On being the keeper….

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This Facebook post got me to click….and keep reading….and feel united with millions of other keepers around the world and I so appreciate these gems late night in bed while my brain is refusing to shut off. 

It also got me thinking about my own journey with the “weight and overwhelm” of being the keeper and how surprisingly, it has felt far from heavy on most days. In the past year, some amazing books have stumbled across my path that have helped me review and re-align my life and my time management especially now with kiddos in our mix. The messages from these authors have shifted my mindset of time (and stuff) from one of scarcity (needing more) to abundance (I have what I need). 

I won’t go into detail about each one but will let you peruse if wishing to do so (or if you have time to do so) but I did post them in rank order of how much I would recommend it – happy reading and happy “keeping” all!!!!

On hospitality….

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A few years back, Scott and I took a class at our church diving deeper into our faith and as most reflection classes do, this class encouraged us to explore what our “spiritual gift” was and how that played out in our life. At the time, I thought “teaching” or “leadership” would totally be on top of my list and since I always guessed my Seventeen quiz outcomes correctly…..surely this would turn out as I wished as well (spoiler alert – the answers are on the next page). But as the final page popped up and right at the top of the list, winning by a long shot was HOSPITALITY, I remember being severely disappointed.

“Really God? I’m good at throwing parties? That’s not going to change the world!!!!” I thought and as any good 3.98 high school graduate student would do, I promptly went back to the start and took the quiz again so I could get more right answers than I got before. I changed at least 10 of my answers and still got HOSPITALITY. Grrrr…..

And then I moved on from that harrowing experience of not being able to retake a quiz for “more credit”….because well adulting means those stupid quizzes don’t matter right?

Fast forward to NOW and the act of HOSPITALITY is quite possibly the foundational piece of my home, my heart and my marriage and something we live out (and have to remind ourselves is a GIFT) on a daily basis. By definition, hospitality means “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” We generously give what we have (right now rooms and beds in our home, our hearts to kiddos who need it the most, and our resources to whoever and wherever needs it). So…. long story short (k 500 words short)…..as a message at church a few weeks back encouraged the congregation to use their gifts and not hide them within themselves, my memory of this test from years before and my utter disdain at the results was ironic to say the least.

I am proudest of this gift and how it lives outside of me in the following ways:

These three little beings below filling our home with love, laughter, and the need for protection and the hundreds of others I get to generously welcome and love on at school. Meet our newest special houseguest, BraveGIRL…..one of WG’s friends that we’ve loved for many years and now we get to love her tighter and closer (plus look what she does for our collective height average).

One of my FAVORITE parts of my career as an elementary school counselor in the past couple of years has been WELCOMING new counselors or interns into the field and mentoring them through their first year(s) of what sometimes is a heart-wrenching, “who would want to put themselves through this?” kind of job. Pictured below are a few school counselors in my new district that I am very excited to work with this year.

I’ve said this many times before, but I do long for people stopping by my house whenever they want to and coming in for coffee/wine/Cougar Gold cheese/free scratches from our devil cat or whatever your heart desires. Now you know the true reason behind this longing…..well God told me I was good at it and sometimes, you just can’t retake the quiz and have to be okay with the results.

 

Summer 2k17 in photos – August

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Such a fun month as summer training for volleyball dies down and we get to cram in a bunch of fun family memories! This year, we traveled to Idaho to visit Silverwood and it was a hot, sweaty blast. I am pretty sure WB’s version of heaven would include a lazy river and WG’s would include death-defying adrenaline-overload rides so 2 days here were just perfect.

Celebrating our 5 year anniversary (and the welcoming of WG’s friend – BraveGIRL, to our household making us 5 deep as a family) by getting some ice cream on a lazy day – everything I dreamed about for summer. Pajamas, no schedule, ice cream – check!My favorite part of the end of summer???? The start of volleyball…..we have a new floor in our gym and I have a brand new team to love on and develop and after one week so far, my heart is happy with my current group (and their super supportive parents) and all of the hard work they are putting in (both mentally and physically during our two-a-day practices). To say I am excited about this season is a true understatement….it’s going to be a good one. You should probably look up our schedule and write some games in your planner now.

