve learned that for me, I have to keep systems, procedures, and tasks as simple and personalized as possible.

I use a spiral notebook, pencil, and calculator to budget and pay bills. I keep a one-week dry-erase calendar on our fridge for our family schedule and meals.

The way I plan meals and buy groceries is equally simple.

These aren’t the sort of posts I normally do. But because meal-planning and grocery-shopping are tasks that all of us have to do, I thought I’d share my easy, non-guru methods with the rest of you. Take it or leave it. There are lots of actual experts with entire blogs and books devoted to this subject. But if you want a Cliff’s Notes / non-extreme / no coupons way to approach the often-dreaded task of feeding your family easily and economically, perhaps you’ll find some encouragement here.

This year my husband and I set some rather audacious financial goals. We decided we were ready to get super serious about some endeavors that we’ve put off because we’ve had more important issues to tackle. Timing is everything. We’re at a good place and on the same page. We’ve squinted at the numbers and squeezed every dime out of each possible category.

The trickle-down effect is this: we pretty much cut our food budget in half. Because we’re just getting started on this “adventure,” I can’t tell you how well it’s going to work long-term. I can only tell you how it’s working so far through February.

Can I be honest? I hate even writing about money and “systems” and goals. Doing so makes me accountable. But deep down I know that accountability is a needful thing. It would thrill me to be able to update you 6 months from now and say, “The non-guru guide is still working! We’re saving money! We’re still not starving!”

But the only way to reach our goals is if we’re realistic and honest about ourselves, our spouses, and our individual situations. After many fits and starts over the years, months of couponing and stockpiling and knowing the amount of time it takes and mental energy it requires and physical exhaustion I feel afterward, I decided to take a mostly non-couponing, super realistic approach to planning and shopping.

I’ve devoted the last two-ish years to rest. And during those two years my husband and I resolved that I would not take on added stress and time-consuming endeavors, like coupons and being hyper-vigilant about the grocery budget. My goal was to keep food in the house, lunches in the lunchboxes, and dinner on the table. Sure, I was mindful of food prices and I saved when I could but I didn’t stress or obsess. This was all fine and good and necessary for those two years. In the process, however, I also got a little bit lazy.

I’m in a different place now, ready and able to be more proactive about my responsibilities. But proactive in a reasonable and therefore {hopefully} sustainable way. This is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. I need a system that can work long-term.

So here’s my non-fancy / realistic / no-coupon way of slashing our food budget. In half. {Yes, it’s possible.}

The Plan {Because even if you hate plans, you’ve got to have one. A plan is 90% of the battle.}

1. A monthly plan. I plan out all the meals I’ll make in a month and approximately how many leftover meals we’ll also have. I don’t assign meals to a day. That’s too hard-core and inflexible for me. I write out our meals one week at a time but I have a plan for the meals I’ll make over the month. A month’s worth of meals + lunch stuff + breakfast stuff gives me my grocery list for the month.

If this sounds like too much work and planning, I’ll let you in on a secret. It took me ten minutes. No lie.

Behold my very sophisticated system. {And terrible photo.}

I make a list of our meals and how many times I’ll make it or how many leftover meals it will provide. When my tally reaches 30 meals or so, I’m done. Then it’s on to the grocery list.

2. Make a grocery list based on my monthly menu. I’ve been surprised at how little time this takes. Maybe 20 minutes? Then I divide up what I’m going to purchase where.

3. Shop with purpose & with a plan. I’m now doing my shopping at two main stores, Aldi and Costco. I make one big trip to both stores in a month and those two trips get most of what we need. I purchase more milk, bread, and produce in between but I’m trying to get most of this stuff at Aldi too. A new one just opened up not too far away so that’s making it easier.

4. Paying cash. We get paid once a month and that means we budget, pay bills, and plan groceries and meals within a monthly scope. Years ago I did the cash system for groceries and it really does make a difference so I’m doing it again. 

When you hand over those hard-earned bills to the cashier, you think twice about how much you really need something. When you know that cash has to last to the end of the month, you’re careful with it. I’ve read that paying cash for your groceries lowers your bill by 30% on average.

5. No eating out. Not that we did much of that anyway. It was more of the little things that added up. A drink from the drive-thru. A Starbucks treat. Lunch at the coffee shop. This means more planning ahead and being disciplined {such a painful word} and delayed gratification. I’ll be honest…this is embarrassingly hard for me. My love language is food treats. And also lip gloss.

6. Our meals are simple-ish. I enjoy really good food. I even enjoy making the occasional gourmet dish or dessert. But day in and day out, my time and energy and passions don’t jive with fussy meals. I’ve found what works for us and there’s a fair amount of repetition. But we enjoy a hot meal most nights around our kitchen table and that’s my definition of win.

7. Know yourself. There are many ways to save big on your food budget but I’ve learned that none of them will work unless it’s realistic and doable for you.

My time, sanity, and health are valuable and finite. If meal-planning and grocery-shopping and money-saving uses up a lot of that time, sanity or health, then I may have saved bunches of money but I’ve paid a hefty price.

Full disclosure. I didn’t think we could stay within this budget without coupons, store-hopping, making everything from scratch, and deprivation. I thought it would take more time than it does. I thought I’d be stressed. I thought I’d be grumpy over what I couldn’t buy. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.

A few more things. We eat healthy-ish but it’s far from ideal. I try to purchase mostly real, whole food. I attempt to avoid too many processed foods but I don’t obsess. While I would love to buy mostly organic and local, it’s not within our current budget. I will be able to do a bit more of this during farmer’s market season. We don’t have food allergies nor are we gluten-free or dairy-free. In short, we do the best we can with the resources we have and I don’t fret about imperfections. Each family’s needs and priorities are different and one’s budget will obviously reflect those differences.

Have more questions? {Why Aldi? Why Costco? What do you cook? What is your monthly food budget?} Ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer you there.

This post linked to {and featured on} the Grace at Home Party hosted by the lovely Richella at Imparting Grace.