Reading: Bill Bryson “A Walk in the Woods” and about to finish “deliberate motherhood 12 Powers of peace, purpose, order and joy” Compiled by Power of Moms.
Watching: My husband paint our front entry way.
Listening to: Carole King and James Taylor perform at the Troubadour.flv 2011, on Youtube.
My fellow parents of multiples club members and I are in the final stretch of planning our huge Family Garage Sale Fundraiser. It’s this Saturday, June 7! These last few months have been keeping me busy. Between volunteering, co-chairing the garage sale, raising our twin girls, blogging, some days, I forget I’m not “working”. When I share with others about what I’m doing, I often hear, “Are you crazy? Where do you have the time, you have twins?
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20 days left!!!
Okay people, there are only 20 days left until the sale. I don’t know about you but I’ve been procrastinating… I have my tags and tagging gun (thanks Brandi!). I’ve read Josette’s tagging tips from the newsletter. I’ve watched the tagging tips YouTube video. Hangers are purchased. Have I tagged yet? No. Will I tag in the next 18 days, yes! Even if you haven’t started yet there is still time to prep your items to sell.
If you ask any student affairs professional right now what they are up to, they probably have one word that sums up their day, COMMENCEMENT! They either have their own campus graduation ceremony coming up in weeks or days and they are busy proof reading programs, double checking students names and majors; as well as, making sure the caterer knows the correct time to drop off the cakes.
Or Commencement is done, and they took a much needed day off. Yay! Where ever you are, I hear ya! As a floor manager of 9 commencement ceremonies and the co-chair of two commencement ceremonies, life right now is ALL about commencement.
If this is your first time running commencement or your 15th, know there will always be something that comes up and we all know you are doing your best to keep up. To make it fun, here are my top 10 to help you stay one step ahead but also to remember, that sometimes there will always be something that happens.
10) There will always be a student who forgets their gown.
9) There will always be a student running in late to find a seat.
8) There will always be a student who decides at the last minute they want to walk.
7) There will always be something-for example the cakes are late, there are not enough programs or not enough ushers. It’s okay. The show will go on.
6) There will always be a speaker who doesn’t speak loud enough.
5) There will always be a speaker who will speak too long.
4) There will always be a student who does something funny on stage.
3) There will always be a student who walks the wrong way.
2) There will always be a faculty member who arrives without their gown expecting you to have extra, including the color for their degree.
1) There will always be a student who walked, who’s name did not end up in the program, and a mom wanting to know why.
Whatever it maybe, the important thing is another commencement happen and one more student earned their degree.
Congratulations to the class of 2014!!
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Of all the leadership skills college student leaders students learn right off the bat, time management has to be in the top 5. The time management lesson I teach students is to take their left or right hand and count off the top 5 things they have to take care; either at that moment or that week. If they have more than five then they know they are doing too much, and need to let go of something. I probably look pretty funny when I show them, but I always pull out on my left hand when the conversation starts to turn towards feeling overwhelmed.
I encourage you to try it and see how you feel.
I’ll give you an example:
Right now, my Top Five things are:
1) Take care of myself: drink water when I can and walk when I can.
2)Take the kids on an adventure
3) Support my husband by checking in.
4) Follow up from my twin club’s garage sale planning from last night.
5) Fold two loads of laundry.
5 things on your list for now. That’s all you need to do.
TESTThis Earth Day, give thanks for your favorite spot and make a mental note to plan a visit soon.
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I felt Heaven today. You might be asking? When? How? Where? I have to tell you. It was the moments when I simply focused on what was in front of me and didn’t give another thought. I literally just focused on what I saw and didn’t let my mind wander.
I gave the twins their bath and let the feelings of “another thing I’m doing” go and just like that, I was in Heaven.
When I was unloading the dishwasher, the feelings of “is this all there is“, gone, and just like that I was in Heaven.
When I realized that I had stopped worrying about my future and was focused on brushing my teeth. Heaven.
I read this great post about the Ego side of our brain called “Protect your ‘Now’-Don’t Get Mind-Jacked” from Reflections of a Healing Mind.
