Category Archives: Books

On #couplegoals

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Like many other women these days, I have been drinking up the Rachel Hollis Kool-aid, complete with reading her book, consuming all of her online content and listening to her new podcast with her husband. She is a force of a woman and I love that about her. I also appreciate her intentional moves with her husband to connect and plan their life….something that’s been nagging at my heart and our marriage for a while as we navigate a new life with 3 older children.Once I thought through some of the latest squabbles in our relationship, so many of them came from little misunderstandings about our busy schedule. Honoring your partner’s need for hobbies, and interests and yes their own life AND getting all the kids to all the things is a tricky balance. I love Rachel’s suggestion of sitting down each Sunday and going through the week…we are one month into this new adventure and it’s been a great connecting point at the end of each weekend and has made our weeks (filled with three different school schedules, my volleyball schedule, and Scott’s hunting) feel a little bit smoother.We have also been trying to get a monthly date night in starting this summer and hopefully continuing….making this an effort will not only improve our own connection, but also show our kiddos who are starting to be interested in romantic relationships a positive model of respect and pursuing your partner, even as adult married (yet still independent) humans.

One conversation we held during a date night during the summer was setting our VALUES as a couple. I thought I would document those here (just in case we lose our way and the only way back is to google search my blog for important life contents).

Scott and Patti’s Relationship Values (in no particular order of importance):
1. Quality time together – yearly vacations, building downtime into weekends (saying no to all the invites)
2. Communication about conflict/feelings – we don’t keep things under wraps and we don’t allow our children to let things go “unresolved” (we also resolve our conflict in front of our children….hoping they see the problem solving, grace, and forgiveness involved in a true relationship)
3. Personal Growth – we believe in therapy, we believe in personal growth books, we believe in moving forward and becoming better selves
4. Pursuit of passions – each of us has passions outside of our family and we support each other in time away to enjoy those things
5. Traditions/Celebrations – we love yearly chances to celebrate family moments and we do so, unapologetically…..live-a-versaries, forever family days, birthdays, behavior improvement rewards, etc.Have you tried this with your partner or children?? It turned out to be a great conversation and led me to do some analyzing about how we spend our time and whether or not that REALLY matched up with the values we agreed upon. Happy Thursday everyone!

On digging deep….

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and using my oils while we’re down there in the trenches of hard feelings and hard behaviors! Summer months for us mean we double down on counseling and therapy, both for our children and for ourselves. With any therapeutic process (the good ones anyway), hard feelings and processing don’t just happen in session, but out of session and through relationship. While we account for this by lessening our schedule, increasing connection, and other strategies, I really wanted to put my rather large collection of oils to the test to see how we can impact our hearts and our heads during this time.

Here is what we are trying this summer for emotion management and healing for our two Wonders and so far, I have been super impressed with the results. Many of you asked for the recipes and if you message me, I’d be happy to send those along. If you’re interested in seeing the connections between essential oils and emotions, I HIGHLY recommend this book. (Images below from my IG story taken from the pages)

If the intrigue level has tipped after reading this post, please reach out and let’s chat!!! Lots of you have been asking for essential oil remedies…from bug repellent to sun relief, tummy troubles and anxiety with your kiddos or you. Our team is also doing a quick and easy online class later in July.

I’m looking for 5 people to spoil with a goody bag of doTERRA samples and the opportunity to win daily giveaways. The first 5 people to contact me (message me or comment on the FB post) will be added to the event. You’ll receive your package on or before July 16, and I’ll add you to an event page so you can learn how to use your samples and enter for prizes!

NOTE: If you already have a doTERRA account or being helped by someone who does, please save this “spoiling yourself” opportunity for some people who haven’t yet experienced doTERRA. Thanks much!

In Bloom….giveaway!!!

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Giveaway time!!!!

I have been madly cleaning my oil and office spaces and found some “extras” of a few things that I would love to give away – especially in the week of loving mamas, nurses, and teachers – what could be better than free stuff????

Comment below or on the FB post to be entered into the drawing for a copy of Kayla Aimee’s new book In Bloom, a heartfelt and hilarious narrative about insecurities and how to find the unique confidence for a unique you. A few quotes I loved from the book:
“I thought I needed a clean slate and a fresh start so that I could rebuild myself from the ground up in order to ever make a difference in the world. What I found instead was that when I was unencumbered by the negative thoughts that I assumed people were having about me, I was free to delve into my gifts.”

“Friendship happens when someone risks to start a conversation.” (PS why is this so scary these days??? All these wonderful women ready for friendship and many of us are too scared to walk up and saw hello, I see you, Mama-ing is hard, etc.)

“Butterflies don’t burrow back into their cocoons; they emerge and they go and be. I would venture to guess that they doubt first. I bet they crawl out of that split-open chrysalis and feel tentative about trusting the weight of their old bodies to their new feather-light wings. But at some point they step off into the air and they take flight on trust of an invisible wind. They are like us, a new creation, and they believe in what they cannot see to keep them soaring.”

Looking forward to passing 3 copies of this on to you guys!!! Drawing will take place on Mother’s Day evening (as I bask in the day of my kiddos not driving me absolutely bonkers and being showered with love and pampering and quiet…..or in reality, after they all go to bed after tantrums about teeth brushing and tears about having to go to school the next day or wanting to stay up later – Mom life on Mom’s day is so much work!!!)

Sparking self-care….

