Why I Blog

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A couple years ago I did a helpful exercise in Stephen Covey's book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He says pretend you're watching your own funeral. What would you want people to say? Over time, our priorities shift and responses may change.

 For me, three answers will never change.

At my funeral, I hope my girls can say:

1. We knew how much our mother loved us.

2. Our mother gave us the tools we need to have a happy life in this world. 

3. Our mother showed us how to live life to the fullest and love people.

This blog (and photography, in general) helps me savor precious moments and ensure that my activities are aligned with my intentions as suggested above. This blog is also a creative outlet. A place to share events or ideas that help anyone enrich a child's life. 

Finally, this blog is a challenge I've created for myself. For a variety of reasons, I start and stop projects like this. This time I'm going to commit to writing regularly. Who knows where this will go. Thanks for stopping by..

Welcome!

Foreign Language

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I look forward to the day my girls and I travel the world. As lifelong learners, I hope they speak several languages.

I took a Spanish class with my dad once and it was a blast until he quit claiming he was too old.

More than a decade later, I'm back in class. Only this time, I'm the elderly one. My 8 and 11-year-old girls are joining me in this endeavor. 

Next year in middle school, my daughter takes Spanish. And for the first time, Spanish is an option for third graders at my younger daughter's school. Why wait? Thanks to a variety of good online classes, we're learning words and phrases now.

Here are some of the sites we find helpful. What works for you? Are you teaching your children a foreign language?



http://www.notesinspa...­

https://itunes.apple....­

http://learner.org/se...­

https://itunes.apple....­

https://itunes.apple....­

 

 

 

Community Garden -July Update

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That's what my husband said after a recent trip to our garden. If you are new to gardening, perhaps you can relate to my story.

While I may not remember what I planted or where I planted it and while I may have plants sprouting on top of other plants, veggies are growing in our garden!

At times, it's been a comedy of errors. For example, my daughter will never forget the time I dumped the tomato plant upside down and broke every stalk. There was also the time we lost control of the sprinkler and it soaked my daughter from head to toe. Then, despite protests from the girls, I planted everything deep, too deep. For weeks, there was no sign of life. 

I almost gave up but yesterday we biked to the garden and saw this.  

Lesson #1: Laugh. This is about creating memories to last a lifetime.

For some crazy reason, I thought my girls and I would be working in the garden side by side. Ha! Yesterday, my youngest turned an upside-down wheelbarrow into a horse and rocked for 15 minutes. My oldest chose to go barefoot in the mud, squeezing it between her toes.

As I started to sweat in the hot sun, I got a little cranky because I was the only one working hard. Then I remembered to let the girls experience our garden their own way. Yes, I'd like to have some crops and a little help but for me, it's more important to disconnect from the internet, bond as a family and laugh.

Lesson #2:  Start with plants.

My plants grew when everything else failed.

This is like getting a helping hand and you just have to maintain the plant. I can do this. My blooming plants gave me the confidence to keep going. 

Lesson #3:  You can plant new crops in July or August. 

It's late July and I thought the growing season was almost over. Not true. According to the University of Minnesota Extension, you can still plant kale, broccoli, spinach, basil and peas. I'm looking for more plants.

So as you can see, we're making progress in the garden. It's work but it's fun. Highly recommended.