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" After more than 27 million albums sold, seven Billboard Hot 100 hits, a bestselling poetry collection and the founding of a nonprofit organization (Project Clean Water), acclaimed singer-songwriter Jewel is nowhere near done. On the heels of a Grammy nomination earlier this year for her country album Sweet and Wild, she&amp;#039;s hosting a music competition, Platinum Hit, on Bravo, and helping Libby&amp;#039;s Fruits and Vegetables launch a jingle contest for the brand. She&amp;#039;s also readying for the release of her second children&amp;#039;s album, due out in the fall, and her own little one, a baby boy, in July. With her cylinders firing on all fronts, we had to ask the star: Just how does she do it? Read on to discover her thoughts on work, pregnancy and maintaining balance throughout the busyness.   How did you become involved with Libby&amp;#039;s?  They&amp;#039;re doing a couple of things that are close to my heart, which made me want to get involved. Libby&amp;#039;s thinks it&amp;#039;s important to have people eat together, have a family eat together. There&amp;#039;s been a lot of research done on how eating together can help a child develop better self-esteem and do better at school. I think it&amp;#039;s important. I mean, even Ty [Murray] and me, without a child yet, enjoy sitting down and going over our days, and we know we will enjoy it even more once our child is here. For me, I&amp;#039;m going to be a busy mom and I don&amp;#039;t want to spend all day in the kitchen, so shortcuts that are healthy are really important.   In the past, you&amp;#039;ve said you consider yourself a foodie. What can&amp;#039;t you get enough of these days? A lot! I was raised on a homestead and we used to can all of our own fruits and vegetables growing up. It&amp;#039;s very work-intensive and my dad still does it. He also dries [stinging] nettles (an edible plant), and I love dried nettles. He sends me a bunch of dried nettles and fresh dried mint that he grows in his garden. Finally, we have the best salmon in Alaska, key salmon. My dad smokes it over an open fire\u2014he has his own little smoker\u2014and does it all himself, including canning it. So I&amp;#039;ve been making smoked salmon quesadillas and really good salmon chowders; it&amp;#039;s pretty delicious. I&amp;#039;m pretty spoiled by him.   What&amp;#039;s your go-to snack when you&amp;#039;re pressed for time? My favorite snack is probably string cheese. I like a protein snack. My favorite little thing lately is grapefruit and avocado salad. I know that sounds pretty weird, but it&amp;#039;s so good! I cannot recommend it enough. It&amp;#039;s delicious. It&amp;#039;s super-easy to make and so refreshing.   What three items do you always keep in your pantry? Stevia, I like Stevia a lot. And lately it&amp;#039;s been my dad&amp;#039;s food\u2014he&amp;#039;s also been sending me fresh jellies and jams that he&amp;#039;s making, such as rose hips jam. I&amp;#039;ve had that pretty religiously. I&amp;#039;m pretty into popcorn. I like Popcorn, Indiana\u2014it&amp;#039;s really delicious!   How did you become involved with Platinum Hit? I&amp;#039;m really passionate about songwriting and helping people learn know more about songwriters and the craft of songwriting. The show really reveals that world, which is hard to get to know\u2014a lot of people don&amp;#039;t even know it exists. I also love mentoring. There&amp;#039;s no school for songwriting\u2014especially to be a professional songwriter\u2014and I&amp;#039;m not talking about the singer-songwriter who wants to be a celebrity. I&amp;#039;m talking about somebody who&amp;#039;s behind the scenes\u2026it&amp;#039;s interesting work\u2014and it&amp;#039;s also a job you can&amp;#039;t fake or phone in. You have to be authentic and honest and talk about things you really know about. Otherwise, it just doesn&amp;#039;t ring true. So it&amp;#039;s a very dramatic process to watch these kids cowrite and have to talk about their lives and really bring themselves to the table.   Has there been anything that&amp;#039;s surprised you while working on the show? Pressure does some interesting things to people. There&amp;#039;s a lot of pressure on this show; there&amp;#039;s a lot at stake. You know, this is their dream, they&amp;#039;re there to win it and have a career, and like I said, that brings up issues. You have to write about your life and it&amp;#039;s intense. It&amp;#039;s very raw.   How do you juggle everything\u2014your music career, hosting a TV show\u2014especially while pregnant? It wasn&amp;#039;t too bad. I found out I was pregnant during the first week of the shoot for Bravo in early October. So it was fun. It was kind of an easy time for me. Luckily, I didn&amp;#039;t have morning sickness, so I got through it really easily. It was a fun, happy secret to keep. The show will come out while I can&amp;#039;t work, so it&amp;#039;ll look like I&amp;#039;m working hard, but I won&amp;#039;t be!   What was it like working on your new children&amp;#039;s album? I had a real creative burst and I wrote like 15 songs in five days for my baby-to-be. I produced it as well. I wanted it to work on a couple of levels. I wanted an infant to like it, because infants really respond to the music\u2014more than the lyrics obviously; they like to bounce along to the track and be soothed. And then, as my baby grows older, I want him to enjoy the storytelling and the humor\u2014hopefully\u2014of the lyrics. But I also want parents to enjoy it because I&amp;#039;ve listened to kids&amp;#039; albums and they just make me want to stab my ears! All my adult friends who don&amp;#039;t have kids seem to love it, so hopefully I did it right. It&amp;#039;s an indie record, so it&amp;#039;ll be released independently this fall, and it&amp;#039;s called The Merry Goes &amp;#039;Round. It was really a fun, versatile project for a Gemini like me.   What advice do you have for moms juggling a busy schedule? You gotta let some stuff go. Decide what your priorities are and don&amp;#039;t stress about the stuff you&amp;#039;re not getting done. Something is going to fall through the cracks, so choose what you want to fall through and make peace with it.   And finally, what&amp;#039;s the last thing you do before you go to bed at night? I don&amp;#039;t know! Put in my NightGuard, my ear plugs and my eye mask, and just turn into the sexy person I am! [Laughs.]   For more information about the Libby&amp;#039;s jingle contest or to enter, visit Libby&amp;#039;s Facebook page. Entries are due by May 13. Jewel will then select five finalists to compete for votes and a chance to win the $10,000 grand prize, $2,500 second-place prize and $1,000 third-place prize. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/entertainment/a5674/how-she-does-it-jewel-117764/>