The gender pay gap is a long-debated affliction of women’s rights. While some discredit any discrepancy altogether, many studies cite women not asking for more money as a contributing culprit to this inequality. Glamour magazine conducted a 2014 Salary Survey in their September issue and noted, "The biggest mistake I see women making is simply not asking.” Reasons for this hesitancy in negotiating starting salaries and asking for raises vary from not wanting to appear too aggressive to not having high enough expectations. Many lists dispense advice on combating this trend, but the simplest solution is just to ask for what you want. Important as this lesson is in the workplace, one can apply the same logic to much more than salaries. For instance, while celebrating my birthday this weekend, I had 3 perfect opportunities to successfully employ this practice. 

To start things off, Mr. O&O and I had the pleasure of attending our ballroom dance studio’s pirate-themed graduation celebration on Friday night. Wow! That was a mouthful; let’s stop and break that sentence down. 

• Since the beginning of the year, Mr. O&O and I have been taking ballroom dance lessons at a studio in Fishers called Five Star. (If you are interested in lessons, let me know! I can get you 3 for $25.)
• There are various levels of ballroom dancing, and our studio gives exams to allow students to graduate from one level to the next. 
• Due to the fact that graduation fell on National Talk Like a Pirate Day, we all celebrated and dressed accordingly (and placed in the top 6 during the costume contest, I might add). Back on track? Aye! 

Leading up to this celebration, we were starting to feel the financial strains from our weekly lessons and hadn’t been progressing as quickly as we had hoped. We had heard mentions of these dance exams, but no one had directly addressed them with us. In the spirit of the pay-gap advice, we took the initiative to schedule a meeting with the studio manager and simply asked what we could do to speed up our progression. The next week our teacher started teaching to the test and the following week we tested out (aced it!). We now know to just ask when we feel ready to test out, and we are already prepping for our next test!

For birthday weekend day #2, I participated in an event with a theme that was an absolutely perfect fit for celebrating my birth in particular – a charitable literary pub crawl! The sponsoring organization, Indy Reads, offers free literacy tutoring around the community. It is dear to my heart not only for its general mission, but also because I volunteer with the family literacy program to teach parents how to inculcate positive reading habits in their kids. The crawl took place in Fountain Square, and each bar offered literary-themed drink specials, including an “Are you there God? It’s me, Margarita.” As if literacy charity and book cocktails weren’t enough, the night also featured a literary-themed costume contest. This was, of course, right up my alley, and I took the opportunity to showcase the quintessential Overdressed & Overeducated costume: Holly Golightly. Clad as one of the classiest ladies in all of literature (yes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a book first!), Mr. O&O and I met up with some book club gals and hit the town!

The night started off with a chat from local author, Mike Mullin, showcasing his new book Ashfall and ended with the world’s longest raffle. There must have been at least 75 separate items they raffled off to a room of 200+ people with only 50 chairs in what felt like 90 degree heat. It was a perfect storm. Mr. O&O was ready to skip out about halfway through, and he did end up leaving early to retrieve the car. But a thread of luck and desire kept me hanging on until the last trio of prizes, which were 3 separate reading-themed signs, my personal favorite being a light blue “Keep Calm and Read a Book” sign featuring a reading girl at the top. I wiped my brow and perked my ears for these last three items, but to no avail. She never called my numbers. Sad and dejected, I packed up my Holly accessories and headed to the door. On the way out, I happened to spot the guy who did win the wooden sign for which I had been hoping, and I started thinking, “What the heck is he going to do with this girly sign?” So I put on my best negotiating face, walked up to this winner, and asked, “Do you really want that sign?” Without hesitation he replies, “Nah. Do you want it?” YES!! Cheers, streamers, bells, and whistles are going off in my head. I thanked the guy profusely and gave him a hug for good measure, then off I skipped to the car to proudly show my husband our newest family heirloom! And I didn’t even have to make the case that it was my birthday. All I had to do was ask! Lesson learned!

