Month: January 2012

Letters to Read on a Bad Day

My first job out of college I worked for gifted entrepreneur Dale Hanson Bourke at her consulting firm, Publishing Directions, Inc. She taught me so many things about running a business, client relationship development, and a brilliant method for proofreading and catching mistakes on a page!

One day in a file drawer, I spotted a folder labeled “Letters to Read on a Bad Day.”  She created it after receiving a nice letter on a bad day and decided to save it.  More than 25 years have passed, and she still has the file and uses it!  Read more...

The Year without a Christmas Tree

January 6. Epiphany—the day I like to wait for before taking down the Christmas tree. Driving around town,  I noticed it seems to be the day for town square trees to come down, too.

I grew up in a family that put up a tree the day after Thanksgiving and left it standing until well into January. The year we got a new, artificial tree (before pre-lit ones came on the scene), my dad spent hours wrapping 21 strands of white lights around each branch (and even in a way—if memory serves—that would allow the tree to be taken apart with the strands still on to be put away for the next year). He lamented that he would never do that again and hoped we would enjoy the illuminated masterpiece.  Read more...

Hello New Year

As the calendar page turns over a new year, the flipping feels as fast as the commercials zipping by for Oprah’s WW, Nutrisystem, Lifetime Fitness, and E-Trade Investments….” A New Year, A New You” we’re promised. Blog posts boast the 5 ways to make resolutions stick and how to kick those recurring bad habits.

Motivating perhaps. Inspiring—maybe. Experience, for me, has borne out that focusing on a few areas and considering what might be possible these next 365 days can have a profound effect on what actually happens throughout, rather than just hoping the new year turns out better than the last. Asking, “What do I/we want this year?” “What are my goals?” “What needs to change?”  Read more...