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October 29, 2009 By 68 Comments

Blog 4 Cause

South Padre reflections SGK
Creative Commons License photo credit: Trav­el­ing Fools of America

“Become a pos­si­bil­i­tar­ian.  No mat­ter how dark things seem to be or actu­ally are, raise your sights and see pos­si­bil­i­ties — always see them, for they’re always there.” ~ Nor­man Vin­cent Peale

Blog­ging For A Cause

Breast can­cer has affected count­less mil­lions of peo­ple — from the women and men who have had this dis­ease, to their fam­ily and friends who love them. 

Esti­mates show that breast can­cer is newly diag­nosed in approx­i­mately 200,000 women each year.  And while the risks are much lower, men are not immune from this dis­ease either.  That’s about 550 new cases of breast can­cer EVERY DAY.

Much is being done to develop cures and bring aware­ness this deadly disease. 

The Susan G. Komen foun­da­tion is the lead­ing breast can­cer move­ment in the world, work­ing together with peo­ple from all reaches of the world, in search of a cure. 

Today, you have the oppor­tu­nity to help sup­port the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization. 

Together with my friend, Joanna Sut­ter, we have teamed up to cre­ate an e-book. 

Blog-4-Cause

This is no ordi­nary e-book.  This is the col­lec­tive effort of over 150 writ­ers from through­out the world.  Writ­ers unit­ing together in a race for the cure. 

blog4cause

Every one of these writ­ers has con­tributed a favorite arti­cle to this e-book, cre­at­ing a won­der­ful col­lec­tion of sto­ries.  Sto­ries of inspi­ra­tion, per­sonal growth, fit­ness, food, humor, and more. 

Today, Joanna and I are ask­ing for your help. 

Please visit the Susan G. Komen Blog-4-Cause web­site to learn how you can sup­port the mis­sion to end breast can­cer.  In addi­tion, you’ll find infor­ma­tion on how to recieve this Blog-4-Cause E-book, our gift to you.  A bonus e-book, from author and life coach Tim Brown­son, is included as well.

There is much hope in a future filled with pos­si­bil­ity.  Together, we all can make a difference!

With deep grat­i­tude,
Lance and Joanna

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With:
October 27, 2009 By 55 Comments

Stars Up In The Sky

Night on Earth
Creative Commons License photo credit: onkel_wart

“I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely con­stel­la­tion, where we will sparkle in the heav­ens for­ever.” ~ Amy Tan

Pref­ace

This morn­ing, a cool and brisk start to the day.  In fact, with the shift­ing sun­light hours, and dark­ness stay­ing longer, it seemed like the mid­dle of the night.  Now was the time, though, if I was going to get out­side and get a morn­ing jog in.  A quick three miles, down mostly deserted streets. 

The Dawn of Some­thing More

The early morn­ing dark­ness was made even darker by a heavy fog engulf­ing the area.  So dark, that I couldn’t make out the edge of the road from the grass beside it.  No traf­fic. An occa­sional light as I hap­pened by a house here and there.

I approached the top of a small hill.  The road sur­rounded by woods on both sides…complete darkness. 

Then, light, faint light. 

I looked up. Greet­ing me, a cho­rus of stars as I came out of the fog and into a clear­ing.  Stars, shin­ing bright in the dark­ened skies.  It all seemed so sur­real, so larger than life..coming from com­plete dark­ness, into these amaz­ing stars shin­ing their light into my life! 

In the quiet still­ness of this morn­ing, out amongst the stars up in the sky, I was drawn into the mag­i­f­i­cence of our world!  More than that, though, I was drawn into the light from these stars, and the deeper mean­ing that has for me.

The Star In YOU

Like all those stars up in the sky, light­ing up the night, each one of us has that star within. 

YOU.  Yes, you.  You have that star within you.  It’s there.  Maybe it hasn’t been fully dis­cov­ered.  Maybe some days a cloud cover comes over, drown­ing out your light.  Maybe the star within you doesn’t seem as bright as some­one else’s. 

It’s there.  Within.

It mat­ters not how bright your star is com­pared to some­one else.  To one, you could be the light that mat­ters.  It mat­ters not that your star within is not fully dis­cov­ered — it’s not for any of us, and will con­tinue to become more present as we con­tinue on the jour­ney through our lives.  And it mat­ters not that you don’t shine that same bright­ness every day.  That’s what other stars are there for, to brighten our way when our light alone is not enough. 

It’s there.  Lis­ten to your heart, and that light from your star within will shine it’s true col­ors.  Col­ors that shine the real you!