As a side note and shout-out to one of my awesome book club gals who pub-crawled along with me, she presented me with the best homemade bookmark ever for my birthday present that night. Thanks, Katniss!

For the final day of my celebratory weekend and my actual birthday, sweet Mr. O&O whipped up some mostly-from-scratch pumpkin pancakes and brought them to me for my traditional birthday breakfast in bed. We spent the day relaxing at home and then headed off to our last celebration, a special dance event at the Indiana Roof Ballroom. This event is something that dance studios all over the state participate in once every few months as a dressy night out for all of their students. A live band greeted us in our formal attire and gave us the perfect chance to put all of our dance skills to good use.    

Once we arrived, our dance instructors handed each dancer a dance card (like from the 19th century!) and tasked us with filling in a partner for each of the 20 dances. This is where my third “just ask” lesson came into play, albeit forcefully. Up to this point, I had always waited for the men to ask me to dance. However, I still had several blanks on my dance card after everyone who usually asks me had asked, so I left my comfort zone and asked some men to dance with me! I did successfully fill out my dance card, and by the end of the night, I was so glad I danced with so many new people! I learned a lot of different moves and made several new friends. So concluded my 27th birthday: overdressed, overeducated, and on my way to overpaid.

Is this everyone’s busy season, or just mine? As summer has ended, my life has gone into complete chaos mode! My calendar has seen an explosion of red appointments, all deliverables at work are all on fire, and everyone’s birthday is this month (darn you, NYE). I suppose back to school means back to busy, and ‘tis the season. What I need is more energy, but I’m not a huge fan of over-caffeinating until I crash and burn (and this also doesn't work well for kids). So to Pinterest I turn for a healthy, energizing snack to get me through the days and to present to the kids at cooking club, and Pinterest did not disappoint.

Enter delicious, nutritious, no-bake energy bites. These are a big winner on taste and energy, but beware: they leave quite a mess. When I think messy, I think perfect for kids; however, this group of kids I’m teaching is a special brand, because they inexplicably do NOT like messes. If I thought the gooey-banana reaction from last week was bad, I had another thing coming. So once again, if your kids fall into this category, you might want to invest in some food preparation gloves.

Unlike the fruit snakes, this is a one-bowl recipe, so we all sat in a circle and took turns filling measuring cups and pouring in ingredients. Trying to incorporate reusable skills when I can, I taught the kids how to level off the oatmeal, coconut, and flaxseed in measuring cups using a plastic knife. This is where the mess began. In anticipation of this, I lined the table with parchment paper, which helped only marginally.

 Next came the sticky substances, which was also the point when the kids went crazy. Apparently, honey, sunflower seed butter*, and vanilla extract are “totally gross,” and as soon as we opened them, a chorus of “Ewws” drowned out all instructions I attempted to provide. Multiple hand-washing trips promptly accompanied any physical contact they had with these “disgusting” ingredients. In fact, the only ingredient the kids didn't make a fuss about was (no surprise) the chocolate chips.

After we mixed everything together, made 4 trips to the bathroom to wash 24 hands, and rolled out fresh parchment, I dished out large spoonfuls of the mixture to each child, and they rolled it into small balls. Each of my 12 kids ended up with at least 3 energy bites, and some many more, depending on how small they rolled the balls. When it was time to eat, the kids completely changed their tune and loved every bite. Many took their extras home so they could have them for an energizing snack the next day.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry oatmeal

• 2/3 cup toasted coconut

• 1/2 cup peanut butter or sunflower seed butter*

• 1/2 cup ground flaxseed

• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

• 1/3 cup honey

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions: 

1.  Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. 
2.  Roll mixture into balls. Yields about 3 dozen.

*Note: One of my kids has a peanut allergy, so we used sunflower seed butter from Trader Joe’s instead of peanut butter; it was a littler messier, but it tasted great and bound the ingredients together just as well as peanut butter would.

