6710 Grand

I wasn't dressed for the barns.  I had meetings scheduled.  The superintendent of the Scranton School District.  A volunteer group from Baker Tilly.  An onboarding call with our Google Ad Grant manager.  I was dressed for business meetings--a dress, hair up, fancy-ish shoes, my squisher-inner (y'all know what that is).  But when I arrived in the Art Barn on Thursday, before I could even radio to the team that I was on-site, I heard the news.  Jeremiah Jones, our biggest "big" pig, was vomiting and foaming at the mouth.  I stopped and listened.  He'd been given medication to help with his pain.  It was taking effect.  It wasn't alarming at this point but Dr. Interlandi was monitoring him.   I assumed this would change the course of the day.  I began to mentally prepare.  Indra would want to be with him.  Meetings would be moved, cancelled or rescheduled.  I might need to handle them myself.  This wa...

 I've posted before about the amazing women in my Pilot Mom's group .  These friends give me more validation than I can say.  As I've pondered this over the last few weeks, it occurs to me that I might have missed something. Is there a group for the opposite?  Is there, somewhere out there, a group of husbands, married to high powered fundraising women who need some kind of comradery?  I wonder... Fundraising (and non-profits in general) are heavily managed by women.  Airline pilots are primarily men.  On some level, this makes sense, right?  Sometimes I feel really proud of myself for understanding so much of the airline jargon.  I've learned to speak in airport code.  We don't fly out of Philadelphia, it's PHL.  We didn't go to Los Angeles on our vacation; we went to LAX and then drove to SAN.  Nick doesn't start his trips in Cincinatti, it's CVG.  We ask each other questions about whether or not a certain medication wi...

I’m wrestling with a difficult truth.  Well, maybe just chewing on it a bit.  Still wrapping my head around it.  I was listening to a Max Lucado book, Never Give Up .  He was telling the story of a young teen who was roughhousing around with his brother.  In their headlocks and arm wrestling, one kicked the other in the stomach—in the gut as he said.  Such a kick yielded acute, severe pain.  The pain led them to the emergency room which uncovered a tumor.  Emergency surgery removed the cancerous mass which, the surgeon said, had only been growing for a few days at most.  This aggressive invasion of the body could have resulted in a more serious outcome.  So, Max said, God saved the boy with a kick in the gut.  Miracle?  Sure.  I guess.  But why would God use such a method? The book is talking about going through hard things and not letting discouragement or pain get the better of you and cause you to “curse God ...

Something AWFUL happened this week. It's not your typical tragedy.  But a tragedy just the same. On Monday, I learned that I had a Tuesday meeting in Scranton.  What's the big deal?  You might say.  Well, Monday's are "Sanctuary Days". Days I spend on site in Dalton to manage meetings with my team, visit the animals and otherwise stay connected to the mission.  Tuesdays are NOT days where I do that.  But on rare occasions where I need to be in Scranton for 2 days in a row, my amazing husband often suggests that I stay overnight in Clarks Summit to avoid the drive and get a little "me" time.  I relish these moments.  I'm afraid to hope for them.  But they are glorious. I have a specific hotel that I frequent.  It's not fancy.  It's not glamourous.  But it's mine.  It's the Hampton Inn in Clarks Summit.  Along the "strip" in NEPA (past the "notch" for those who know), lies a simple, clean, efficient hotel.  I'm n...

 I saw an interview transcript with Michelle Williams where she said something akin to 'you can't be great at both being a mom and a career woman'.  She said when you're at work you're thinking about your kids and when you're home with your kids you're thinking about all the work that's not being done.  Some people commented that she was just making a statement about priorities and a LOT of people agreed with her completely. The whole thing just made me really mad.  Really mad .  For 2 reasons. But I'll get to that.  Perhaps being an actress where your job takes you away from your family for months at a time and you have what I can only assume is a grueling schedule, followed by interviews and talk shows to promote the movies you're in, and then bouncing back into home life where you can then focus only on your kids is hard.  I wouldn't know.  I have no doubt that's hard.  I would never presume to understand the life of a Hollywood actre...

May-cember.  It’s becoming more recognized among parents of school-aged children.  The month of May is so crammed with activities that it resembles December—but with none of the fun of Christmas.  Performances, end of year parties, tournaments, concerts, graduation, graduation parties, dentist appointments, annual physicals, standardized tests, due dates, Mother’s Day, birthdays, Cinco de Mayo, Endangered Species Day, World Day for Cultural Diversity… the list seems endless.  There’s so much to do for the kids and their insane schedules, not to mention all that I’m doing for work—grant deadlines, promote summer camp, spring appeal, grant reports, meetings, annual reviews, contract negotiations—and home—renew pest control, renew lawn maintenance, plant flowers, tend to flower beds, mow the lawn, oil change on the mower, figure out why the composter isn’t working, clean the carpets, balance the checkbook, pay the taxes, renew the Costco membership, plan the graduation ...