Believe!  Believe in you, in the light that you have to share! 

YOU are amazing!

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October 25, 2009 By 61 Comments

Sunday Thought For The Day

Island of Solitude
Creative Commons License photo credit: h.koppdelaney

“When just start­ing out on a new jour­ney it’s only nat­ural to feel vul­ner­a­ble. After all, it may seem that you have much to lose. But may I remind you that never again, at any other point in the same jour­ney, will you have so much to gain.” ~ Mike Dooley

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October 23, 2009 By

A World Filled With Wonder

Planet Sunset
Creative Commons License photo credit: kevin­doo­ley

“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.” ~ Marie Curie

We live in an amaz­ing world!  Just look around and try to fully grasp all that we are part of.  It’s so filled with awe, don’t you think?  And let’s just look at our nat­ural envi­ron­ment, and for­get, for a few min­utes, about our man made things.

Look at what nature has given us. 

Today I’m over vis­it­ing Kristin Ten­nant, at Halfway to Nor­mal. 

Kristin, cre­ator of the Love List project, invited me over to look more deeply at what love means.  This Love List project began in late Sep­tem­ber, and I was drawn into the con­cept Kristin had of shar­ing more freely about those things we love — all of them, big or little. 

Join me over at Halfway to Nor­mal, as I dis­cuss the won­der of love set­tling like fog.

Kristin’s writ­ing style is filled with her heart, shin­ing through.  You can keep up with her by sub­scrib­ing to her blog or fol­low­ing her on Twit­ter.

Com­ments are closed.

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October 18, 2009 By 64 Comments

Sunday Thought For The Day

blown away
Creative Commons License photo credit: jill d

“Life is but a brief moment. The years go by quickly and old age arrives sud­denly before we have an inkling. Peo­ple desire so many things and waste their days in vain. Some yearn for gold, oth­ers for power, yet oth­ers for glory and a higher sta­tion. But when death’s moment nears and they look back at their lives they’ve lived, they real­ize they’ve been happy only dur­ing those moments when they’ve loved.” ~ Borje Vahamaki

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October 16, 2009 By 45 Comments

Finding My Yoga

 We all have moments that chal­lenge us.  Some of those moments can chal­lenge us deep within our core.  And it’s in those moments,  hav­ing a rock to lean on — what­ever that “rock” is for each of us — can be the some­thing that helps pull us through. 

Today I am hon­ored to have Peggy Nolan, from Serendip­ity Smiles, here as she talks about some of the adver­si­ties she’s had in her life, and how deeply con­nect­ing her yoga rou­tine was for her dur­ing those dark days. 

One of the chal­lenges Peggy has faced was breast can­cer.  Today she talks about that and more, and how yoga has been a source of com­fort and heal­ing through it all.

Please read and be inspired, as Peggy so beau­ti­fully writes about…

Find­ing My Yoga

 

 Hawaiian view
Creative Commons License photo credit: B Mully

“Adver­sity is like a strong wind.  It tears away from us all but the things that can­not be torn, so that we see our­selves as we really are.” ~ Arthur Golden, Mem­oirs of a Geisha

The frigid Jan­u­ary night I kicked my ex-husband out, my yoga mat took a beat­ing with­out com­plaint.  She absorbed the fire from my feet, the sweat from my body, and the tears from my heart.  She rooted me like a tree while the tor­nado of his deceit swirled around me.  Stand­ing on my right leg with my left foot tucked inside my right thigh, I lifted my heart and my arms upward toward the sky.  I had learned how to breathe through four months of rage, anger, and emo­tional upheaval.  My yoga mat gen­tly held me in child pose as night after night, I wept my pain away.  She bore wit­ness to my dis­cov­ery that the imper­ma­nence of ever after is no dif­fer­ent than the imper­ma­nence of each breath.  Let­ting go of my nine­teen year mar­riage and life as I knew it was not easy but I learned to un-cling myself from the past and live my life forward.

In hero pose I let my yoga mat help teach me to be still in my anger.  Sit­ting with my right knee wrapped around my left knee and both feet flexed out­wards I rounded my spine as I bowed my fore­head to my top knee.  I learned how to rec­og­nize my anger, accept it, to imag­ine hold­ing it the palm of my hand and gen­tly blow­ing it away with each exha­la­tion.  At first my ex hus­band was the object of my anger — a speck of dust that I’d visu­al­ize blow­ing away with my breath.  But as I unpeeled my anger I learned who I was really angry with — my self.  I did every­thing I could to save a mar­riage irrepara­bly dam­aged by my ex husband’s dou­ble life and in doing so, I com­pro­mised my self, my daugh­ters, my val­ues, my prin­ci­ples and my own dreams and aspirations.

