“Happiness is a choice”. That is the saying that my daughter has on a sign on the dashboard of her car that she looks at every time she gets in her car to go anywhere. When I asked her the other day if she had a favorite saying that was her motto of sorts in […]
Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home. Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn’t change the fact that after today things will never quite be […]
Many of us grew up with a security blanket. It typically started as an actual blanket for most of us when we were small children, one we couldn’t go to bed without. Then as we grow older our parents and our home become our security blanket, the place we felt safe and secure. And then […]
Today was an amazing day – we had planned to take our kids out to the Lake to go boating with their friends, everyone got their swimming suits on and we packed the boat with snacks and we drove 45 minutes to the lake and got the boat on the water only to have our […]
“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This summer has been such a special time for me. I have been able to have so much fun with my children and the memories we will walk away from this summer with will be with me forever. The most interesting […]
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” -Maya Angelou In life there are some things you can change but there are a whole lot of things you can’t. And determining the difference between the two is a key factor in controlling your own happiness in life. Sometimes […]
So taking time off this summer seemed liked the best idea ever except that while I am taking time off the rest of my life is piling up like crazy into a mountain that keeps getting bigger and bigger and the truth is that I am a little frightened for when the day comes that […]
When my son Dalton was a little boy, for some reason he could not grow bangs. His hair would grow on top and on the sides and in the back, but not in the front. For the first few years of his life I kept him in little baseball caps to disguise the fact that […]
Becoming the person you want to become is a daily effort and one that extends a lifetime. It’s not as though one day you wake up and go “I’ve arrived! I am now the perfect person. My work here is done.” And if you do wake up thinking that you have a whole other set […]
Life is full of storms and always will be. Some days are a heavy rain, other days a light drizzle, and other days are torrential floods. And the fact is that these stormy days will come and go throughout our entire life because no matter how much we wish it could be all sunshine and […]
“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.” – Harry Truman Pessimism: Pessimism is defined as a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. It is always expecting the worst possible outcome. It is living with a lack of faith. […]
When a happy time of life comes to an end it is hard, plain and simple. Tomorrow I will be attending my daughter Ashley’s High School Graduation. It is a major life event for a young person. Ashley had an amazing High School experience. She was surrounded by good friends and she chose to be […]
Back in 1999 a poem came out that I thought was cute, but not especially meaningful. Later they even made the poem into a song. As I read that same poem today I no longer find it just cute, I find it extremely meaningful and I can’t help but get choked up by it. Oh […]
Today’s advice: Organize your life BEFORE you move! Oh my goodness how I wish I would have done just that! I wish I would have had the time to organize my life before I had to move into a new home. I have lived in my current home for around 15 years and it is […]
I can hardly believe the day has actually come….we get to move in to our new house this weekend! YIPEE!! After an insane amount of hard work, stress, craziness, disappointment, frustration and every other emotion you can imagine, we have finally come to the point after a very long year and a half that our […]
I have thought a lot about changes lately as I just spent the last several days with my daughter and her high school friends on a trip to Las Vegas for her Senior Spring Break trip I had promised to take her on. The timing of the trip couldn’t have been worse as we are […]
“You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it.” That quote has helped me many times in my life. Especially during difficult or stressful times when I feel overwhelmed or incapable of handing a situation I am given. We have all heard the phrase that “God doesn’t give us more than […]
Making money while making the world a better place – what could possibly be better than that? That is exactly the goal of impact investors. James Lee Sorenson, successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, calls it the “double bottom line,” and achieving that double bottom line is something he is incredibly passionate about. Impact investing is “doing […]
Figuring out who your ancestors are is one of the coolest things in the world. I was lucky to have Grandparents who were big into doing genealogy research when they were still alive and they provided me life history books for their own lives as well as providing me life histories written by my great-grandparents […]
“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” -Ronald Daw I believe in magic…I believe we actually make our own magic by the way we think, the dreams we dream, […]
Anytime you come home from vacation it feels like you pay a major price for having been away. For me that is one of the things that causes conflicting feelings about getting excited to go on vacation in the first place. It’s knowing that you will have to face the punishment for having been away […]
I’ll be happy when ____ happens. I’ll be happy when I have ______. I’ll be happy when _____ loves me. I’ll be happy when I look like _____. The “I’ll be happy when” trap is one of the easiest to fall into. I know because I have fallen into myself far too many times. For […]
With Valentines Day almost upon us I decided to search for creative Group Date Ideas that would help spurn my creativity as I attempt to plan a fun Valentine weekend. I came across multiple websites such as www.niftydateideas.com and several others that had great date ideas. I pulled my favorites from several of the sites to share in today’s blog. Hopefully these will […]
For the last four years I have had the privilege of teaching an amazing group of young women every Sunday at church and then attending weekly fun activity nights with them on Wednesday evenings. Four years ago I was assigned to teach the 14 and 15 year old girls in a class and then after […]
That is the inscription on the back cover of my Grandmother’s life history book. My grandmother passed away back in November of 2007. She was one of my dearest friends. And I am forever grateful that she left behind her written life history for me and for my children, and their children, and so on. […]
Earlier this week I shared some thoughts on failure and how it is often our failures that end up leading us to the path of success in our lives. It reminded me of one of my favorite stories that perfectly illustrates the title quote from today’s blog: “Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may […]
If you could do anything you wanted with your life, what would you do? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Just for a minute take away all restrictions or limitations that typically exist and the barriers that scare you or deter you. Take away all worries of being able to fulfill your financial obligations […]
2014 has just begun and as I look ahead those words by Robert Browning of “The Best is Yet to Be” are ringing loudly. I am thoroughly convinced that 2014 is going to be the most Epic year EVER! For all of us! We have each just opened a new book full of blank pages […]
Today I was humbled and honored to receive the UVEF Entrepreneur of the Year Award. At the awards lunch they asked me to share a few words about the things that I would like to pass on to other Entrepreneurs from the lessons I have learned from my own journey. I struggled deciding what lessons […]
As we are nearing the start of a brand new year here in less than a month I just wanted to remind everyone that this is the perfect time to start thinking about what you want to put on your 2014 Goal Poster! For those who don’t know what I am referring to here is […]
