My youngest and the pony she rides on, Peter Pan. Cute, huh?
An interesting tidbit to share about all of this is over the past weekend while I was organizing some things, I came across this little figurine E's godmother (and auntie!) had given her for her fifth birthday.

I think the resemblance is both amazing and uncanny! It was like this little piece was made just for her.

A challenge for you & a gorgeous September sky

I just started a new position today at a PA cyber charter school-its a very cool organization-one of the perks is being able to work mostly from a home office. I am so impressed and its only the first day! One of the master teachers giving the orientation this afternoon asked me to write my own personal "mission statement" for my new position. I wanted to share it with you:

"It is my wish.... to make a positive difference in each child's life I have the privilege of being a part of. I want to help students realize their goals using inspiration, creativity and help them to realize that someone cares, and that they are capable of wonderful things if they are willing to work hard."

Putting this together really challenged and inspired me. And, as I said to someone else-while it might not sound very original, it comes from the heart.

This week my challenge to you is to write your own mission statement-I believe this really helps to keep a focus on what you feel is important in your own life and helps you to stay on track when things seem to get a little crazy. Tuck it away in a drawer somewhere and pull it out occasionally to read. It might just be the thing you need to get yourself motivated.

Round 'Em Up!

My brave little nine year old and her "boy" friend ("he's a boy who is a friend, mom!" she insists) decided they would be very brave and try the Round 'Em Up Ride at the local Fireman's Fall Festival.

I still can't define the feeling I had while I was watching them-half absolute terror that the ride would come off its hinges while I helplessly looked on, and half giddy excitement-thinking back to when I was a kid (a long, long time ago and going on one of those rides for the first time myself.) I rationalized away the fears with the thoughts that everyone should experience at least one carnival ride in their lifetime. We all need to remember to have fun once in a while, just for the sake of having fun.

The next day, I emailed E's friend's mom with this video along with some pictures of them on some of the other rides that evening. She mischieviously wrote back with the comment that we should use the one of them on the Scrambler in the wedding invitation.

So This is Why I Love Animals So Much

Every once in a while I come across something and have what Oprah calls an "AHA" moment.

(Reprinted courtesy of ronhevener.com)


"Like many of you, I read as much as I can. And I talk with (and listen to) many good, intelligent thinkers -- specialists in their fields. Maybe because it's something that I appreciate and treasure, I pay close attention to people "of the land." No, they're not all farmers or lovers of the mountains and forests. But, they do seem to have a love of animals, and a respect for nature, in common.

I pay attention to the words of these people because theirs is a world -- and their knowledge is based on -- real and true things. It isn't based on man-made bricks and mortar and cement and glass and roads and billboards. What it's based on are natural things, very real things -- and emotionally true things. Having animals in your life -- and tuning in to them -- is the only way I have ever known to develop your own natural sensitivities and understanding of life and its "big picture."

Very few things in our lives are as reassuring as the living things we care for. By having them -- in order to feed, house and provide for them -- we are forced to structure and maintain a productive life of our own. By having them, we network with others of similar interests and feelings; people traveling on our own path. We realize that we're not alone. And we can talk freely about the emotional depths (and comedies) that our animals help us explore.

Any time you want to know "what's ahead," just take a look at the past. Learn from it. What you'll come away with are two basic things.......... First, you'll see that people and their animals make it through every adversity -- and every victory -- of Life. Second (and this is most important) you'll prove to yourself that no matter what dire forecast anyone has ever predicted (from Nostradamus to the Mayan calendar, to Y2K, to books of the most respected ancient and holy wisdom) that no one you know has ever seen "the end of the world." .... No matter how many hours, days or years of their lives they spent worrying about it.

The point? Love your animals. Love your life. Love yourself. And do whatever you can to spread the word."

Words to Live By

Where to begin?

The past month has been a whirlwind of activity and that has left me little time to do one of my very favorite things: share my observations regarding life as I know it and the beauty (or humor) in each moment when I really take the time to look.

I feel like my ability to write has been temporarily displaced somewhere and I am having trouble finding where I tucked it. So while I am searching for it, I will do what I'm sure others have done before me in similar situations and share lovely quotes I promised myself I would share with you someday.

"Find the joy inside yourself"

"Pursue Excellence"

"Refuse to dwell on the negative"


I hope you enjoy these jewels of wisdom while I continue to search for my groove.