Grap­pling with a pro­found sad­ness, I let my yoga mat con­vince me to take flight in eagle pose. Twist­ing my right arm over left with my palms touch­ing each other while wrap­ping my left leg around my right leg I could feel the return of my inde­pen­dence.  Bal­anced in this pos­ture, I often imag­ined myself fly­ing tri­umphantly out of Sal­vador Dali’s “Dis­in­te­gra­tion of the Per­sis­tence of Mem­ory.” I could see myself stand­ing in the mid­dle of the paint­ing sur­vey­ing the loss of time as it melted off the clock. I could see the shat­tered world I was afraid to leave.  I knew this frac­tured mis­er­able world — for years I had deter­mined to keep my fam­ily together no mat­ter what.

When I dis­cov­ered that “no mat­ter what” came at the expense of my own self-respect, I decided that a leap off the can­vas of dev­as­ta­tion into the great unknown was the best option.  I learned that when I made deci­sions that were right for me they were also right for my daughters…even if they didn’t see it at the time.

Yoga helped teach me to be my self with­out some­one else defin­ing who I was.  I mended frac­tured rela­tion­ships with peo­ple in my fam­ily and friends that my ex didn’t like.  I made choices that were right for me, like sell­ing the house my daugh­ters and I lived in and buy­ing some­thing smaller and eas­ier to man­age.  Through my divorce yoga taught me to con­nect my body with my mind and my spirit.  In doing so, I found my inter­nal spring of love, hope and grat­i­tude from which my soul is immea­sur­ably replen­ished and nur­tured.  This dis­cov­ery came not a moment too soon because five short months after my divorce was final and one year to the day after my ex hus­band and I began our dis­en­tan­gle­ment, I was diag­nosed with breast cancer.

While I needed the stead­fast strength of my friends, my fam­ily, and espe­cially my father, it was the lov­ing soli­tude of my yoga mat that I craved.  Breath­ing into the pow­er­ful war­rior poses I’d watch the ques­tions as they entered my mind: “Who am I when I no longer am who I was?” “What am I sup­posed to be doing?”  “Am I on the right path?”  “What am I sup­posed to be learn­ing right now?”  In between breaths, I’d lis­ten for the answers. 

While the answers didn’t come right away, I began to learn patience.  I became more aware of my thoughts and how my thoughts affected my cir­cum­stances.  In order to face breast can­cer I cleaned out the remain­ing neg­a­tive skele­tons from the far reaches of my mind and I decided to face this dis­ease the only way I knew how — with grat­i­tude and a deep appre­ci­a­tion for being alive.

Four days after my first surgery to remove a three-inch clus­ter of non-invasive can­cer cells, my yoga mat hugged me close as I lay uncom­fort­ably belly down. Poses that were once sim­ple, like cobra, bow, and air­plane now pre­sented a phys­i­cal chal­lenge that I couldn’t just bull­doze my way through.  Lift­ing my shoul­ders off the floor for the first phase of cobra pose, some­thing I could eas­ily do just a week before was an incred­i­bly painful chal­lenge.  Lay­ing face down on my yoga mat, I know I heard her laugh as I learned to be hum­bled by the power that resides in not doing.  After my doc­tor called with the results of the first surgery, I real­ized that I’d be doing a lot of not doing on my yoga mat.

My doc­tor started with the bad news first.  Pathol­ogy deter­mined the can­cer to be inva­sive as well and that it had spread to my lymph sys­tem.  The good news, she told me, was that this was all treat­able with surgery and chemother­apy.  I would lose my breast and in return I’d most likely go on liv­ing for another 40 or so years.

Nine days after hav­ing a mas­tec­tomy, I unfurled my yoga mat in the stu­dio. 
Sur­prised, well mean­ing friends asked me what I was doing back so soon after surgery.  My yoga mat didn’t ques­tion me for she under­stood why.  She knew I needed to be there and move my body — to see what worked and what didn’t work.   The com­pas­sion of my blue sticky mat sup­ported me, cra­dled me, and kept me safe.  While I couldn’t do down­ward fac­ing dog I could and did mod­ify the pose and was the only one in class mas­ter­ing the fine art of the one armed down dog.

