This past week has found me somewhat consumed with developments around Hurricane Harvey. Try as I might, I just cannot get the situation out of my mind. I have learned over the years with disastrous, upsetting situations to not focus on the horrific images or tragic stories of the people affected but rather, I have…
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Today is a very special and rare day. As you have probably heard, much of the US will experience a solar eclipse, and some of us will experience a total solar eclipse. This particular path from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean has not occurred in 99 years. Some say that we have a particularly…
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Anxiety can be a crippling burden sometimes, and it shows up in many forms – from headaches, sweating, trembling, excessive worrying, rapid breathing and increased heart rate, to feeling weak or tired, having difficulty concentrating or just feeling nervous, restless or tense. Most of us worry from time to time, but when we carry the…
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This week my son had his travel soccer team’s pre-season camp. The camp has gone 3 hours per night each night this week. He has worked really hard while there and come home utterly exhausted every time. The first night, he realized that he had 12 more hours of soccer remaining in the week. He was…
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I have a policy about driving with teenagers that I thought was pretty non-negotiable as far as boundaries go…until last week. My 15 year old son was at his friend’s house to spend the night. His friend’s dog had a terminal illness and was not doing well and he wanted my son to stay over…
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This past week was a very challenging week for my 12 year old daughter. But hidden inside all of the challenges was a beautiful opportunity for her to learn that she is much stronger than she realizes. This year, she joined our local 4H club (actually two of them). Having a pet rabbit and guinea…
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I am thrilled to announce that our podcast, Maximizing Life in the Middle, is LIVE! My husband, Jay and I have been talking about creating this podcast for over a year, and it has now come to fruition! Ours is a podcast featuring two people living and loving as husband and wife, parents and individuals…
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Last week was the first actual week of summer in my household and it was surprisingly difficult for me. Sometimes it can be hard to find our center as a parent. As I thought back over the week, I noticed some of the things that contributed to my difficult adjustment. We were invited to attend…
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Letting go of our children is one of the hardest but most important tasks of parenting. And it is one that we should ideally be practicing from the moment we first hold them in our arms. It will not be long before our children need to stand on their own in varying degrees, so at…
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This week, my daughter was excited for my husband and me to attend the awards ceremony for her sixth grade class. This is an annual event held at the end of the year to recognize those high-achievement students who earned good grades all during the school year (either straights As, or As and Bs, as…
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