Sisters

Gratitude Day 9:
Today I'm thankful for my sisters. I've had them on my mind and in my heart an extra-lot lately since I did a Retreat with Saydi a couple weeks ago in Boston, have a Retreat coming up with Shawni next week in Phoenix, and have been so happy for Charity that she just got a great job after a long, hard job search.

I started this post ages ago and kept thinking I'd find more old photos to fill in some spots but it's not going to happen. It's time to just get this posted!

THE STORY OF THE EYRE SISTERS 

Starting out, it was always me and Shawni. We were the only ones. We were best friends. We did everything together.

We made messes together.

We posed on top of the car together (there are quite a few photos with this pose from this era - I guess our parents figured it was a good place to put us so we'd be scared of falling off and sit still for a photo...)

 

We wore ourselves out together.

Apparently, we really did EVERYTHING together.  In fact, Shawni's Kindergarten teacher had to go get me from class to take her to the bathroom because she was scared to go without me.

Our dear mom sewed us coordinating outfits - I think her most ambitious and beloved creations were these Holly Hobby pioneer dresses and bonnets that we wore until they were in shreds.

We made up dances and plays together - and often dragged Josh along although he was mostly content to do his own thing. (I think I wore that purple unitard and green cheerleading skirt every day for a year - the unitard and skirt are in an amazing number of photos and I remember thinking that was such a great outfit!)

We moved to England and went to a British school together (love how the uniforms included matching pants to wear under your jumpers on cold days...).

Then along came Saydi. (Yep, there's that top-of-the-car pose again.)

Saydi was cute and all but she was always messing up our games and trying to tag along when she was too little for what we were doing. She had to go make her own best friend - Amy - a cute girl who lived down the street and who we all consider part of our family.  Saydi was always singing "Annie" songs at the top of her lungs (and forgetting 1/2 the words).

But you know what, Saydi grew on us.  She got a lot more fun as time went on. I really started to like that Saydi.

Saydi got Shawni and I into singing. The three of us sang in a children's performing group together for years plus we had a little trio that performed at every family gathering and some neighborhood and church functions as well (it's sort of telling that the photo below only shows me and Saydi singing - Shawni was never super excited about singing but she was happy to go along).

Couldn't I figure out a better way to do my hair?  Seriously?

Then when I was 16, Shawni was 15 and Saydi was 11, Charity came along.  We were over the moon to get  another sister after FOUR brothers in a row.  She was our baby, our doll, our favorite companion to run errands or even bring with us on dates.  We cherished our little sister with all our hearts.

During my first year at Wellesley College near Boston, my dad sent Saydi out on a plane to visit for a few days. My mom carefully packed all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies in ziplock bags in Saydi's suitcase and we had quite a time whipping up our favorite family cookie recipe in the dorm kitchen. (sorry I don't have a photo!).  Every vacation home from college was packed with sister time.

When Shawni decided to join me in Boston for college (Boston University), she took the bus out to the idyllic Wellesley campus for sleepovers about twice a week. We went to church together every Sunday.  We knew each others roomates and friends well. We'd cook together to escape dorm food and laugh together and I helped her write all her papers. All was right with the world when we were together. My dad came to visit one time and we put on friends' black lipstick, black leather jackets and got our hair all teased up to go meet him at the airport as full-on Bostonians.  He walked right past us at the airport. (wish I had pictures - digital cameras weren't around yet - someday maybe I'll get around to scanning in all those albums of photos!).

During that year that Shawni and I were both in Boston for school, my parents decided to homeschool the younger kids and live in New England for a month or so.  We loved having Saydi and even little 4-year-old Charity come sleep over in our dorm rooms, meet all our friends, and wander through Boston with us. 

Shawni, Saydi and I worked hard together on my dad's campaign (he ran for governor of Utah in 1992) right after I graduated from college. We had so many bonding experiences blowing up balloons for the state convention until 4am, putting on campaign events, fielding phone calls, you name it - while Charity stuffed envelopes and did what a little 6-year-old could.

When the campaign was over, Shawni and I decided that we wanted to serve missions for our church. We got our mission calls on the same day - to the neighboring countries of Romania and Bulgaria where we'd be working in orphanages as well as helping set up programs for women and children in the brand new congregations there. We went into the Mission Training Center on the same day and wrote each other letters every week. The letters we received from each other were full of amazingly similar experiences and we found we could support each other like no one else could through this crazy and amazing experience.