Through chemother­apy, my yoga mat hung onto me.  Qui­etly coax­ing what lit­tle my body could give she made me dig deep and helped me dis­cover the place within myself where the Divine resides and where I am at peace.  I bat­tled with lone­li­ness — and can­cer is a very lonely dis­ease — only to uncover that by accept­ing my lone­li­ness I found a free­dom and lib­er­a­tion that trans­formed my per­spec­tive on liv­ing my own life.  Lay­ing in shavasana, or dead man’s pose, my arms and legs stretched out in relax­ation, I found that my some­day is now and now is all I have.

Dur­ing radi­a­tion ther­apy my yoga mat wel­comed back my energy and strength. 
I put her through the paces often dou­bling up on Mon­day nights and doing back-to-back classes.  One hun­dred and eighty min­utes of yoga to which my friends thought I was nuts but my yoga mat knew I was catch­ing up on some long over due work.  Plank, side plank, chat­terunga, up dog, down dog, back to plank.  I’d repeat the series until I heard the white lotus blos­soms whis­per, “less is more.”

Two months after I fin­ished treat­ment and one year after I was diag­nosed, the com­pany I worked for laid off my entire group.  The day after I lost my job I sat in a twist on my yoga mat try­ing to fig­ure out how I was going to deal with one daugh­ter in col­lege, the other in high school, recon­struc­tive surgery, health ben­e­fits, the mort­gage, and still put food on the table.  With sur­pris­ing force­ful­ness I heard her say, “another sil­ver lin­ing.”  I untwisted myself and felt an amaz­ing release. 

After all I’ve been through I now saw that los­ing my job was an oppor­tu­nity to change direc­tion. Inspired by my favorite TS Elliot quote, “If you are unwill­ing to impose your own terms upon life, then you must be will­ing to accept what life offers you,” I knew it was time to impose my own terms upon life.  I rene­go­ti­ated a bet­ter sev­er­ance pack­age; I found a new posi­tion within days but took a six-week break from the insan­ity of cor­po­rate Amer­ica; I went on vaca­tion; I started writ­ing again; and with a clean bill of health from my doc­tors, I became a breast can­cer thriver.

Oil and sweat from my feet and hands have left indeli­ble marks on my blue sticky yoga mat.  My toes have worn out spots — all those lunges and war­rior poses — and my yoga mat is crum­bling where I ground down with the balls of my feet.   My mat has car­ried me through three major life-altering events in less than three years: divorce, breast can­cer and los­ing a job.  I can count on my yoga prac­tice to be there, unfail­ing and sup­port­ive of the parts that are all of me.

The answers I seek through my yoga prac­tice are open ended.  I’m no longer plagued by the sense of loss of who I was because I haven’t really lost who I was — she’s with me as I cre­ate a new vision of who I am.  I believe that the Uni­verse is unfold­ing exactly as She should and I’m stand­ing in the mid­dle of my own unfold­ing.  Root­ing down into my yoga mat, I stand in God­dess pose com­pletely recep­tive to my own inner strength, courage, and wisdom.

About Peggy Nolan
Peggy Nolan is a free­lance writer, breast can­cer sur­vivor and cer­ti­fied yoga teacher liv­ing in Derry, NH.  Peggy is the author of two blogs, Serendip­ity Smiles and The Stepmom’s Tool Box, and is pas­sion­ate about help­ing oth­ers help themselves.

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Inspiration Tagged With: ,
October 13, 2009 By 50 Comments

Escaping Adulthood

 kj_dandelions

“Youth is not mea­sured by the age of a per­son, but by the curios­ity a per­son keeps.” ~ Sal­vador Pániker

Rolling in the grass!  Yep, I’m guess­ing that’s a typ­i­cal day for Kim and Jason Kotecki! 

It is with great enthu­si­asm that I intro­duce you to this amaz­ing cou­ple, a husband/wife blog­ging cou­ple from right here in Wis­con­sin!  And today I sit down and ask them a few ques­tions, as we bounce around between the philo­soph­i­cal and the goofy.  And that’s right up their alley, a good mix of what makes life worth liv­ing while hav­ing fun doing it!  Kim and Jason are the pro­pri­etors of the very suc­cess­ful and deli­ciously fun Escape Adult­hood web­site.  Escape adult­hood?  What’s that all about, any­way?  Read on, as we dig more deeply into what truly makes life grand!

NOTE: We’re hav­ing a give away here today!  For the price of a com­ment, one lucky win­ner will be cho­sen to receive a copy of Kim and Jason’s recently released book, “There’s An Adult In My Soup”.  Win­ner will be cho­sen at ran­dom, from all received com­ments – on Fri­day Octo­ber 16th.

