THE DIFFERENCE ONE CAN MAKE

The entire premise of my blog is to remind people that each one of us matters. That each one of us has the power to make a difference.  This blog is usually reserved for my more spiritual side, not my working girl side.  But this story is too big, too cool to not let it be here.  It belongs here.  

The past few weeks I have seen something amazing come together all because of the work of one person.  

I love my job.  I love that I work with awesome teachers and staff who continually amaze me with their efforts, their compassion and their hard work.  I love the kids I work with. They are funny, smart, caring people.  During the past month of the Colorado floods I have seen story after story of hard work, kindness and giving.   This story is one of those that make you smile, choke back a tear or two, and make you stand a little taller for being a little part of it all.  

A few weeks ago, Alex, a junior  at Silver Creek High School came to see me.  He wanted to do something to help people who had been affected by the flooding.  He told me he wanted to get VANS to donate shoes, hoodies, t-shirts and hats to flood victims.  These kids, he said, needed to have some cool stuff, not just generic t-shirts from Walmart, or someone's leftover shoes.  He had a fire in his belly and I loved seeing that.  

This young man is no longer part of my leadership program.  He is a very talented musician, part of our school's incredible Drumline, marching band and very active in many music classes at SCHS.  He felt his schedule could not allow him to stay in SCLA.  I get that.  Sometimes there is just not enough hours in the day to do all we want to do.  I am proud of kids who sort out their priorities and figure out how they are going to be as successful as they can in high school.  Even if I lose them out of my program I am still a huge advocate for them. I was thrilled that he came to talk to me and asked me to assist him how I could with his idea.   

So here we go, a high school kid that loves music, likes wearing VANS stuff, and wants to help kids affected by the flood.  Alex starts making phone calls, starts sending emails and the cool thing is that VANS says yes.  Alex connects with Shawn Gruenhagen, the Sales Rep for Vans in Colorado.  He tells Alex VANS loves this idea, and they would love to come to Longmont and give some stuff away. 

It took us a little bit of time to sort out a location, date and time.  Alex went all over Longmont and Lyons talking to leaders in the community, juggling school and band competitions. Alex got the folks at LifeBridge Church to offer their parking lot to host the event.   Alex kept pushing when others might have quit when things didn't go quite the way he would have liked it.  He stayed positive, and stayed focused.  He was going to get cool VANS stuff to the people who lost a lot, no matter what it took.   

So the day arrives....Of course, it snows the morning of the giveaway. 

This event would be held in a parking lot.... outdoors.  ugh..

But the sun came out, like it does in Colorado. The snow melts by lunchtime, like it does in Colorado. Shawn pulls up with a trailer full of boxes.  We show up with two classes of SCLA students.  Tents go up, a trailer is unloaded and boxes are unloaded and sorted.  

Shawn was amazed that we had a crew of 60 students arrive.  We had 12 parents drive to get us there.  Our teachers juggled their class plans to make sure our leadership students would be there to help, and to give our students another real life experience making a difference in the community, and not just talking about it in the classroom.  Another very cool part of what we do in SCLA. 

Vans had donated thousands and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.  

I was worried that not enough people would come.   I was not sure that the word got to all the right people.  There was soooo much stuff.  

Alex was organizing everything and everyone.  He was awesome.  

The event was scheduled from 4-6pm.  At 3pm people started lining up.  More volunteers came to help.  The head secretary from Silver Creek, a flood victim herself, came to help.  

 Girls from a rival high school's basketball team came to volunteer.  None of that stuff mattered, it was all about helping the people in our community.  That community, knows no school colors, or team mascots.   

We are Longmont strong. 

 We are Lyons strong. 

We are Frederick strong. 

We are Jamestown strong.  

We are Boulder strong.  

We are COLORADO STRONG. 

Mormon Missionaries came to volunteer. 

By the time 4pm rolled around the line was long and people were waiting to pick out some great items all for free from VANS.  Shawn welcomed everyone and let them know how the distribution would  work.  People would all get to take five or six items each.  

Hundreds of people came.  Hundreds of people to thousands of items home for free.  Some people, after standing in line for a really long time, wanted to meet Alex.  They wanted to give him a hug.  

He looked at his mom and said, "I hate hugs!"  

She laughed and said, "Lots of people here want to give you one."  

Alex disappeared back into the tent to get back to work.  Back to help people find the shirt they wanted, get a hoodie or choose a backpack.  He didn't need to be in front, in charge and taking credit.  He was in the trenches, working.  

Leading by example.  

At 6pm the last few people got to take a few more shirts.  The backpacks, the shoes, the hoodies were gone.  Everything was gone.  The small group of people wrapped up by cleaning it all up.  

There was the unlikely group of people, who came together because of one young man who wanted to do something cool for flood victims.  

He wanted people who had lost so much to know we were still thinking of them.  

To all the kids at Lyons High School who are still going to school in an old building in Longmont, Alex is still thinking of you.  

 To the people who are still sleeping on their grandma's couch, Alex is still thinking of you. 

To those of you who are living in a hotel room, Alex is still thinking of you. 

And to those of you who are wondering how you are going to rebuild your lives because your houses are completely gone, Alex is still thinking of you. 

And because of Alex, the rest of us are still thinking of you too.  