  

As Shawni and I finished up our missions in Romania and Bulgaria, it was amazing to share some of our  experiences first-hand with Saydi and Charity who was only 7 at the time. (We're in a Bulgarian orphanage together here).

After our missions, Shawni, Saydi and I lived together in Provo for a while in a little house with some of our best friends. What fun we had! And we got to know Shawni's boyfriend Dave pretty well.  And we arranged for Saydi to get her first kiss.

Then we were there together for Shawni's wedding - seemed crazy that Dave was taking her away from us! (Charity is in the photo but you can only see her cute white dress - getting a little sparse on the photos I can find for this era!)

There's Charity on the left with some cousins at Shawni's wedding.

Then I moved to DC and and worked there for a couple years.  Shawni and Saydi came to visit several times and Saydi was my intern one summer.  Plus I went up to Wellesley (my alma mater that she'd chosen for her college) to visit her quite a bit.

When I moved back to Boston for grad school, Saydi was on a mission to Spain and she asked me to work up a list of eligible bachelors to line her up with when she returned to Boston to finish up her degree at Wellesley. The best guy I could find for her was this wonderful MIT potato farmer named Jared. I did try to set them up on a date - but turned out Jared was already interested in someone else. ME!  So we found other options for Saydi and she was our sidekick on lots of roadtrips and adventures on the East Coast.

My sisters were such an important part of my wedding.

My sisters and I along with some friends at my baby-friendly bachelorette party (Shawni had a newborn)

After Jared and I had been married almost a year, my family including Jared (and sadly excluding Shawni who had a little babies) went to Kenya.  Saydi, Charity, and I loved working with the cute kids there while Jared loved the construction projects and teaching math to the high school kids.

For a long time, like Saydi had been, Charity was too little to be part of most of the stuff Shawni, Saydi and I did. She was cute and fun and we loved doing everything with her.  But there were limitations sometimes based on her age.

But then Charity grew up and completed our sisters group so perfectly.  She's added passion and shine and fresh perspectives to our lives.  She's served as favorite aunt and occasional nanny to all our kids (who practically worship her).  She's helped us keep in touch with our pre-motherhood, pre-wife selves.  She's listened with patience - and often offered great insights - as we've talked at length about breast-feeding, child-rearing, marriage, and life in general.  

Here's Charity helping me take care of the twins and their big siblings for the first two full weeks of the twins' lives while on her winter break from Wellesley (yep, she chose Wellesley as well).  I have no idea what I would have done without her!

Me, Saydi and Charity in Great Hall at Wellesley College near Boston - the alma mater we share

Here are the four of us in NYC together - we all still feel a strong draw to the East Coast and NYC and Boston are magical places for us - we all bring our own experiences with those places but even when we're there separately from each other, the things we notice and blog about are strikingly similar.

Here's me and Char in the city we both love dearly - San Fran was my home for 6 years and now Charity calls it home. Visiting Charity there for spring break last year was magical - so many of the places she suggested we visit together were the very places I'd always loved the most.

And here's Charity with us at a Power of Moms Retreat last April.  She served as a fabulous Retreat Manager at two of our Retreats and is the go-to girl for so many things while she juggles a bunch of part-time jobs and is the favorite temporary nanny for everyone in the family who has to go somewhere without their kids (since writing this, Charity announced that she's landed a great full-time job. Yeah Charity! It's been a long, frustrating job search but I'm so proud of my little sis for handling it with grace and patience).

Shawni, Saydi, Charity and I used to scheme and plan and execute trips together all the time and were able to work out an uncanny bunch of times when we could live in the same city or the same apartment for chunks of time. We used to dream up and push for scenarios where we could all be neighbors somehow, someday.  But we've all realized that the neighbor thing is just not going to work out. So we carefully protect our month together at Bear Lake and jump at every chance to get together to present at conferences or make podcasts (check out our Deliberate Mothering Podcasts if you haven't already).

I better make sure to mention that it's NOT all sweetness and light with my dear sisters. We're all strong-willed and throughout our lives, we've had a plethora of disagreements and some pretty serious fights (Shawni likes to tell people about the time I slammed her with a mixing bowl over the head when we had a difference of opinion - it was a plastic mixing bowl - just a small goose-egg resulted...).  But thankfully our parents taught us from a young age how to resolve disagreements and to forgive and forget.