And with that, please help me in wel­com­ing Kim and Jason here today!

I ask the ques­tions, and they answer with a mix of light­heart­ed­ness and wisdom…

1. Tell us a lit­tle bit about who “you” are (fam­ily, career, any spe­cial life expe­ri­ences you’d like to share, etc.) 
Jason: I am a lot of things. I’m a dad, hus­band, son, and brother. I sus­pect I could be bet­ter in all four areas, but I’m work­ing at it. Pro­fes­sion­ally, I’m a car­toon­ist, author, and speaker, which is a far cry from my early ambi­tion of becom­ing a super­hero. But at least I feel like I’m mak­ing a dif­fer­ence, which is some­thing I share with my leotard-clad, cape-donning col­leagues. I drew a comic strip called “Kim & Jason” for about seven years. It’s now offi­cially “retired,” but the char­ac­ters still serve as mas­cots for our com­pany. My mis­sion in life is to help peo­ple strug­gling with Adul­ti­tis and get them liv­ing with less stress and more fun.
Kim: I share the same mis­sion as my hus­band, but my offi­cial title in our com­pany is the “Direc­tor of Every­thing.” I am a work-at-home mom, wife, and youngest of four girls who some­how man­ages to con­tinue to feel five-years-old, while being six times that (okay– a lit­tle more than 6 times). I am a for­mer kinder­garten teacher who also moon­lights as an author and sales direc­tor for our speak­ing side of things. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Nice title, Kim!  And the word “adul­ti­tis”, it just sounds like a dis­ease, doesn’t it!  Which, speak­ing of adul­ti­tis, if you’re curi­ous whether you’re affected, I see the Adul­ti­tis web­site has a ques­tion­niare to help you deter­mine that.  Hmmm.…I won­der what it says about me?

2. How long have you been blog­ging, and what led you to start your site?  
Jason: I started blog­ging back in 2002, before there really was such a thing as a blog. I started out on a mes­sage board we hosted on our site, and it was just a per­sonal jour­nal about the early days when I was doing the comic strip and we were start­ing our busi­ness. It has evolved quite a bit since then.
Kim: Our blog is a good exam­ple of what hap­pens when you take baby steps towards your inter­ests and pas­sion. Lit­tle by lit­tle it evolved right before our eyes. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Gosh, Jason — you’re like an Inter­net pio­neer in blog­land years!  Your ded­i­ca­tion and pas­sion shine through in all you present, and I espe­cially love the videos you’ve cre­ated.  My per­sonal favorite is your Water Bal­loon War­fare — although I’d only want to be a spec­ta­tor, Kim, when you’re launch­ing those bal­loons!  Ouch!

3.  Kim and Jason, when I think of you two (and the name of your site – Escap­ing Adult­hood) – I think of tun­nel­ing out of a jail cell with a Tonka truck – escap­ing the mun­dane that we too often let into daily life.  Maybe I’m off-base a bit.  Tell us what “Escap­ing Adult­hood” is all about.  
Jason: I love that con­cept of the Tonka Truck. Nice. I think that when we were kids, we had this ide­al­ized notion of what adult­hood would be like. It sounded so awe­some, and we were eager to grow up and take advan­tage of al the perks, like stay­ing up late, being able to drive, and eat­ing dessert first. Of course, there’s a lot more that comes with adult­hood, like work, bills, and respon­si­bil­ity. It’s easy for Adul­ti­tis to sneak in, rob­bing us of the joy and hap­pi­ness we had when we were younger. Stress piles up, and way too many peo­ple live lives of quiet des­per­a­tion. Our mes­sage is that no, we’ll never be six again, but we don’t have to set­tle for the “adult­hood” that seems to be so com­mon. We encour­age peo­ple to “escape” the busy­ness that comes stan­dard with most mod­ern lives, and rekin­dle some of the secrets from child­hood that make life more ful­fill­ing, excit­ing, and fun. 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Ah, yes…adulthood!  That place we yearned for when we were kids.  To be “older”, and be able to do all the cool stuff!  And then to find out…the cool stuff also involves bills, and work that isn’t always fun and games…  So, keep­ing fun in daily “adult” life, that sounds pretty sweet!