My move to a new district brings me a new team to work with and it’s been so fun getting to know these women and plan what is going to be quite the adventure this first year together!

WG has been trying to earn a little pink hair this entire summer and finally got her wish (thanks to WonderGRAMMA) this week. Both her and her daddy are loving the new style and it’s safe to say this little one is sooooo ready to take on freshmen year!

A few favorite things from August

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These little guacamole cups make for awesome avocado toast first thing in the morning. Costco for the win!THIS SHOW…..stole a lot of sleep from me this past month. Similar to Orange is the New Black but way darker and sometimes a little hard to watch. And hard to NOT watch. There are 5 seasons on Netflix and he 6th won’t be out until June 2018. Toooooo long. My beloved little Prius was getting a little squishy for our fam so we upgraded to Toyota Highlander and we love it so far. The best part? There is a speaker system in it so when I speak to the kids in the back seat my voice gets pumped over the music through the back speakers. No more hollering “leave your sister alone” over and over when a softer voice into my steering wheel will do the trick.Still loving my 31 gifts Zip Top Organizer Bag for work related stuff. It can fit my laptop and multiple files along with my varied beverages, keys, and lip glosses in the pockets. Want one of your own to personalize and take with you? Click here. This view hasn’t gotten old and doesn’t disappoint on summer nights like last night. Swoon. 

GLS – Day 2

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Some more recaps of the sessions I was honored to listen to at last week’s Global Leadership Summit.

Laszlo Bock (Google advisor) –
Nuggets: Meaning matters – figure out what career/job means to person. Are they values we talk about or values we live?
Action: Keep each players’ objective and key results visible and check in on them often.

Juliet Funt (CEO, my favorite speaker!!!) –
Nuggets: Taking time during day for “strategic pause” is where ideas can grace us with their presence. We are too busy to become less busy. White space is the oxygen that allows other things and ideas to catch fire.
Action: I love this whole idea and have read other Personal Development books about how important space and breathing time is for our brains and our bodies, especially in today’s world. I am excited about bringing this to my work with my own kiddos and at school. This should probably warrant it’s own post because I love talking about it so much.

Marcus Buckingham (author) –
Nuggets: Make the individual feel special WHILE integrating into the team. Me and We is equally important. Human beings are unreliable in rating other humans. Most success found by having frequent strengths-based check-ins about near-term future work.
Action: Give attention, not feedback to my players. Have them rate their own feelings on team values and individual strengths. (I’m really excited about following this adventure/research project).

Angela Duckworth (University of Penn researcher on GRIT – one of my favorite topics as many of you know) –
Nuggets: Talent x Effort = Skill, Skill x Effort = Achievement (Talent does matter, but effort counts twice). “I love you so much that I won’t let you quit just because you’re having a bad day.”
Action: I already am all in on the GRIT front but if you want to assess your own grit go to this website and see how you measure up.

Gary Haugen (CEO, International Justice Mission) –
Nuggets: All learning is useless if fear is present. Most powerful force between knowing and doing is how much fear is present (“fear is the silent destroyer of dreams”). Increase the community of courage around someone when fear is present.
Action: Decrease fear in players and students I work with. Teach staff about fear robbing the brain of it’s capability to learn/act/follow directions, etc. Take quiet time in mornings to “prepare my interior” for the day. Label fears when they creep in and make a plan to defeat them.

Whew!!!! That was a lot but if any of it intrigues you, I HIGHLY recommend you google some of these speakers and websites and see what you can glean for your own leadership or personal development.

On being a leader….

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Each year, Scott and I attend the Global Leadership Summit, streamed live at Cornwall and each year, I walk away with some amazing take-aways about how to better myself as a leader, both on the court, in the building I’m working at, and within our family with our kiddos and my husband. In order to keep these take-aways fresh in my brain as we transition to fall, I thought I would record them here as a way to process these amazing two days full of speakers that truly spoke into my heart and life in big ways.