Sure, there have been times we've felt some envy for what each other was doing or had access to. Shawni was green with envy when Saydi and I went to Kenya while she was home with little babies. I was pretty jealous when Saydi got to do my dream of spending 6 months with her husband building up a non-profit in the Philippines while I was home with little babies. Shawni, Saydi and I are all a bit jealous of Charity's wonderful adventures gallivanting around the world and going on road trips every weekend while we're running car pools and cleaning up our kids' messes. I know we've all gone through hard times where we've felt sad we couldn't do or be what one of our sisters seemed so good at doing or being. But mostly, I think we're really good at being glad for each other, supporting each other, and appreciating our differences and strengths. That's another thing our parents did a great job teaching us - we were brought up believing that we were each special and unique and that someone else's greatness need never subtract from our own individual worth and ability to be great in our own way.

Just when I thought I already had way more than my fair share of amazing sisters, I got MORE stellar sisters thanks to the great women my good brothers found to marry and the excellent sisters and sisters-in-law Jared brought into my life.  I love, love, love, love these ladies!  And I so appreciate my mom for getting us together every year for our beloved "Mothers and Future Mothers of Eyrealm" gatherings.

So other than a capturing great memories and pictures with my sisters in one place, what is the point of this blog post?

Sisters are important. And while I'm so very glad I got my one little princess Eliza, there will always be a part of me that aches for her that she'll never experience what I had with my sisters. I guess she'll never know the difference and we do cherish and try to nurture the great friendships and cousin relationships she's been blessed with. Plus she'll get wonderful sisters-in-law thanks to her brothers one day. But still.  She just won't have some things I've been blessed with.  And it'll be OK. She looks pretty darn happy in these pictures with Shawni and Saydi's daughters who she adores:

If you've got a sister, make the most of your relationship with her. If you've got daughters, cherish and grow the special bonds they can have. Help them appreciate their own unique gifts and to celebrate the accomplishments and talents of each other.  Teach them to nip conflicts in the bud and fix problems between them before they fester.

And really, the main point of this post is that I love my sisters and sisters-in-law so much and I'm so grateful for all we've shared and all we've learned from each other and all we have ahead of us.

P.S. If you want to join me and my sister Shawni for the Power of Moms Phoenix Retreat next week, Shawni's doing a giveaway on her blog today - check it out HERE.

YOU - My Blog Readers

Gratitude Day 8: 
I'm so grateful for the nice people who read this blog. I was really frustrated and worried yesterday when I wrote that post (and not even 1/2 of what I was worried and sad about it made it into the post - some things are better kept to myself). I'm so grateful for everyone who took the time to share their ideas and their support in a comment and who wrote me emails. Thanks for caring. Thanks for helping me feel better. Thanks for offering fresh perspective.

Since my first blog post over 5 years ago, I've shared a lot here. This little spot in cyberspace has been great therapy for me and has helped many others. As I share my good stuff and bad stuff, I process what's going on, realize my blessings, and come up with solutions. Sometimes my blog is the way I pat myself on the back when my best efforts seem to go unnoticed or when my work feels invisible. And always, when I hit a hard spot and blog about it, there's at least one helpful comment that really strikes a chord and helps me see what I need to see.

And I guess I'll add one more related thing that I'm really grateful for today - technology. You and I wouldn't be here on this blog without it. And last night, the whole extended Eyre family did a technology-assisted Family Home Evening using Google+ Hangout (Ashton set it up - I'm still not totally sure how it works but once it was up and running it worked beautifully!). We had 8 screens showing each family in their homes all over the country plus we had my sister Charity on a speaker phone with my Dad (she was at work so that's what worked best for her). My dad gave a 2-minute lesson on Gratitude and challenged us to each come up with at least 300 things on our Thankful List this year so that when we put it all together, we'd have at least 2700 things we were collectively grateful for (to read about this tradition, click HERE). We got a tour of Tal and Anita's new apartment in NYC and Jo and Aja's new place in Hawaii. Everyone had a chance to make any announcement they liked - we heard about different kids' sports victories, trips planned, new pursuits. Kids got to share a talent. Baby Poem showed how she can stand up by herself. Claire showed one of her cheerleading cheers. Ashton played a guitar song. The twins showed the latest models they've built out of magnets. Kristi and Anita showed off their matching pregnant tummies (they're due in a month - due dates just a day apart) and everyone oohed and ahhed about their new cousins. Everyone was talking over each other and it was all pretty wild - but great. We ended up having a great virtual dance party at the end. It was almost like we were all back at Bear Lake together!  How awesome is it that we can do stuff like this thanks to technology???