Although I don’t have kids, I do love cooking, and as part of my “What do I want to teach the world?” mission, I decided that this is a worthy passion to pass on, especially to the next generation. However, kids don’t typically read blogs, so I’m approaching this from a more proactive angle. This week, I set out on a children-oriented cooking journey at my favorite charitable organization, Shepherd Community Center.

Shepherd has one simple goal: breaking the cycle of poverty. One of their main tools in tackling this mission is a private, Christian school with next-to-nothing tuition for grades K-5. The students from the surrounding inner-city community just started their 2014-2015 school year and signed up for after-school clubs. This is where I come in!

Over the next 6 weeks, I will be leading a kid-friendly cooking class for Shepherd students in grades 1-3. I’m focusing on presenting healthy foods (discernable to them as God-made versus man-made) in a fun way and creating sanitary kitchen habits. We started this week with a slimy yet succulent fruit snake.

The Pinterest-inspired concept was simple enough. Each child received a banana and a few strawberries to begin. After the important task of washing both our hands and our fruit, we peeled and sliced everything into thin pieces (using plastic knives, of course) and placed alternating banana and strawberry slices in a curling line along our plates. Most kids got this without an issue, although some complained about the “gooeyness” of the banana. Tip: Have food preparation gloves handy in case your kids fall into this category.

The hardest part for the kids was the head. We needed to cut a triangular slice out of the pointed end of a whole strawberry. This proved almost impossible for the kids, so Miss Victoria happily cut 12 snake heads. We thinned out the strawberry scraps from the mouth slit to make the tongue.

The best part, surprisingly, was the finishing touch: blueberry eyes. We placed two toothpicks in our strawberry head, stuck a blueberry on each end, and the screams started. “Eeeeewwwww!” “Gross! Look at the googly eyes.” “Ahhh! It's is a real snake!” The kids were delightedly disgusted with this final step, I suppose because at that point it did, indeed, resemble a snake. 
Note: Most of the toothpicks were a little long, so I would recommend cutting one toothpick in half instead of using two whole toothpicks.

If you are looking for a way to encourage your kids to eat healthier foods or just a fun activity to do on a Saturday afternoon, take a shot at this easy fruit reptile! For the duration of the 6 weeks I’ll post each new kid-friendly recipe we try with tips and ideas on improvement.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 3-5 strawberries 
• 2 blueberries
• 1 toothpick, cut in half

Directions:

1. Slice banana. 
2. Set one whole strawberry aside. Slice remaining strawberries.
3. Place strawberry slices between banana slices, alternating every other one. 
4. Remove strawberry hull from remaining strawberry. Place strawberry flat side down and slice a triangle wedge out of pointed end. 
5. Trim this wedge into one thin line, and place perpendicular inside strawberry opening. 
6. Place a blueberry on the end of each toothpick piece and stick the exposed ends on the whole strawberry above mouth slit. 

Quick, complication-free deliveries seem to be a rarity these days (UPS and FedEx excepted), yet what a blessing when they do occur. My sweet friend just delivered a healthy baby girl as seamlessly as they come. Practically racing out of the womb, baby Josie took only a dozen or so minutes of hard labor to enter her expectant parents’ arms, already taking after her marathon-running mom. And marathoner she is. Lisa, Josie’s mom, lives and breathes running, using it not only as a means of physical fitness, but also as a spiritual outlet for prayer and mental clarity.

A few months ago, I had the honor of throwing a baby shower for this fit momma-to-be, and it was clear that I needed to incorporate this huge part of her life into the celebration of her first child. After a lot of brainstorming and many failed attempts at locating baby-running-shoe décor, I decided upon a “Bibs and Bows” theme, playing on the racing-bib/baby-bib homonym with a bit of little girl flair.