4. You’ve just pub­lished a book – “There’s An Adult In My Soup”.  Tell us about this book, and what inspired you to write it. 
Kim: “There’s An Adult In My Soup” is a col­lec­tion of essays we’ve writ­ten over the years. We wanted to cre­ate a book that was easy and fun to read, some­thing rem­i­nis­cent of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” in which you can open it up in the mid­dle and just start read­ing. Prob­a­bly the best way to describe the con­cept is by shar­ing a poem Jason wrote for the back cover: 

When I was a kid, my soup was just right,
Yummy and tasty, a ver­i­ta­ble delight. adult_in_my_soup_front_1

Two cups of dreams and a full pint of play,
A pinch of curios­ity for the per­fect bouquet. 

Pas­sion and won­der and faith it had, too
I’d dare you to taste a hap­pier stew! 

But when I got older, my soup it did turn,
Enough to war­rant a cause for concern. 

It’s gunky and goopy and lack­ing in fun,
It’s not nearly as tasty as when I’d begun. 

It’s bland and it’s bit­ter and tastes just like poop,
The prob­lem is clearly the adult in my soup! 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  I’m cur­rently read­ing this book, and it’s great!  And one thing I really love are the short chap­ters (it fits my atten­tion span well!).  More than that, though, I think it’s really a great “idea gen­er­a­tor”.  You two share real-life exam­ples of liv­ing Adultitis-free, and those are exam­ples that spur thoughts in me of how I can be more kid-like myself.  And that right there is the real “meat” in that soup!  And don’t for­get, every­one — one of these fan­tas­tic books will be given away — so com­ment away!

5.  So you author a blog, have writ­ten a cou­ple of books, sell “fun” toys on your site (for any age), have a weekly video series, and do speak­ing engage­ments.  What are the joys and chal­lenges with all of this, and what have I missed? 
Jason: That pretty much cov­ers it. The joy lies in wak­ing up every morn­ing in love with what I do for a liv­ing. The chal­lenges are mak­ing sure we’re focus­ing on the right things, keep our lives in bal­ance, and just like every busi­ness, fig­ur­ing out the best ways to mar­ket things with­out break­ing the bank.
Kim: A big job for me is being able to work from home and tag team child­care for our lit­tle one between myself, Jason and our asso­ciate (our daughter’s god­mom). With this joy also comes the chal­lenge of know­ing when to close the lap­top and when to answer the phone. We do well with this over­all, it’s just always at the fore­front of our efforts. 

6. And you’re recently new par­ents (hi Lucy!).  How has that changed things both in your house­hold, and in writ­ing and speak­ing engage­ments?  
Jason: We have a lot less time to work on the busi­ness than we did before Lucy. Bal­ance has become a big­ger chal­lenge. But I think it has made us much sharper and effi­cient with our time. I also believe this expe­ri­ence of par­ent­hood has added a level of rich­ness to our writ­ing and speak­ing that allows us to con­nect with peo­ple on a whole new level. Par­ent­hood has made us bet­ter team­mates and bet­ter peo­ple. 
Kim: We always joked (BL– before Lucy) that the busi­ness was our first baby, and I still believe that in a lot of ways. Both require tremen­dous effort and pas­sion to con­tinue to man­age in a Adultitis-free man­ner. Lucy is along for the adven­ture. By the time she was four months old she had joined us on 25 flights. We’re includ­ing her in on the journey!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Lucy is one well-traveled lit­tle girl!!  And yes, an addi­tional lit­tle life in your house­hold sure does change things!  Enjoy the “moments” with that lit­tle won­der in your life!

7. Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you in the last year (Lucy doesn’t count!). 
Jason: We bought our first house! We spent almost nine years in an apart­ment, build­ing our busi­ness. Then we had Lucy last Decem­ber and were just focused on try­ing to get our legs under us as new par­ents. My dad started pes­ter­ing us to look into what was out there on the mar­ket and what we might be able to afford. Like I said, it was prob­a­bly the last thing on the radar for us, but he was very per­sis­tent. We started the process in Jan­u­ary as our busy speak­ing sea­son kicked off, and by mid-April we’d found, financed, and moved into a house we absolutely love. I guess it goes to show that some­times it pays to lis­ten to your par­ents, no mat­ter how old you are!  

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Ah yes, our parents…they’re always our parents…and some­times they really do know what they’re talk­ing about.  Now, if I could just con­vince my daugh­ter of that.  For some rea­son, as she’s quickly approach­ing the start of those teenage years…my “words of wis­dom” just don’t hold the same value they used to!  It won’t stop me from shar­ing, though!