What are you grateful for today?

It could be worse

Gratitude Day Seven: 
Today I'm grateful that things aren't as bad as they could be.

I've put myself in the bad mom doghouse.

It started a couple weeks ago with emails from one child's math teacher and lots of extra work to get that child on track in math. Just when we thought we had the math issues under control, that child's report card came and it was BAD (math was OK with a B- but seriously, how do you get an F in music and in art? Or a D in Spanish when you speak it quite fluently?). We knew this child was a little lazy sometimes with turning in work and found most things to be so easy that challenges often led to quick frustration. But we didn't know it was this bad. In the last little while, this child has also had some issues with lack of judgement in a couple situations that have got us worried.

Then we got an email last week from the teacher of our child who's report card actually looked much better than usual and who seemed to be finally in a good routine of accomplishing homework more quickly and well after years of hard work. This email said that this teacher and other teachers at the school would like to meet with me and Jared because they've noticed a pattern of disruptive classroom behavior and sloppy work. So we're working on getting that meeting set up and debating about whether to accompany this child to all his classes to see first hand what is going on.

Then later in the week, the twins came home with a note from their teacher saying they were being disruptive and not following directions in class. They've always been model students and their teachers have raved about how "perfect" they are in school. So getting this note was pretty disheartening - especially after all the other issues.  We had some good talks with the twins and I'm talking to the teacher today about whether they can read when they get done with their work quickly so they won't be disruptive (seems they get disruptive when they finish early and get bored).

Argggggg! What am I doing wrong? I have had to be gone once in a while for work and I'm probably distracted too much but I'm generally here every afternoon sitting right with the kids doing their homework and we do reading time and scripture time and have good structure and clear rules plus we try to make sure there's lots of unstructured time for fun and creativity. But wow, this parenting stuff can sure be humbling sometimes and I can definitely see places we need to improve. We've got one child who seems to be doing totally fine in school but I'm looking over my shoulder for a note from that child's teacher any day now! Please no!

So today I'm glad things aren't worse with our kids. We are so blessed. We've never had to deal with more than minimal behavior and academic problems with our children. Our kids are healthy and don't have any special needs (although I'm learning that there's a whole set of "special needs" that come along with a kid heading into puberty - their ability to focus and get things done seems to diminish drastically while their emotions ramp up considerably). 

But I guess this disheartening and humbling string of events is what we need to get more serious about some things around here.

What are you grateful isn't worse than it is?

Sundays

Gratitude Day Six
Today I'm extra grateful for Sundays.  I have no idea how I'd live without them.

We go to church on Sunday mornings and there's always something in a lesson or a talk that speaks to something that's on my mind (if I pray and search for a message, I always find one). Occasionally, it's a big message. But usually, it's just a little reminder of something or a thought that pops up later in the week based on something I heard on Sunday. I love hearing the good discussion in Relief Society from such a diverse group of good-hearted women. I love our Sunday School teachers well-thought-out lessons on the New Testament - her crisp British accent makes the lessons all the more enjoyable. I love sitting in Sacrament meeting with my kids snuggled up around me and my husband's arm around me. I love that I can actually listen in church now that my kids are old enough to behave pretty decently most of the time and that I don't need to bring coloring books and quiet toys to church for them anymore. I love that the kids know (after years of reminders) to pull out the hymn books and find the right page and sing along. We still have days when the kids regress and church is frustrating. But mostly, it seems like we've "paid our dues" and church is pleasant and good.