There is your Ego and there is your Now. I thought the Ego was what kept you going. I thought it was the part of the brain that reminded you of who you are and not to forget that. I thought your Ego was the one to remind you of where you’ve come, what you are capable of, and to not let anyone hold you back. And then I realized that Ego will hold you back, because following your Ego will never bring you the happiness or the peace you really long for.
I can see the Now is Heaven. The Now is what you have created. It is the results of all your hard work. The Now is your life. The one filled with love, kindness, gratitude, family, friends, and beauty. The Now is nothing more or nothing less. The Now is the hard stuff that you are doing and not even realizing it. The Now is the easy stuff that you don’t even realize is awesome to have.
And just like that, today, I chose to focus on the Now, as much as I wanted to focus on Me, Myself, and my Ego. I was surprised that the Now offered me so much more and felt like Heaven.
Try it. What do you feel when you stop and think about what you are doing right now? When you see what you are doing right now and you realize, you don’t have to feel anything. You don’t have to judge yourself, or be proud of yourself. You can just be here. The rest of life will take care of itself because you will feel the energy to move on to the next task that is needed.
Trust yourself. There is no need to plan something else, while you are doing something else. Try planning as an actual task that involves sitting down with a calendar, or note book. If you need to do something for someone, make time to work on it and let that thought go. If you are worried about how someone will react, deal with the reaction when it comes. Otherwise, aim to focus on what is in front of you. You are no less of a person for not worrying.
Everyone deserves to feel Heaven. Let yourself too.
No need to think about it. Just turn your mind to what you are doing right now and allow it to happen. Feel Heaven.
Reading:Â Going back and forth between “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead” by Brene Brown and “Labor Day” by Joyce Maynard. Both are really heavy reads. Thinking I might need to find a fun light hearted read.
Watching: March Madness College Basketball while following along with our bracket picks. I’ve got a team from the East for sure in the Final Four. Plus the final weeks of How I Met Your Mother. Good stuff!
Listening to:Â The rain 
Thankful for: Post-it notes, baby wipes, and fresh clean sheets.
Looking forward to:Â Girls Weekend in San Luis Obispo. A week and 1/2 away!
Sam Update:Â We now live on a street with kids his age and it is awesome to see them run back and forth from each other’s house. Best part, the moms area texting back and forth letting each other know where their kid is.
Twin lesson:Â This month, the girls have taught me how to smile. One look from them and you light up. They remind you to stop making life so hard. It is meant to be explored, enjoyed and when you are tired, you rest.
Meaning of Home:Â Whatever you do, even if you have only 5 minutes in the day, take those to give thanks for having a place to call home. Wherever it may be. It is yours. And if there is laundry on the couch or dirty bottles in the sink or maybe one more wall that needs to be painted, who cares. I know you care. And I know I care. But for those five minutes think about how it shows that someone is living here. Â And all that stuff will get done. It always does.
I recently started reading Dr. Brene Brown Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. I’m only in the first chapter, but I was struck how she described TED Talks. Look at this for a moment.
“TED- a nonprofit addressing the worlds of Technology, Entertainment, and Design that is devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” TED and TEDx organizers bring together ‘the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers’ and challenge them to give the talk of their life in eighteen minutes or less.” -Page 13 (on my Kindle)
Let me highlight that again: and challenge them to give the talk of their life in eighteen minutes or less.
My Student Affairs Student Programming side of myself is going crazy with ideas! Imagine if we organized an event where our students or our faculty or even staff volunteered to give the “Talk of their Life in Eighteen Minutes or less” can you imagine what they would say? Can you imagine what kind of day that would be like in their college experience, let alone the campus community. I imagine it has already started. I hope one day to be part of such a day. I’m looking forward to the day they have TEDCollege or TEDStudent links. I bet companies could even join the band wagon and have TEDWorks.
I am at awe that we live in a world today that TED Talks exists and there is this amazing platform for people to share who they are, what they know, and to truly be vulnerable, if they chose :). I bet the vulnerable just comes to you when you stand up there, your are looking out at the audience and realize, this is it. This is my TED Talk.
We all have a TED talk in us. I know it.
Good work people!
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