I am not a gambler. In fact, the betting window would be closed and the race long over before I even identified all of the variables or made my first graph. The horses would have died of old age before I analyzed all of the data. ...The truth is, the world is not always predictable or quantifiable. Yes friends, I said it. You can’t measure or calculate everything. And it turns out that some of the most rewarding things in life come after a massive leap of faith into the unknown.
We all have, to make a lasting impact on other people’s lives. We just need to remember what the best coaches know.
If you visit our house, you will get a warm welcome from the four-legged creatures and, of course, the two-legged ones. Buttercup, our two-year-old Boxer (or The Toddler as we affectionately call her), monitors the door vigilantly...
The fact is that weeds are just flowers that grow where you don’t want them too. Sometimes their beauty is missed because they are inconvenient or not what we wanted...
That's how life is really. We can stay on the surface where it is plain and dull. It takes no effort at all. You don't get messy. The only pain is boredom or loneliness. But if you put some effort in; if you are willing to get a little messy; if you are willing to scratch beneath the surface- well that is where the beauty in life lies. Beneath the surface. And I have found that those parts of my life forged in a little fire are the most beautiful parts of all...
Sometimes things just happen, good and bad, that you just can’t predict. Despite my propensity for planning and my natural tendency toward being a hunter, I have learned that sometimes you have to roll with the punches and trust there is a lesson you need to learn. I didn’t always feel this way. No, this is a lesson I learned the hard way (my preferred method even as a young adult)....
What if we all believed that we could get better at something, master it even, just by learning from our mistakes and trying again? What if we didn’t have a story about the past that limited our experience in the present? What if we saw our failures as learning and not as personal deficits? What if we believed we could change the outcome merely through increasing our effort and applying our talents? What if we acknowledged and acted upon the possibility that we might have talents we have not yet discovered?
He looked me in the eye and in a quiet voice said, “There is going to come a day not too many years from now when you are going to want me to trust you...
No longer able to rotate and move the bike forward, physics prevailed, and I flew over the handle bars. With extensive experience falling off things, I tucked my head, hit the pavement with my right shoulder and tried to roll through. Unfortunately...
Don’t get me wrong, education is absolutely important. Everyone needs a good education. Having a job or career that fits your life is important. But a life is so much more than that. And what is important in life is so much more than that. Knowing you are part of a family ....
It takes just one person in your life to change your whole trajectory. One person who sees all that you can be. One person who sees your gifts not your challenges. One person who knows you have it in you to do the hard work....
I found myself sifting through old Easter pictures this week. It’s not surprising really. I often find myself looking back when holidays roll around. This is one of my favorite Easter pictures. I keep a copy on my desk. My daughter was three in this picture and the youngest of a herd of kids at… Continue reading You’re Never Too Old for a Little Joy
My grandpa lived a simple life. He loved big and loud and true. He hugged with gusto and danced with abandon. He was the solid part of my quicksand life. I learned so much from him...
My daughter is a junior this year. She is our only child. The good Lord blessed us with only one child but, in so doing, He blessed us every single day after. In just over a year, she will leave us to go off to college and start this new adventure. The part of her life where she becomes an adult independent of us. Every day I fight the primal urge to cover her in bubble wrap leaving holes only so that she can breathe...
Let me just say at the outset, I know that this story is going to reveal with lights and sirens the unhealthy relationship I have (or had) with my Jeep, Angus. Yes, I named it. Don’t judge. We were together for 10 years...
I was two months into my first year in a new school when I found myself hunched over a lunch table in the staff room praying for an earthquake. Not a big earthquake...
When I was a new teacher, I applied for a job in a small town in northwest Washington. I remember driving into town wearing my most professional skirt suit, firmly ensconced in my big old pickup truck. It was a beautiful drive from my house 52 miles away on country roads they brazenly labeled highways...
In the fall of 1988, I started my teacher training at Seattle University. Armed with a newly printed Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Alaska, I enthusiastically set off to change the world – one sophomore at a time...
As I was driving home from work tonight, Corey Hart’s Never Surrender came on. You probably will only know this song if you were embroiled in teenage angst or young adult drama in the mid-1980s. It was the theme song for that. I remember it because I recorded it on cassette tape and sent it to my best friend, naively hoping it might help to wake her up...
My daughter missed her dentist appointment this week. In general, she is a very responsible teenager. I only bring it up because every time I hear the word dentist, I can’t help but run my tongue over the edge of my top right front tooth. You see, I have a chip in my top right front tooth. It is not...