On Sunday afternoons, we relax together. Jared interviews each kid individually. I read stories from the Friend magazine with them. We write letters to relatives. We sometimes take naps. If it's a pretty day, we go for a walk around the neighborhood (no scooters or bikes allowed, just walking and talking and enjoying nature). I usually do a blog post or two. The kids play games together. We often make cookies (or Isaac or Eliza make cookies - they've become our primary cookie-makers around here). We always have a nice dinner together - I go for something quite easy but also really yummy. Sometimes we have friends or relatives over for dinner. At the dinner table, we all share what we learned in church. On Fast Sundays (like today), we have a family testimony meeting before eating - each person gets a chance to stand up and express their thoughts about the gospel and about each other and really say whatever comes to mind. When the kids are tucked in bed, Jared and I each take some individual time to make our lists and goals for the week then we get together and look at our calendars and talk about what we each need to do that week and how we can help each other. It just takes a few minutes and we're pretty good about doing it regularly - we've found that when we DON'T do this, the week just doesn't go so well.


I used to have quite a few meetings on Sundays and Jared has early morning Sunday meetings these days. I'm so grateful that we're all able to be home on Sunday afternoons now.


We try to make Sunday a day full of special things that are mostly reserved for Sundays - not a day full of "don't's." And for the most part, it works. Sure there are crazy Sundays when the peace and planning and togetherness we hope for just doesn't pan out. But in general, Sunday gives us such a great chance to recharge our batteries and have some solid family time. 

Eliza just wandered in and I asked her what she likes about Sunday. Her response (no editing from me), "I like how on Sundays we don't have school or basketball games and we can just relax and stay home. I think it's fun to have interviews with Daddy. I like how it's usually so calm on Sundays and we don't have to be rushed. And I like to go to church on Sunday because it's fun to learn about Jesus and stuff and see my friends."

I just called Oliver to see what he likes about Sunday (again, unedited). "I do not like interviews because they are boring and it wastes some of my time when I want to play but I do like to go to church and I like to hang out at home." (good to know interviews aren't the favorite...)

Now I'm curious. Let's see what Silas says. "I like how after church we get to have a nice time doing stuff like reading the Friend - aren't you going to read to us now?' Guess I better get on that.

What are you grateful for about Sundays?

A Warm Kitchen

Gratitude Day Five

It snowed last night. The trees weren't ready. They're still sporting lots of gorgeous leaves and quite a few branches broke off under the weight of the snow. I'm not ready either. I need at least a couple more weeks of fall!

But today I'm really grateful that Jared put more insulation in every possible crack in our kitchen last week.

Last winter you had to brace yourself every time you went into the kitchen. We'd turn on the toaster oven and keep its little door open so that we could warm that room up a bit (there was no decent place in that small room for a space heater).


This morning, I went down to the kitchen and it felt just fine - no cool breezes, no bundling up to make breakfast, no freezing toes.


I'm so grateful for a warm house on a cold day.


What are you grateful for today?

Couples Retreat Winner

We just picked the winner of the registration to the November 11th Date Night Couples Retreat in Bountiful Utah.  Congratulations, Kristen! Here's her comment:

 Kristen said...

We would absolutely love to attend this retreat. Thank you for the wonderful opportunity and thank you for all that you do for families!

Kristen

There are still a few places left at this "Date Night" Retreat and the price is great - just $35/couple - you'd likely spend that on an "ordinary" movie and dinner date night. But at this Retreat, you'll get a date night that will make a REAL difference in your family. If you have financial struggles but really want to attend, email Tiffany directly at tiffany@powerofmoms.com and she'll work with you. 

Good Neighbors and a Great Halloween

Gratitude Day Four: I know I've said this before but today I'm super thankful for our neighborhood.

I just went through the photos I took on Halloween and started the process of setting up this year's Children for Children concert (It'll be the 5th Annual Concert!). We had a really fun neighborhood parade and dinner on Halloween before trick-or-treating and we've got this great couple down the street who are converting a beautiful old church into a community center that they said we could use for our Children for Children concert this year. Doing these two things made me so extra thankful for the wonderful people in this neighborhood - people from all over the country, people with different beliefs and lifestyles, people with kids and without, people with all sorts of interests and talents. But what brings everyone together is a belief in community and neighborliness and a love of diversity.

Eliza and I went down to the city council meeting a couple nights ago to support our neighbors in their efforts to convert the old unused church into a community center. I loved seeing so many neighbors get up and speak in support of this project and loved seeing the excitement and loyalty expressed. Permission was granted for the new use of the church and now we'll have a great community center where the strength of our neighborhood can be built-upon.  Here's the little video that was put together about the church - easy to picture our Children for Children concert happening there and making it the biggest and best concert yet!

