Journey to Excellence

How should success be measured? Using that as your standard, who is the most successful person you know? (Or one of the most successful?) Like most people, that definition has definitely changed over the years. For me at this point in my life I would say the Cleaver family pretty much sums up success. Husband/Dad has a good, steady career and leaves every morning to go to his job after Wife/Mom hands him his lunch and kisses him on his cheek. Wife/Mom is happy at home and productive there, raising her children and keeping a peaceful home prepped and ready for Husband/Dad when he gets home. The family is all together, sits together at night in the family room watching television, reading, playing games, etc. Kids respect Dad and Mom, although are far from perfect, but love and discipline guides them in all they do. As a family we strive for this ideal, although we haven't gotten there yet. I don't think I know any family that has achieved it, but I still think we should ...

Okay, today's Tuesday Coffee Chat is an interesting one! Leslie wants us to pretend that we write a "Dear Abby" advice column and disclose the letter we would like to respond to and then respond to it. At first I thought I would opt out because I felt silly doing it, but then one came to me ... it's a piece of advice I would like to give to so many ... Dear Nicole: A couple of years ago my husband and I built our dream home in our dream neighborhood in our dream town. Our kids got to go to the new hoity toity elementary school, people said they wished they had what we had, and we generally felt like we had "made it". This is what everyone works so hard to achieve, right? But there's a problem. Our neighbors are awful! They are so snooty, oftentimes talking about us with others when we can hear them! We spend all of our time "Keeping up with the Joneses", and we don't even like the Joneses. In order to fit in we have to work tire...

Tell us about a time you found yourself 'in the middle of nowhere'. Was this deliberate? Rick and I were just talking about this the other day. If you can call going "the road less taken" to get to a destination in Bermuda, then YES! First of all, Bermuda is a.maz.ing! We went there by cruise, which I highly recommend. After getting used to the public bus system, that has bus stops literally right on the side of the road, on curves, up hills, in the most dangerous places imaginable, we decided to go to the lighthouse. We got off at a stop near the lighthouse and could see it from there, looming up above us. We weren't yet familiar with all of the stops and didn't want to end up way past it. There were two roads that appeared to go to the lighthouse. One was uphill, very curvy, and had no safe place to walk. So we decided to take the other road that looked much safer. And it was. But we walked and walked and walked and walked. It felt like we had wound a...

I am legitimately drinking coffee while doing my Tuesday Coffee Chat prompt today, covered up in a blanket with my fireplace insert running. It is Day 2 of cold and rainy weather. And I thought I was lazy yesterday? Ha! I might not even put on real clothes today while I am reading and sipping my hot beverages. Leslie at Ink Interrupted always allows me to reveal a little more about myself to you through her Tuesday Coffee Chat prompts. Today is no different. My home has several projects requiring starting/finishing. I hate leaving something unfinished. Are you a starter or a finisher? How is it that I am neither? I have several projects that need to be started. Dawson's door to his room needs painted. I want to paint our metal sink cabinet. I need to do a little cleaning up in the basement (that will literally take me about 30 minutes). I need to power wash my house. We have major projects that we need to do someday, bathroom redos and roof replacements. I look at thos...

This year the kids and I embarked on a journey. We decided to learn all we could about World War II from the beginning to the end. Although the war was about much more than Hitler and the Holocaust and the attack on Pearl Harbor, those two events were major ones. These topics are extremely difficult to discuss with children. My two are ages 12 and 10 and are on the mature, albeit emotional, side when it comes to dealing with such events. I decided early on that I would not shield them from the horror that was World War II. But I also wanted to be sure to mix in some of the personal and positive stories from that time period. It was an excruciating time in so many ways, but there were also some amazing men and women who showed themselves worthy of being named heroes. Seeing the war through the eyes of children was also an important aspect of our journey. We studied Anne Frank and how children contributed to the war on the homefront. To view Pearl Harbor from the perspective of a ...

Hello again! As I have random thoughts swirling around in my head this morning, I thought I would gather them together for a post. 1. Something I have learned about myself lately (well, I think I always knew it but now am actually admitting it) is that I like to have a slooooooowwww start to my day. It doesn't matter what time I get up, whether it's early or mid-morning, I like to have a couple of hours before I have to do anything. I especially enjoy a quiet house. During this time I drink my coffee, catch up on computer stuff, and start my new passion ... 2. Crossword puzzles. While I was in Florida my friend Megan had brought along a crossword puzzle book. I picked one up at Walmart and have been doing one crossword puzzle each day. I have gotten better at them and sometimes I don't even have to cheat!! I swear it helps with my early-onset memory loss. No, I have not been diagnosed with that, but I have the craziest memory lapses so I kid myself and my family abou...

Well, hi! I noticed that it's been two weeks since I have blogged. I could say that it's been because we have been busy, because we have. And I could say it's because Brynne has been hogging my computer on her current Minecraft craze, because she has. But really it's because I have just not felt like putting my words into words. Know what I mean? We finished our 2015-2016 school year on April 29th. Our last week of school was spent wrapping up our year-long study of WWII watching videos about Anne Frank and the Tuskegee Airmen, finishing up some reading, etc. We also concluded our enrichment class where we used the money raised from our penny (copper) collection to make May Baskets for the residents of our local nursing home. We snuck out to the home after the residents went to bed and left the baskets for them to find on May 1st. The class also completed the National WWII Museum's Get in the Scrap program. This was a big accomplishment as we did act...