My first task was choosing invitations, which were extremely difficult to find but proved to be the key in creating the rest of the décor. After numerous failed search terms (surprisingly, “baby shower running bib bow invitations” doesn't pull up many results), I finally discovered a great starting point: running bib birthday invites. Thankfully, the Etsy shop owner was willing to customize, so we tweaked a few words, reworked the bottom motif, and added some color (I went with coral and gray to incorporate Josie’s nursery colors).    

I printed these on 5 x 7 card stock from Kinko’s for a reasonable price, borrowed a friend’s paper cutter to professionally trim them, and then splurged on matching envelopes and gray and white chevron envelope liners at Paper Source. Invitations really set the tone for an event, and I wanted to ensure that despite the running bib, these sent the message, “No workout clothes; this is still a classy event!“ I, of course, wore a bib-collar dress (bib and tucker, as it were) with little bow motifs all over it.    

From the invite template I was able to create almost all of the other décor with little additional effort. I adorned my front mantel with a banner of these bibs sporting the headline, “Lisa’s Bibs and Bows Shower” and used smaller versions for signage, menus, and name tags. On the rear mantel, I used coral and gray paint to repurpose a generic baby shower banner.

For outside, instead of your typical balloon on the mailbox, I hung a “Bibs and Bows” wreath I fashioned using dozens of coral, white, and gray ribbons to greet guests upon arrival. After entering, guests encountered a welcome station at which they could fill out their own running bib name tag, attach it to their clothing with safety pins, and sign a children’s book I found called Pellie Runs a Marathon, to write wise words and well-wishes to mother and baby. 

Next came the “Hydration Station” where guests could quench their thirst with gold-medal-adorned Gatorade bottles* and enjoy a chocolate milk recovery drink, the one thing Mom-to-be consistently craved during her pregnancy. The food menu included a “Carb Station” of croissant sandwiches and bow-tie pasta salad*; “Runner’s Goo” Jell-O salad; and watermelon and pineapple cut into bow-shapes* (*special thanks to several friends for pitching in these items). I cinched gray napkins with coral ribbon to resemble bows for a finishing touch on the food table.

After appetites were satiated, we began the “racing events.” I really wanted to carry the theme over into the games, and I love the idea of crafting things that Lisa could take home later, so these were the true “bibs” and “bows” of the party. In the dining room, guests could decorate “race bibs” for baby Josie, and later, Mom picked her favorite and the artist won a prize. Similarly, in the sunroom, guests had the opportunity to make bows for baby girl, also as a friendly competition, and the designer of Mom’s favorite also won a gift.

I still wanted to have one true organized game, but I definitely didn't want to do any of the clichéd clothespin/baby food guessing games. I eventually came up with an idea that stemmed, once again, from the invitations. When I was editing the invite template, I debated over which number to put as the main race bib number: the date of the party, the baby’s due date, a different number on each one, or something else completely. I ultimately decided on the date of the party, but in the process, I created my final game. When I designed the name tags that guests pinned on at the beginning of the party, I used a different number for each bib, and each number represented an important date leading up to the birth of Baby Josie. Examples included her due date; Mom and Dad’s birthdays, first kiss, and anniversary; gender-reveal date; conception; and many more. After crafts, we all congregated in the family room and I read off the various milestones represented. Then, using the bib numbers people were wearing as an answer bank, each person guessed which number matched which milestone, and the person with the most correct answers received the prize. Staying true to the theme, craft and game prizes consisted of a combination of water bottles, chamois towels, running socks, and hairbands.

To finish off with a sweet treat, I snuck off during presents and served up a “Post-Workout Reward” of Mom’s favorite chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream-frosted sides and powdered-sugar-stenciled bows on top. When the afternoon ended, guests each left with a coral, gray, or white sweatband, in hopes to inspire the runner in all of us.    

With couch-to-5K programs taking off and running culture gaining popularity, hopefully you, too, can use some of these ideas to honor a race-loving mom-to-be of your own.