I was nineteen years old when he proposed and this week we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. We’ve been married long enough that if you were born around the time of our wedding, you’re now in college. In other words, we’ve been married a lifetime. And yet, it feels like we are still at the beginning.
Find Adventure and Share Joy Wherever You Go
The note taped on the back said, “Can I join your family, please?” It was a cute way of casting approval on our message. The note was from the calligrapher and the message on the front was our family motto in her artistic hand:
Valleys Lead to Mountaintops
Lately I’ve been asking myself, “What is my life communicating?” After all, we are each writing our own life story day by day. Guess what? Storytelling can be hard. When I was in high school, our 10th-grade English teacher, Ms. Albritton, taught us about something called “The Tilley Plot Scheme.” This is the front of Professor Tilley’s book and it …
What is Your Life Communicating?
I love words. I love to read them, write them, hear them, speak them, and even spell them. I’ve focused a lot of effort lately on learning to use my words more effectively. In October I flew to Colorado to attend the SCORRE Conference. It was led by two master communicators — Ken Davis and Michael Hyatt. In November I …
My Decision to Adopt Was Selfish
I love to celebrate adoption. My husband and I have two amazing children, both born in Russia. They came home about 3 years apart and they aren’t biologically related or from the same region. We missed out on the early months of their lives, but we experienced the joy of bringing each of them home around their first birthday. When …
How Infertility Made Me Helpless But Gave Me Freedom
I used to think I had the power to make my life whatever I wanted it to be. I thought careful planning and intentional decision making would get me everything I wanted, everything I deserved. I refused to acknowledge my helplessness. Admitting I could not do it all would surely cause chaos and, possibly, planetary re-alignment. In short, I was …
3 Things This Adoptive Mom Loves to Hear
One night a few years ago my husband and I were at a comedy club with friends. The comedian was going on and on about being in the delivery room when his children were born. He used his comedic intuition to find the ONE person in the audience who absolutely did NOT want to participate—my husband. He asked if we …
What If The Grass Is Greener Over There?
Apparently my children have the hardest life of any children in the state of Florida. If my children are to be believed, everyone else has fewer chores with far more privileges. My poor children, having been denied televisions in their rooms and access to rated R movies, really have it bad. They have to deal with limited screen time and …
5 Truths I Know About You
5 Truths I Know About You (But You May Not Know About Yourself There are (at least) five truths I want my children, nieces, and nephews to know about themselves. As I pondered this list, I realized you might need to hear them, too. So I invite you to read this list and insert yourself as the recipient. To those …
Finding Love to Spare in the Selfishness of Grief
Have you noticed that grief makes even the happiest memories hard? This is a picture of my Dad, Tim. He passed away on February 28, 2014. I have a million, billion happy memories of my father, maybe more. Before I say more, let me acknowledge that while my dad was one of the good ones, yours maybe wasn’t. Surely that …