It takes a village--and usually that village is filled with a bunch of creative, hard working women.

I am blessed to be able to stay home with my kids.

In other words, I am blessed to be bored.

I was looking forward to the summer more than anyone; ready to take a break from the schedules and the homework and the PTA responsibilities. Ready to rest, sleep in, lounge about.

But now I'm bored. This week has been the first week of the summer that we haven't had anything to do. The month and a half prior have been booked with vacations and activities and overall summer fun. And this week I purposefully didn't schedule anything to do and now I'm bored.

Yesterday I decided that we needed to leave the house. So we grabbed two empty egg cartons from the recycle bin and headed to the park.

We headed out for an egg carton picnic.

This was something that my mom and my other mother Karen (they weren't lesbian lovers, not that there would have been anything wrong with that, they were just neighbors) used to do for my friend Bradley and I.

Let me explain the whole "other mother" thing. I was lucky enough to be raised my many wonderful women. My mother was the best. The best. But there was also my grandmother, Gan Gan, and my godmother, Mrs. Graybill. There was my preschool teacher, Ms. Sue, and my dancing teacher, Jack Story (okay, Jack was a gay man but he counts). Then there were all of my friends' mothers: Karen, and Cheryn, and Jonella, and Glenda just to name a few. Yes, there's a long list of women who were in my life and made up my cheering section.

And those women created my childhood memories. They were there when I graduated and then on Bid Day. Later they were the ones hosting the wedding showers and baby showers. They helped to create the birthday parties, the dance recitals, the playdates, and of course, the egg carton picnics.

So naturally, I've tried my best to recreate as many of those memories for my own children.



They think it's pretty cool. And I think all of my other mothers would approve.


Recipe for Egg Carton Picnic:

• Take one empty egg carton.
• Fill it with all of your favorite snacks (raisins, Goldfish, pretzels, Cheerios, etc.)
• Close it up.
• Head to the park.