Bill Hybels (pastor of huge church in Chicago) –
Nugget: God is an equal opportunity storywriter and every leader can be developed into something great.
Action: Foster young leaders and affirm their leadership material (2 minute conversation for lifetime impact). Take chair time each day to read, reflect, pray, surrender and let leadership ideas come into your space.

Sheryl Sanberg (Facebook CEO, woman crush, author of Lean In)-
Nugget: Switch from post-traumatic stress disorder to post-traumatic GROWTH. Helping others fix the common mistakes of grieving (personalization, pervasiveness, permanence). We shouldn’t measure how much resilience someone already has but focus on how to build it.
Action: Keep the course in walking with others who are experiencing grief/trauma right now in their families/marriages/childhoods. Foster gratitude and joy each day within our littles so their growth is bigger than their grief.

Marcus Lemonis (business guru, from The Profit tv show) –
Marcus was adopted and talked about this mom “being able to adopt” instead of “unable to have biological children” and I loved this phrase and mindset so much. We get a lot of questions about having our own biological children and the simple answer is….we are able to foster and adopt and that’s it.

Bryan Stevenson (wrote Just Mercy about the unfair incarceration and justice needed for so many African Americans – must read, can borrow my copy!) –
Nugget: Hopelessness is the enemy of justice and leadership. We must choose psychological and physical discomfort in order to enact change. The broken teach use how grace is SUPPOSED to work. The opposite of poverty is justice, not wealth.
Action: What am I doing to foster hope within my elementary students, families and staff?

Andy Stanley (pastor/leadership author) –
Nugget: If we were to do it all over again, what would we do all over again? Being a leader and leading are two different things.
Action: When looking at data/stats – focus on successes and then how to “make it better”

Day 1 – done and done. My brain was full but my heart was ignited…..

 

Update on WonderGIRL

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Many of you have been asking how my little (okay not so little) WonderGIRL has been doing after a rough end of middle school and through this summer transition into high school. Thank you for caring about her and us and our household enough to ask these questions knowing that the answer might not be (and most likely won’t be) the coveted “miracle” transformation of a young girl saved by her adopted forever family.

I don’t share a lot of WG’s personal story on here because it is HERS and hers alone to share. But I will share my own story and that is one of struggle on how to help, when to not help, when to step back, when to step in and all the decisions and doubt about these decisions creep in to my brain and camp there for days and nights on end.

The beautiful and messy thing with kids with trauma is that when you DO dive into their story and find a counselor/coach/intervention that will help them, all the feelings and all the triggers come back into your world stealing your lovable little person away from you and inserting tantrums and hurtful words around every corner.  While stuffing those memories and those feelings is often the EASIER route….it is not often the healthy one. So I sat back after WG’s 4th counselor moved onto a different career away from a community agency and waited for the RIGHT counselor and a specifically trained counselor in attachment, as my Mama gut knew that THIS piece was so much more important than just talking about her past abuse. Even though that meant our daughter wasn’t involved in every professional’s most urgent suggestion to have her in counseling after she ran away….I knew in my heart this was what needed to happen.

And two sessions in with an amazing new counselor that included lots of tears and attacks toward me but with someone that WG finally trusted…..I am so grateful I did this because we have REAL feelings now people! My once overly numb WonderGIRL is feeling things in a new way and actually talking about them…..these feelings being unveiled right now sound like verbal attacks on me and comparisons to her biological mom and I am sooooo okay with that because I feel like they are memories being dug up within the magical garden of her heart. I don’t garden and I don’t know anything about it but I do know you can’t grow a successful and beautiful garden without dealing with and taking out the weeds.

