6710 Grand

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 an...

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 ...

There are a lot of specifics I don’t remember.  Where we were living, what stage of our marriage we were in, how many children we had—but really, none of that matters.  What matters is this: we were married with more than one child.  I had moved many times to support our lives together.  I was less than thrilled with my body and had no illusions about my own mortality, aging and/or energy for frivolous things like intimacy.  I hope that paints a picture for you before I share this moment in my life. I was picking Nick up from some airport somewhere.   It was either PHX or PHL or EWR.   I don’t remember and it wasn’t important.    It had been somewhere between 4 days and 2 weeks since I’d seen him.   Either way, it was a long enough time for me to be exhausted by parenting, housekeeping, working full-time and trying to maintain some kind of sanity. “How was your trip?” I said after pulling away from the curb. “It was good.   Ha...

I’ve tried to participate in small groups 3 times.  If you’re not familiar, it’s a church thing.  The idea is that we “do life” together.  You join a group with people in like-situations.  You share, you laugh, you cry, you support—you bond and make connections.  I can’t possibly do life “alone”.  I have too many kids for that.  But there’s a difference in being alone and being lonely.  You can be lonely in a house full of people.  And there are many parts of life where I am lonely, at least for periods of time.  ·          I often parent alone, without ever being a single parent. I am the only parent of children living at home in my workplace.   ·          I work alone, in my home office, in a job that is all about relationships. ·          I celebrate alone—we have no family nearby for holidays and birthday...

I recently went to a screening of the movie Uncharitable .  It’s more of a documentary really about non-profits and how the outside world see’s “overhead” in the overall execution of any non-profit’s mission.  Ok ok, I know it’s not the kind of movie most people are like “OOOOOHHH!  Let’s go see THAT on a Friday night!”, but not only am I a non-profit professional, I’m a fundraiser—my entire job is “overhead” …and they gave me a free book and there’s not a lot I WON’T do for a free book. I left the movie feeling both inspired (yay!) and depressed (boo!).  Donors don’t like overhead.   They don’t want to pay for overhead.   But what is overhead?   It’s the portion of an organization that’s necessary to run the “business” but that doesn’t directly contribute to the programs that are designed to execute the mission.   If I’m a food bank, the building I work out of is overhead (actually, that’s capital—another big “no no” for most funders).  ...

 So, which is it? Am I a Superhero or do I prioritize Self Care? Ugh. There's no good answer.  I've been reading a book on leadership.  The author talks about successful leaders who push and push and persevere and have late nights, and lots of coffee (I'm on board with this) and just get. it. done. But all of that, I contrast with the message of take care of yourself.  Give yourself a break. Cut yourself some slack.  Don't prioritize work over family. So, which one do I do?  How do I find the balance? Spoiler alert:  I don't have the answer. One of my greatest personal challenges is a struggle with perfectionism.  I often default to "anything less than perfection is failure".  It's something I place on myself--not others.  I make it a goal to run for 40 minutes every weekday.  Yesterday I only got in 20.  I just ran out of time.  But... I should have gotten started earlier.   I shouldn't have had that second cup ...