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For my February commitment to my One Little Word for 2018, I wanted to focus on self-care. Meaning the way I take care of my own self, both physically and emotionally, so that I can continue to care for others fully and enthusiastically. Sidenote: it is rare to describe an adult as enthusiastic…..typically it’s used as a negative as if that said enthusiasm is annoying or overbearing….I personally think more enthusiastic adults would create more enthusiastic children these days.

It felt good to increase the amount of time I spent committing to self-care:
– getting up earlier and having quiet time to read/meditate/stretch/enjoy my coffee (loved The Miracle Morning – thanks Holly)
– writing more….both in my planner (unloading my ideas) and on my blog (short month = best ratio of days to posts since I started)
– less social media, more playtime with the kiddos

– more learning….I flipping love professional conferences. My district has been amazingly generous in sparking my professional growth this year and I have loved being around brilliance in my field and soaking up ideas that then generate more ideas that then generate more ENTHUSIASM for my chosen role and passion in schools (plus I REALLY like my new cohort of strong, passionate counselors I get to work with)

Up next for March? Meet ups – I want to see more people, drink more coffee (or wine) and connect with others, I want things on the calendar so I commit to friends and family before appointments that can be changed and moved…..update coming later this month on how this all goes (seeing as how I just made it up on the spot right now).

On family storytelling….

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Although I do really miss the process (and excessive amount of paper products to buy) of scrapbooking, I have been loving the digital apps that make it easy to get the bajillion photos I take with my phone out of the cloud and into print form. I love when families’ stories can live on through pictures and stories in this way for generations to come…..here are a few products/apps I love with some freebie/discounts if you’re interested in them too!

CHATBOOKS:
What I love about this app is it automatically tracks your Instagram account and when you get to the next 60 pictures, it prints a book automatically (if you set it to that setting). You can also customize and make your own books if you wanted to just add them from your photo roll. The quality of pages is great and the small book size looks so cute on bookshelves or a coffee table! If you want your first book FREE, click here!

Groovebook:
These little books are perfect for documenting our families’ fun adventures one month at a time and with a very small price point ($2.99 per month, subscription style), feel free to order one for each kiddo or send some along to the grandparents who will love glimpsing at your life one month at a time. The paper quality and color is not great (you get what you pay for kinda thing) but our kiddos absolutely love these, especially for craft projects using the pictures…..if you want to sign up, use the link in the bottom picture and get a FREE Groovebook!

Blog2Print:
If you do have a blog or any sort of online story tracking system (even if it’s just private for your family)…..it’s great to put these stories into print just in case something happens to the online space that those memories are held in. These are ones that our kiddos always look at and read. I love that they get to read some of my perspectives and thoughts on their childhood…..and I’m especially excited for their grandchildren to read about THEM as children and so on and so on. When you register and sign up, you get 20% off your first book. They always do an awesome 10 day New Year deal which is when I have my biog from the previous year printed.

How do you keep your families’ memories alive and in print around your home? Would love to see and hear new ideas…..

on Wonder….

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For those that know me as a school counselor, you know my love and obsession with the book Wonder. For those that know me as a Mama, the inspiration for my kiddos’ blog nicknames came from this book and even calling them Wonders seems like a huge understatement for the magnitude of their bravery and resiliency. 

I love this book, the message and the character Auggie with my whole whole heart and can’t wait for the movie to come out soon!!!! Every time the trailer comes on tv, my family looks at me to spot the first tear escaping my eyes but I’m saving them all up for the theatre. 


Isn’t this poster the awesome-est?!?! You can make your very own here.

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!!!!

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…..

 

My One Little Word for 2017

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Throwback to some history on my One Little Word Journey

My one little word for 2017 found me while I listened to this Lively podcast featuring Erin Lochner (very excited to  read her new book, Chasing Slow). They discussed the difference between ALLOWing something into your life (with joy) and TOLERATING something (with disdain). Although I contemplated some other words to focus on this upcoming year, this one kept speaking to my heart time and time again.

I will allow:
– my daughter to dress how she wants to dress, style her hair how she wants to style her hair, and take pictures of what she wants to take pictures of because she is a unique force of a human that I do not want to restrict in any way from developing her true self (I’m putting this first because for some reason, this one might prove to be the hardest for me)
– my son to become a young man even though I so desperately want him to stay little
– my husband to cope with his stuff in ways he needs to cope with his stuff
– my students to express themselves in a variety of ways, not just in my step-by-step directed ways
– myself to connect with friends and girlfriends WITHOUT feeling guilty about missing time with my family
– intentional time to be made for creative pursuits each week
– time each day to reflect on gratitude and express that gratitude to those that gifted me that which I am grateful
– good things to happen to my family without second guessing who is judging from afar
WITH JOY.

I will NOT allow:
– screentime to become more important than eye contact and deep connection with my kids
– my insecurities to block my successes
– others around me to struggle with ailments, both physical and emotional without an effort from me to help (even if it’s an offer to help through the medicinal properties of an open bottle of red wine)
– politics to shade my hope and belief in Americans, America, and our future generations of change-makers

My little family set some goals on New Year’s Eve together. We are using an amazing goal-tracker by Elise Joy (get yours here for FREE) to track our PROGRESS (not perfection) at these goals this year. One week in, and this has already been a great way to keep each other accountable and have some meaningful conversations about reaching our goals, both big and small.Happy New Year to all of my loved friends and family – thank you for checking in on us every now and again. I can’t wait to keep sharing our wins and our struggles this year as we keep chugging away at this little thing called life.