Here are a few shots of our neighborhood Halloween parade and dinner.

Playing Duck Duck Goose

Playing Red Rover

Enjoying black bean soup (a.k.a. "witch's brew")

And here are our kids, ready to trick-or-treat around the block:

It was the perfect Halloween - super nice weather, lots of fun activities, and just enough candy to make it fun but not leave us with sugar highs for weeks.

Bulgaria

Today I'm extra thankful for my mission to Bulgaria (this is day 3 of my Thanksgiving gratitude journal).

Almost 20 years ago, I spent a year and a half working as a missionary in Bulgaria (Don't feel bad if you're thinking "where's Bulgaria?" When I got the letter from my church saying where I'd been assigned to go as a missionary, that was my question as well.  It's in Eastern Europe - between Greece and Romania on the Black Sea.

Typical Bulgarian cars, housing and haze of pollution in the air

Me with missionaries at the Alexander Nevski Cathedral in the center of Sofia, Bulgaria

Me and some other missionaries at one of the major communist monuments in Sofia, Bulgaria

Me at an orphanage - cutest kids!

Me with other missionaries and my dear friend Milena at her baptism

With missionaries and Bulgarian friends celebrating Georgiov Day

With dear Bulgarian friends in Plovdiv

My experiences in Bulgaria stretched me and grew me in so many ways. I have deep and beautiful memories of my time working with children so desperate for love in orphanages and talking with people so desperate to discuss God after 40 years of communist-imposed bans on religion. I heard sad, sad stories and realized the magnitude of my blessings. I saw lives change drastically for the better but also felt the heartache of seeing people slide back into old ruts. I made dear friends with both the other missionaries and the wonderful Bulgarians I came to love as I helped them set up programs for women and for children in their communities. I learned Bulgarian (which isn't exactly the most useful language...). I saw my strengths and weaknesses very clearly and was humbled again and again while also experiencing some exciting accomplishments.

The reason all this is on my mind today is that I spent most of the afternoon with dear friends from Bulgaria. The occasion was a lecture at BYU by fine art photographer and my pseudo-adopted Bulgarian sister, Eva Koleva Timothy who flew out from Boston to do a series of lectures.

I met Eva as a 16-year-old girl in Bulgaria and was immediately drawn to her. She had this love of life and thirst for learning that was contagious - and she was always eager to help us missionaries with anything and everything. I convinced my family to sponsor Eva so that she could come to the States for college - her absolute dream. For several years, Eva lived off-and-on with my family and became like a sibling to all my siblings. She's now a wonderful wife and mother of three and has produced an amazing photography collection called "Lost in Learning" that celebrates the work of Columbus, Galileo, Newton, Da Vinci and other creative thinkers who weren't afraid to plow their own paths and pursue the dreams of their hearts. Eva did SUCH a great job and I came away all fired up about putting more joy and passion into what I do.

Check out this little snippet of Eva's work in a great YouTube video.

Here's Eva and me heading into the lecture hall (the pictures of the rest of the group ended up on my mom's camera...):

Here's Eva and me when we first met almost 20 years ago

Anyway, in honor of Eva being here for her lectures, a bunch of people from my mission days in Bulgaria got together for lunch and for this afternoon's lecture. It was so wonderful to see all these great people (and their kids - how is it that we can all have these big kids?) and it brought back all these rich memories and made me so grateful for the associations and learning that my 18 intense months in Bulgaria brought to my life.

So I guess what I'm really thankful for today is not so much my mission to Bulgaria itself but for the learning that it represents and the learning Eva taught me to seek out and embrace more fully through her presentation today.

P.S. I'm going to draw the winner of the Retreat giveaway in my last post tomorrow at noon or so - if you haven't entered yet, there's still a bit of time! Go to yesterday's post for details.

Great Friends Doing Great Things (and a giveaway)

Day Two of my Thanksgiving Gratitude Journal: I'm grateful for good women who work hard and sacrifice to lift others

I've got two dear friends who've requested my help spreading the word about wonderful events they have coming up. These requests made me so grateful for these two good friends, all that they've brought to my life and all that they are bringing to so many others through their hard work and sacrifices. And that got me thinking about how grateful I am for all the women - those I know, those I admire, those who've gone before - whose efforts and influence have made such a difference in my life.