8. If you had to pick one thing as your great­est achieve­ment, what would it be (and why)? 
Jason: I sup­pose it’s a big cliché to say hav­ing Lucy is our great­est achieve­ment, but it is right up there, although it’s not com­plete. It will be even big­ger if we can accom­plish the job of help­ing her to grow into her full poten­tial as a per­son, some­one mak­ing an impact on the world. That’s our goal. I’m also very proud of being able to build a busi­ness from the ground up, cre­at­ing a career that I enjoy so much. It’s been harder and scarier than I ever thought it would be, and we’ve had so much help along the way that I can’t take much of the credit, but there’s a great feel­ing of fulfillment.  

9. A fun day as a fam­ily – tell me what that might con­sist of.  
Jason: Hmm. Very low key, that’s for sure. Loung­ing around. Being goofy. Good food. A nice walk by the lake or a visit to the zoo. The elab­o­rate and more expen­sive expe­ri­ences are great, but I quite like thefaith sim­ple fun that can be had doing every­day things. Most peo­ple are liv­ing life too fast to notice some of the Cracker Jack prizes hid­den right under their nose.
Kim: Jason hit it on the head. Peo­ple think of us as the adven­tur­ous type and in many ways we are, but we sure love to be lazy together as a fam­ily. I’d add to his list– movies, a drive to get Dairy Queen, and some home­made cheesy beer and brat soup– hey, we DO live in Wisconsin! 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Hey, I’m all for being goofy!  And we have this killer cus­tard stand just down the road from our house, that’s a fam­ily favorite here.  And being fall is in the air (brrr…it was chilly this week­end in Wis­con­sin!), that soup sounds about perfect!

10. Hypo­thet­i­cally speak­ing, you’re stranded in the mid­dle of Wis­con­sin for a year (maybe this isn’t hypo­thet­i­cal!).  You have enough food to eat, and you have shel­ter.  What do you do to keep your­selves con­nected and engaged and lov­ing life? 
Jason: Stay­ing curi­ous and ask­ing ques­tions. As an intro­vert, I like to get “deep.” The more quickly I can move past small talk and get to a meatier and more inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion, the hap­pier I am. Like a cross-country road trip, I sup­pose being stranded would be a great cat­a­lyst for that.
Kim: I imag­ine there to be lots of made-up games and silli­ness. We all love to have fun and a large part of what we do in our mis­sion is to give peo­ple per­mis­sion to do this. When we were kids we would “get bored” and even­tu­ally get cre­ative, using our wild imag­i­na­tions to cre­ate worlds and chal­lenges that we’d tackle with courage and zest. Now, peo­ple just turn on the TV or video games to be enter­tained. Being stranded would force you to dust off the ‘ol imagination.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  You two have a great pre­scrip­tion not only for a stranded day in Wis­con­sin, but also — a great pre­scrip­tion for life in gen­eral!  Con­nect­ing more deeply, and using your imag­i­na­tion — wow!  Good stuff!  And now, I’m also in the mood for a cross-country road trip!!  You won’t even notice me in the back seat, singing clas­sic Willie Nel­son songs (“On the Road Again…”).…

11.  Deep down, what makes you uniquely “you”?  Kim?  Jason?   
Jason: Deep down, I think I am as curi­ous and cre­ative as ever. That’s the lit­tle boy in me shin­ing through. I have a great sense of won­der about things, about peo­ple, and about God. I hate struc­ture and I hate rules, but I love to learn.
Kim: Deep down, I am a spunky lit­tle five-year-old girl that refuses to grow-up into a grumpy ‘ol adult. I like wear­ing mis­matched clothes. I hate mak­ing the bed and doing the dishes. I’ll eat three rows of brown­ies if no one is look­ing. I’m just look­ing to have as much fun as pos­si­ble while I’m here. I think this life is a gift and I’m not going to waste what I’ve been given.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  What I love here, is that you both relate back to those early years in life, and to the kid in you!  I guess I shouldn’t be sur­prised, given the premise behind every­thing you do!  Still, I think it’s part of the cul­ture we live in today — that this is NOT the norm.  So hear­ing you say that — proudly — is refresh­ing!    Keep on being spunky and curi­ous!  And a reminder to self:  bring extra brown­ies the next time we visit!

Clos­ing Thoughts:  Kim and Jason, this is all sorts of awe­some­ness!  And what’s so great, is that our fam­i­lies have had the oppor­tu­nity to meet recently.  So, I know that what you’re say­ing here is much more than just words on this page — it really is how you live your lives!  It can be one thing to say some­thing, and another alto­gether to fol­low through and do it.  And you guys do!  You exude child-like won­der, love, and play­ful­ness in all you do!  That shines through so brightly!  And there’s a gift in that for every­one whose path you cross.  You give oth­ers the belief that you CAN lis­ten to our heart, you CAN love what you do, you CAN be happy on many levels!

