self care

It's that time again. To set our New Year's resolutions, our words for the year, and plan all the things that we probably won't stick to. But what does that mean for our same old stepmom problems? Kicking 2021 To The Curb If you're anything like me, you're probably not sorry to see 2021 draw [...]

Get Control Back - IF You Want It! Hey stepmom, how often do you feel like you have no control over your life? Like everything in your life is dictated either by your spouse’s ex or by the stepkids and their schedules. Today we’re going to talk about how to get control back – [...]

What to do when you're feeling out of control Have you ever felt like you’ve had one of those weeks – or months – or heck, years where nothing seems to go right and you just feel -off-? Or when you wake up, you feel like there's an overwhelming weight bearing down on you [...]

Do you ever feel like you just don’t fit in to your stepfamily? Like your dream of actually blending together as a family unit will just never happen? What you're feeling has a name. It's called outsider syndrome. I'd never heard of it when I became a stepmom, but when I heard the term defined I [...]

This year I decided on a stepmom word of the year instead of a New Year's resolution. And it's not too late for you to do it, too!

Every stepmom needs her spouse to be her partner in order to succeed. That partnership looks different for every couple, but there are some common threads that should weave together every blended family relationship. I've written before about how hard it was to transition into stepmotherhood. And how alone it can feel. And how so [...]

There are few things as relaxing as curling up in a comfortable chair to read a good book. And I don't know about you, but I'm always on the hunt for books that will help me get my life together. They used to call them self-help books. I call them self-care books for women. And [...]

There's a lot of talk these days about self-care. Self-care for moms, self-care for the working woman, self-care for teenagers. But we don't hear much about stepmom self-care. As many as half of all women in the U.S. may find themselves in the role of stepmother at some point in their lives. And although there [...]

Do you worry about how to instill mindfulness in your teen? Or about his/her anxiety? How about their reliance on social media? Or all of the above? Today's Teens Face Complicated Challenges Teen suicide rates are the highest since 2000 and in today's fast-paced world, teens experience more anxiety than ever before. They're under social [...]

How do you decide whether you need to evacuate or shelter in place? I've written about how to develop your emergency plan. Whether making sure your finances are in order or that you have your important documents organized in a grab and go binder, it's important to think through how you'd handle an emergency. And [...]

Growing up at the beach in Florida, "hurricane" and "evacuation" were part of our vocabulary every summer and fall. While I don't remember having an emergency plan back then, I feel sure we discussed what to pack if we ever had to evacuate. In the almost twenty years I've lived in the DC area, we've [...]

It hasn’t even been a year since I took the (scary!) plunge into blogging. My very first blog post was all about starting new things when you're over 40. And here I am again, launching another new adventure: all about handwritten notes! I am so excited to announce the newest member of the This Custom [...]