Our Most Excellent Adventure

And the reason for the lull in posts is:

We had a "girls only" vacation visiting my beautiful sister, brother-in- law and their sweet new baby in South Carolina.
(The gal on the right looks exactly like my sister-I swear its her)
They live outside of Hilton Head in a really neat little town called Bluffton. Lets just say the minute we returned to G-burg I was on Craigslist taking a gander at homes for sale down there. It is such a cool, artsy place and so true how southerners make you feel right at home. Nothing was too much of a bother and everywhere you turned there were lovely sights to see. Check out the perfect rainbow we saw over their house-yes, folks, its true-everything is extra special down there!
Of course, it didn't start out that way. We thought Harrisburg International would be a great out of the way airport to get out of dodge. We got up at the ungodly hour of 3am to get ready-our goal was to be out by 4am to get to HIA by 5am to check in and catch our flight at 6:30am. I was so proud of myself-so organized and actually feeling awake and cognizant during this whole time. Rick volunteered to drive us-he was such a trooper. You know its true love when your husband volunteers to do something like this. (Probably because he was so excited he was going to get the whole house to himself for an entire week-no sharing bathrooms with girls, tripping over barbies, dirty underwear and spikey hair accessories...I'm sure it was a dream come true!) I made sure the girls typed out detailed instructions for the care of our "menagerie" while we were away:


Intstructions for taking care of the hermit crabs
1: feeed the hermit crabs the food is in the petco box I will put the petco box right next to the cage you can also feed them fruit or yogurt but I prefer you just to feed them regulaur hermit crab food
2: you will know if the hermit crab has changed shells don’t take any of them out they pinch and hard don’t take any of the empty out of the shells out they will change into them if you see al g in the cage please take out and throw it away if it starts to stink then a hermit crab has died don’t take it out we will that is not likely to happen though and please just move them from time to time if you cant find one there our 3 of them then one is probably buried himself
3: change there water use the tap drinking water then heat it up for 30 seconds and there is special water sitting in a measuring cup just take the old water and dump it out in the sink and then refill it just take the shell and scoop it out from the measuring cup that’s all
have a fun time love, e

(In addition to the crabs, there was a two page outline of how to care for Moose and Lilly, our mice which I will spare you. Secretly, I fully expected to come home to find some dead critters after such daunting instructions, but I was totally surprised! Everyone was alive and well, and none the worse for the wear.)

We arrived at the airport on time. Everything moved seamlessly as planned. The girls were very excited as this was the first time for E and the second time for M flying. We were ready to depart on our big adventure! We got to our gate and saw that everything was on time; they began calling the first class passengers to board.

It didn't fully register in my mind when the agent announced about 10 minutes into the boarding that there was a tiny maintenance issue which concerned the plane's instrument panel. Soon after, all the passengers who had been called to board were now being asked to get off the plane while this issue was being addressed.

I think this drawing of E's pretty much sums it up:
As does this:

Yes, folks, the flight was delayed 6 hours. Its the kind of thing you watch on television around the holidays, and you shake your head and say "Poor things!" You just never think it will happen to you. I guess the hold up was that a new instrument panel had to be flown up from Atlanta and the next plane that could bring it would not arrive until 11:30 a.m. Then, of course, the new part would have to be installed.

We made the most out of it. The girls have such sunny personalities and couldn't help but make friends with just about everyone on the flight-there was the young woman who had just finished her bar exams and was taking a long deserved respite in Florida before starting a new position with a law firm in Harrisburg in September. They also made fast friends with our pilot, who was extremely apologetic about the delay and insisted the girls make a visit to the cockpit complete with photo ops wearing his cap once we touched down in Atlanta.
While the second leg of our flight to Savannah from Atlanta was uneventful, there must have been a special aura surrounding us, as we had the privilege of meeting one of the nicest young soldiers; he was just starting his 30 day leave from Germany. He was so handsome and smart, with so many dreams and hopes for the future. We talked about everything under the sun during the flight and it made the girls and I feel so proud of our military and so honored to have these bright men and women sacrificing so much to protect us and our country. We touched down in Savannah rich with new friendships and email addresses and promises to keep in touch. The cool thing is the girls and I have been wanting to find a soldier pen pal for a long time, and who would have known it would just fall into our lap like that?

I guess its true what they say about making lemonade when life hands you a lemon.....We never would have made new friends if not for the delay.

Oh, I won't say too much about how Delta lost our luggage-I guess it had something to do with missing our original connecting flight. We did get it eventually, the second day of our vacation. At that point we didn't much care because we were having such a grand time with my sister, the baby and Dean. (Thank the Lord I made sure the girls packed a change of clothes in their carry on luggage. And, it sure pays that my sister and I wear the same size!)

I know this trip will certainly be one for our family history book-we will have lots of memories to look back on, cherish and laugh about!

The Gang Watches the Jonas Brother Movie