It has been an honor to have you both here today.  Kim and Jason, I wish you much suc­cess and hap­pi­ness as you con­tinue to share your mis­sion with the world!  It’s a mes­sage that is so worth hear­ing…

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October 11, 2009 By 52 Comments

Sunday Thought For The Day

so simple - so beautiful
Creative Commons License photo credit: ChrisK4u

“Know that although in the eter­nal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irre­place­able, as are all your fel­low humans every­where in the world.” ~ Mar­garet Laurence

 

Note:  Spe­cial thanks to Belinda Munoz, for the direc­tion to this quote.

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October 10, 2009 By

Blogging For A Cause

Picture 18

“Once you choose hope, anything’s pos­si­ble.” ~ Christo­pher Reeve

We’re writ­ing an e-book for the cure. That’s right, WE are writ­ing an e-book. And by “WE” I mean any writer that wants to be part of Blog­ging For A Cause.

Joanna Sut­ter, who writes the blog Fit­ness and Spice, and I have teamed up to work on some­thing very near and dear to our hearts.

hdrLogoSGK

We’re work­ing together to raise money to sup­port breast can­cer research through the Susan G. Komen foun­da­tion. To raise money to sup­port this won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tion, we’re cre­at­ing an e-book which we’ll then sell, with 100% of the prof­its going to the Susan G. Komen foundation.

To make this a real­ity, we need your help.

If you are a writer, we would love for you to be a part of this e-book project, Blog­ging For A Cause.  All it takes is for you to choose a favorite post from your site. That’s it!  Your post can be on any sub­ject at all from a favorite story, work­out, recipe, quote, idea, what­ever! We’ll include the arti­cle you select in the e-book with a link to your site.

If you would like be a part of Blog­ging For A Cause, here are a few more details:

What We Need:

  • Your name as you want it to appear in the e-book
  • Your Web­site address and name of your site
  • A link to the post you’re includ­ing for submission
  • A copy of the entire arti­cle pasted into the body of the email

Please send your infor­ma­tion to:  Lance.Ekum [at] gmail.com by Fri­day, Octo­ber 16th. 

Note:  If you have any prob­lems sub­mit­ting infor­ma­tion, please con­tact me via the Con­tact Us form on this site.

Within a cou­ple of weeks, we’ll both have posts writ­ten and links to buy the e-book.  Note that there is no oblig­a­tion for you to buy one of the e-books.  If, how­ever, you do choose to know that all the pro­ceeds will go to breast can­cer research.  We’ll be sell­ing the e-books for a sug­gested dona­tion of $5.

Thanks to Jay Schryer who inspired Joanna and I to act, to every­one who already sub­mit­ted their arti­cles, and to Mack Richard­son who gen­er­ously agreed to help with the e-book design.

Together, we will make a difference!

With appre­ci­a­tion,

Joanna Sut­ter
Fit­ness & Spice
Joanna.Sutter [at] gmail.com

Lance Ekum
Jun­gle of Life
Lance.Ekum [at] gmail.com

P.S. Please share this post with writ­ers you love that might want to par­tic­i­pate, too!

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Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With:
October 8, 2009 By

The Journey Into Spirit

Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah
Creative Commons License photo credit: David Win­nie

“We are not human beings hav­ing a spir­i­tual expe­ri­ence. We are spir­i­tual beings hav­ing a human expe­ri­ence.” ~ Teil­hard de Chardin

The jour­ney into our deep spir­i­tual side is one that is a per­sonal jour­ney for each of us, and one that con­tin­ues through­out our time here on earth.  Today I’m hon­ored to be shar­ing a part of my own jour­ney with all of you, as I join Jan Lundy over at Awake Is Good. 

Please stop by and check out Today, A Voice For Men’s Spir­i­tu­al­ity.

And while you’re there, check out some of Jan’s other very mean­ing­ful works, including:

What Do You Do When a Storm Swoops In?

Med­i­ta­tion Mon­day — Spread the Love

Jan’s site, Awake Is Good, is a great place to visit and explore, for any­one want­ing to expand on their own per­sonal jour­ney into that spir­i­tual con­nec­tion with soul.  As well, Jan is a pub­lished author, hav­ing writ­ten the book Your Truest Self ‚which con­tains twelve trans­for­ma­tional truths to guide and enable women to live more peace­ful, con­fi­dent, and open-hearted lives.

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