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Giving

Giving

Not long after I settled into my favorite chair this morning, an old friend started a conversation on Facebook.  New friends started conversations on Twitter. My day crossed theirs in the weird hour that's not night and not morning. As their Saturday night ended, my...

Discipline Lessons from Bronte

Discipline Lessons from Bronte

You may have heard or read some of my story about how I started a new career after more than 8 years as a stay at home mom. What I haven't shared, until now, is the writing that got me started. A short recap, in case you haven't heard it: my return to work began with...

These Are The Moments

These Are The Moments

Have you ever experienced setbacks, encountered challenges, or failed miserably? Struggled, made a poor choice, or taken a wrong turn? Said words you regret, missed an opportunity, wasted time? Do I even need to ask? If you want to lead yourself and others you need to...

Building Community Through Negativity

Building Community Through Negativity

A good friend and co-worker once told me: “If you don't complain about your job you don't care about your job.”  My friend also believes that sarcasm is the highest form of humor, but there was meant to be a kernel of honesty in his words.   So in the same spirit, I...

My Best Ice Cream Recipe

My Best Ice Cream Recipe

On Sunday in my Use Everything post, I invited you to daydream about finding ways to use all of your gifts and talents. I mused about creating a blog about leadership and ice cream recipes. For today, I am going to use this space to share my best ice cream recipe,...

God and Grandma

God and Grandma

On our way home from driving the other girls to school, my daughter Maggie likes to talk. The drive to school is noisy. Sometimes it's all bickering and whining. Other times the older girls sing or tell the same joke repeatedly. Maggie, usually still sleepy, doesn't...

Use Everything

Use Everything

It's been a crazy couple of weeks at my house. I am now (temporarily) working what is undeniably full-time for the first time in 10 years. My focus word for this season: Adjustment. It's an adjustment for me, as I figure out how to manage my work, my family, my...

Process

Process

Our yard is covered in a blanket of fresh snow. For now, it's clean and new, sparkly and undisturbed on this star-lit morning. For this moment, everything underneath is hidden from view. All I see is white. Earlier this fall, yellows and browns filled our yard. We...

Work That Makes a Difference

Work That Makes a Difference

Working with purpose is an everyday way to make a difference. Yet as as a mom, I often view my life in terms of before and after, with and without. The years before, life without kids — and the years after, life with kids. Soon after our first daughter was born in...

Love and Influence at Work

Love and Influence at Work

Gary Chapman has written a very successful and well-known series of books about love in marriage and families. The first, The Five Love Languages, introduced the concept that people give and experience love in one of five distinct ways. Although people may use and...

Increasing Your Influence as a Blogger | Put Your Blog on a Stand

Increasing Your Influence as a Blogger | Put Your Blog on a Stand

If you want to increase your influence as a blogger, you have to make sure people know about your blog. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the...