So to answer your well-intentioned questions about how WG is doing…..we are okay. Tomorrow we might not be and that’s okay too. We’ll do some weeding and then we’ll “water” the garden with love and laughter and watching silly teenage shows together and start again. I am equal parts anxious and excited for her to start her high school career….if for nothing else, we get to insert more trusted adults into her life to teach her lessons about caring adults and felt safety wherever she goes. No matter what classes she takes and what grades she gets in her high school career, this is the most important thing she needs from education right now.

This picture above is what I returned to after a particularly ugly interaction while running around our neighborhood. She left mad but obviously turned a corner and was willing to talk about it when we got home. Love this…..

And when in doubt, turn the camera around and take some silly selfies. The true way to a teenager’s heart…..

5 years….

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Each year, each new experience and each new Wonder that you say yes to without logistics, reality or even perks cements my faith that you were put in my life for a plan far greater than mine.

Thank you for helping me fulfill my purpose professionally and personally as a mama, knowing when to cheer from behind or when to step in front and help me set some boundaries. We love spending our anniversaries growing and learning at the Global Leadership Summit – inspiration for our year ahead for our marriage, our careers and our souls. (Recap of my experience at the GLS up next on the blog)

Stock up now – sale!!!!

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Hot out….bad air quality…..perfect time to shop and score some amazing deals for a back to school wardrobe (or be wwwaaayyyy ahead of time and score some Christmas gifts)!!!! 


it’s major, it’s huge, it’s good!

it’s possibly the BEST four letter word out there!

S A L E. 

It happens four times a year, and it’s really, really good!

Imagine for a minute, all your favorite pieces up to 70% off… amazing, right?! And what’s even better than that, is you don’t have to change out of those sweats! (we get it!)

Get yourself prepped and ready! These are by far our craziest & best deals.

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Sale will launch August 7th @ 10 am (MST) and will run until August 7th @ midnight.

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Keep reading! This is important stuff:

ALL items during this sale are FINAL SALE!

Items do NOT hold in your cart & are very limited, if you’re 100% in love with something check-out quick then go back for more! (shipping is FREE, so no biggie!)

We cannot adjust, combine, cancel, or add to existing orders once the order has been placed, as we start shipping immediately. So, please double check your order (size, color, address, etc). 

We will not be price adjusting any items purchased prior to the sale. 

We will not be restocking any items during the sale, everything available will be listed. 

Please refer to the item sizing guidelines and model’s sizing on the site when choosing a size. 

ALL items during this sale are FINAL SALE!

Orders will still (and always) ship FREE! (US only) (Canada ships FREE over $100)

We will ship in the order received, but please allow 7-10 day shipping time frame (unless otherwise noted on a listing) just in case! 

Most items are on their last production run, so if you want it… get it now! 

Oh! Did we mention?! Due to the deep discounts, ALL items during this sale are FINAL SALE! (again, double check your order – no exceptions will be made!)

Sale will run from 10:00 am (MST) August 7th to midnight August 7th (MST).

P.S. If your coveted items are sold out, don’t fret. Our Fall line-up will start releasing super soon (yay!). Lots more goodies are coming your way!

Ready for fun?!?! Click here!!!! (Please use these links as I get a little perk for sharing with you)

Summer 2k17 in photos -July edition

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Cousin fun at our house. WonderBOY has been blowing me away with his care and love in playing with younger kiddos lately. Love his heart. The whole volleyball crew arrived in Pullman – while the camp is awesome, I also love giving these high schoolers a chance to see other campuses around the state and start thinking about options post graduation. Sweet photo of WG at our camping trip to Deception Pass – our absolutely fave place to camp. Lake and ocean playtime plus camping in the trees – triple threat of awesomeness. When Mom suggests reading time around the campfire. A beautiful friend found her perfect match and it was a super fun reunion of old friends!!!!Enjoying a sunny day at the waterslides. This funny little cat loves to be held like a baby and often falls asleep just like this. The cuteness really makes up for when he’s a wild savage trying to eat us alive. 

Up next in August – a little Silverwood action, Lynden fair and the start of volleyball season!!!!!