I love this quote by Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, that is the only thing that ever has." I love how so many great women have coupled their beliefs and commitment with action and have created ripple effects that go on and on and on, influencing the lives of so many.

My dear friend, Neylan McBaine (I blogged about the interesting way we met here) is the founder and director of an amazing website called the Mormon Women Project. If you haven't checked it out, you really should. The website celebrates the rich diversity of Mormon women through interviews and portraits. If you can possibly make it, I highly recommend that you join me for the Mormon Women Project Salon being held in downtown Salt Lake this Saturday evening, November 5th. I'm so excited to hear from the excellent speakers Neylan has lined up and I'm honored to be leading a discussion as part of the evening. Click HERE to learn the details and register.

That's Tiffany on the left and another wonderful POM
Board member and friend, Rebecca, on the right running
a booth for us at the recent "Just for Her" event in Ogden

When I first met Tiffany Sowby, I was a teenager in England. We went to church together while my family lived there for 6 months. Little did I know that we'd reconnect over 20 years later when she stumbled upon The Power of Moms and volunteered to help. Tiffany is now my right-arm woman when it comes to running Power of Moms Retreats and managing our ever-expanding training program - plus she's written many great articles on our website, runs her own Learning Circle, and has been an excellent presenter and trainer at several of our Retreats (plus, of course, she's an amazing mom on top of all that). Tiffany is hosting a "Date Night" Couples Retreat on November 11th where she'll be presenting all our great Power of Moms stuff on setting up family systems that can help you build the family you really want.  If you can possibly make it, be there on November 11th! And Tiffany has graciously offered the chance for someone to attend for free. Simply make a comment with your email address below and you'll be entered into a giveaway for a free registration for you and your husband to attend this event. I'll announce the couple that wins the free registration at the end of the day around noon on Friday, November 4th. Forward this post to friends that may also want to enter the giveaway!


And thinking about Tiffany makes me SO grateful for the 30 or so wonderful volunteer Power of Moms board members who run different parts of our website. Power of Moms would be this tiny little thing without all their work behind the scenes. It's amazing what talented, wonderful moms have jumped on board to help other moms without pay, without much recognition, with just the belief in the cause of deliberate mothering to fuel them.  Thanks wonderful ladies!

OK - I'm getting carried away - there are probably 100 great women I could list and talk about here but we'll keep it to the ones above for today.

P.S. We've still got room at our Phoenix, Arizona Retreat on November 19th. To adjust the Margaret Mead quote above slightly, "Never doubt that a relatively small group of committed moms can change the world. In fact, great moms shape the future."

Thanksgiving Season

As we get into the Thanksgiving Season (in my book it is NOT Christmas season until Thanksgiving Season has been thoroughly celebrated!), I've decided to blog every day about one thing I'm especially grateful for that day. I used to keep a gratitude journal and I was a happier, more optimistic person in those days. So I'm starting again (inspired by Thanksgiving and by the Power of Optimism that we just launched at The Power of Moms for this month).

At dinner, we're starting up our tradition of writing down some things we're grateful for on the paper leaves we put on our "Gratitude Tree" (just yellow, orange and red construction paper leaves that we tape onto a stick that we found and stuck into styrofoam in a flower pot - pretty darn easy).  The kids love doing this and it keeps us all going with an "attitude of gratitude."

Here's my personal gratitude for today:
As I went for a run this morning with the smell of rain and wet leaves in the air, the view of snow-capped mountains in the distance, the brilliance of fall leaves heightened by overcast skies and the recent rain, the total "alive" feeling of the crisp air filling my lungs and making my legs and hands tingle, I felt so grateful for my five senses and my healthy body. Seeing loved ones go through health challenges makes me more aware than ever of what a blessing it is to be healthy. My body may not look just the way I'd like it to - stretch marks, hair that won't cooperate and needs to be cut, more padding here and there than is really necessary, wrinkles popping up.  And it may not work quite as well as it once did (that c-section wasn't wonderful for my digestive system, my eyes aren't what they were, I've got a knee that doesn't love running that much...).  But wow, I'm blessed to be able to do all that I need to do and more!