Collecting Good Questions For Coaching Others
I love using these questions for personal growth: 1. What habits in your life help you, or hinder you, from achieving your goals? What can you change in your environment to aid your growth? 2. What must happen each day in order for you to feel joy and purpose? What’s normally true of those days? […]
Things that Happen When You Interview Your Mom
As it turns out, sometimes even a daughter doesn’t know her mom’s whole glorious life, and interviewing her unearths fabulous treasures. I gather my daughters in the kitchen and tell them some extraordinary things about their grandmother. They call my parents Gigi and Papa. I tell them about how, when Papa was in Vietnam, Gigi lived […]
An Interview with My Mom: 5 Business Lessons from an Interior Designer
As I’m collecting some treasures to pass on to my daughters about their talented grandmother, I decided to interview my mom. She has no social media presence and no public recognition, but you will not believe the incredible impact she has had through her little sewing machine. I thought she might have some business lessons […]
So It Welcomes You Home
I’ve been passing on some lessons about keeping a home from my mother, who owned Custom Interiors in Alexandria, Virginia and invited clients into our home as a showroom for beautiful interiors. I grew up in beauty–the kind of award winning beauty featured in magazines and in historical places that wanted my mom’s special touch and […]
A Prayer from Jeremiah 32
I have been thinking about the way the Lord speaks in Jeremiah 32. In this chapter, the Lord says such statements as, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Nothing is too hard for God. What we’re facing may seem to hard for us, but it’s not […]
A Different Harvest
As I study the berries this spring, I announce to my husband that, for some reason, the strawberries look diminished. But the blackberries and blueberries, which typically lack that flourishing, abundant look to then, thrive. It’s a different year, with a different yield. Who knows what conditions account for the change? I simply remember that […]
“Do the Hard Thing. You Just Might Find You’re Great.”
This morning on the walk to school, we consult the Chemistry Professor about which class my daughter should take next year in a certain subject. She’s finally tested high enough for an advanced class, but her teacher says she can choose whether or not to move up. One class ensures success; one class risks failure. […]
Do You Compare Yourself to Yourself?
All day, I think about how it’s so strange to compare myself to myself. I think of other versions of me–thinner, more productive, funnier, more lively versions–and I feel this unhappy wave begin to gather force and threaten to crash over me. Why do I do this? Why not let the past me go? […]
My Sister’s Genius Idea for the Holidays
I know it’s six months until Thanksgiving, but my sister is hosting this year. This means the planning has commenced! She’s the most organized person I know. Her careful, advanced planning means family members far and wide received a box on their doorstep today of “Thankful Jars” with our names written on each one and strips […]
Bunnies Under the Deck
I don’t have a picture, so you’ll just have to imagine the little brown puffs with alert ears who dart out from some burrow beneath our deck. As I’m washing breakfast dishes, they emerge as tiny chewing machines. They will eventually devour my strawberries. I’ll have to net the berries. I’ll let them have a […]