Olly Olly Oxen Nope (the fish follow-up!)
Exactly a year ago, I wrote about a childhood game of hide and seek – and about a belief I wanted to let go of: “I can’t change.” To make it tangible (and a little silly), I gave myself a goal:Learn to like seafood. More specifically: become the kind of person who doesn’t automatically say […]
The weird noise or the nail.
Photo by Bernd Dittrich It would usually start the same way. A student would raise their hand, look at me with frustrated eyes, and say those five words every math teacher dreads: “I just don’t get it.” It seriously happened almost daily – every summer, in every summer school math class I ever taught. And […]
Yellow Brick and Red Utah Sandstone.
Photo by Jacob Barlow A few Sundays ago, I sat quietly in a red sandstone tabernacle built in 1909. The pews curve in the balcony and behind the pulpit sits a huge pipe organ. The woodwork is intricate and warm. It wasn’t my first time in that building – but it was the first time […]
Those noisy upstairs neighbors
For 18 years of my single life, I lived on the bottom floor of a two-story, six-unit condo complex. It was the first home I purchased, and I loved it. I chose the bottom floor because it made it easy to take my dog out for her walks. The only catch? I was at the […]
Scouty Scout and 5 whole years.
My past has some pieces I’ve put away. I don’t have dark hair and bangs any more. I no longer sew clothes, work on math equations, go camping, or ride road bikes. I don’t still sell cupcakes, raft rivers, teach cookie camps, or run races. I’m not currently teaching school or living in New York […]
Advice for Andrea – at 16.
This week, my nieces Andrea and Claire both turned sixteen! Sixteen is one of those ages that feels like such a big deal, even if it doesn’t come with any clear instructions. It’s a mix of new freedoms, new responsibilities, and honestly, a lot of unknowns. Most of my career was spent with 15- to […]
What if we asked ourselves better questions?
In a recent study by Patricia Chen, Carol Dweck, and others, participants were asked these 6 questions: The researchers were trying to figure out why some people are more likely to take a strategic stance toward their goals and if this tendency (which they call a ‘strategic mindset’) can be cultivated. They differentiated a strategic […]
Emily’s bar and a different kind of contagion.
My friend Emily has worked in the bar industry for almost 20 years. She has worked in a half a dozen different bars and knows more about bar culture than anyone I know. At 5’ 2” and less than 100 lbs. soaking wet, you would not look at her and think that she could break […]
An old tradition and a good sport.
I didn’t grow up in a house with a ton of Christmas traditions – partly because when I was young we were travelling from Minnesota to California for Christmas. Those of you following this blog have read the post about my parents’ sweat and sacrifice for those trips! I imagine the Christmas traveling took all […]
Whispering makes it worse.
I woke up Monday with a scratchy throat. Not a great development for me on a coaching day, but I told myself “I feel fine. I FEEL FINE, dang it!”- like I usually do when I need to power through something. SO, I powered through my morning clients just fine. But by the afternoon, I […]