Just think, a kid who loves playing the drums in Longmont, Colorado decided to do something to help others.  He reached out to those who could help him make his dream come true.  He found an awesome company that wasn't afraid to  say  "Yes" to a great idea. 

 He has incredible parents who didn't tell him it was too big, or too hard or would take too much time.  I am glad he reached out to me because I like to say "yes" as much as I can too.  

Volunteers from all around the community joined in.  

If this is not a wonderful example of the ability of ONE RANDOM PERSON to make a difference, I don't know what is.  

So, dream big.  Don't be afraid to try. 

You may have plenty of people who will say no, but there is someone who will say yes. 

Because we all can make a difference, one random person at a time. 

For more pictures and info check out #VansFloodRelief on Twitter and Instagram 

When flood waters rise, so do we.

I'm not going to lie.

I have not written in a long time.  I sometimes see the outdated blog staring at me almost taunting me to write.  I decided to take a break and get refocused.  Life has thrown me a couple of curveballs in the past few months, and I needed some time to figure it all out.  But all of that is for another day.


Most of you know I am a Colorado gal.  I have lived here since I was three years old and my dad moved us from Lexington Kentucky to Boulder with IBM.  I'm not a native, but I am darn close.

I love Colorado.  It is an amazing state.  I love Longmont.  It is a great city.   In fact, it is such a great city we were voted the 2nd happiest city behind Napa California due to our overabundance of happy Tweets.  And if we can outtweet the wine capital of the world, we must be happy.

 Longmont Times- Call Tweet This

Recently we were not so happy.  The weather freaked out on us and dumped rain until floods ran rampant over our amazing state.  Over 7000 people were displaced.   It was an insane experience that seemed surreal,  as if you were walking on a movie set- but not my hometown.

Photo by Payton Peterson

We got rocked.  We had churches, schools and civic buildings set up as shelters for all the displaced people.   The National Guard was called in and had to airlift out many people living in mountain communities, after they had been stranded for days.  People died in the flood waters.

I rolled over Thursday morning, September 12th 2013 to get ready for work.  I glanced at my phone.   There was an email that school was cancelled due to pending flooding.  After my initial glee of a day off, I started to worry.  I pulled my sweat pants on and headed to my laptop.  I began to scour the internet for information.  I had the TV on with the news.  By sundown things were getting really really bad.  I didn't know what to do.  I read the tweets from people wondering what was going on.  I saw the concerned facebook posts.  I knew the one thing I could do was to keep people up to date.  I could stay online and share information.  I could tweet, I could facebook, and I could email.  And I did.  Suddenly social media had a real, important purpose. There were no political rants posted. There were no horrible bathroom "selfies" on twitter.  Information was flying around Longmont, and I felt grateful to help, in some little way.


What happened next I suppose happens in a lot of places where there is a tragedy, but I think in Longmont,  in the 2nd happiest twitter place, we did it really, really well.   The people came together. Longmont went to work.  Longmont rolled up it's sleeves, pulled on it's boots, grabbed a shovel and their neighbor and went to work.   People could get back into their houses to work.  The National Guard tried to keep the volunteers out of the areas, but that didn't work too well.  School was cancelled for a week.  I hoped my leadership students would not waste the time, but help.  Boy, was I impressed. They helped. They were amazing.  EVERYONE was amazing.   We gathered at my house and made hundreds of sack lunches to deliver to the volunteers who were cleaning out basements and working so hard to help.

We collected tools and cleaning supplies to help those in need.  People donated hundreds of dollars of worth of items.  

A friend collected items from BYU and her Utah friends and drove it all over to Colorado to help.  

A friend and her family gathered items and mailed them from California 

We gathered a group of people from the LDS church, the Silver Creek Leadership Academy and many amazing local folks and made 1600 sack lunches in an event called 

FLOOD LONGMONT WITH FOOD 

And then we delivered the lunches. 

My students were amazing.  They worked hard and were featured in a newspaper article.

http://www.timescall.com/news/colorado-flood/ci_24143449/st-vrain-students-take-advantage-school-closures-by

Then, one of the kindest acts of thanks I have ever been given, I was thanked for stepping up to help in an article in the Longmont Times Call.


http://www.timescall.com/lifestyles-top-stories/ci_24136302/when-their-community-needed-them-most-these-people

So out of the mud, the smell, the damage came this amazing thing.  We stopped whining about things that we disagree on and we helped each other.  It reminded me of the United States right after 9/11.  We stopped finding fault with each other for a little while and were proud to be Americans.  In Longmont, I saw people from very different faiths working together in someone's basement and yard.   I saw kids with "Longmont Trojans" and "Silver Creek Raptors" T-shirts on working side by side and enjoying each other.  People stopped what they were doing and donated what they had for those who had nothing.  A member of the Red Cross was quoted as saying they had never seen a town come together like Longmont.  Maybe they were surprised, but I wasn't.

I know the people here.
They are my friends.
They are my co-workers.
They are the teenagers working part-time who push my cart to the car from King Soopers.
They are the the ladies at the Post Office in the Ace Hardware that know my son is on a mission in California.
They are my kid's teachers and coaches.
They are the policemen and firemen.
They are my friends who are elected officials, and newspaper reporters.
They are my friends from the Longmont Chamber of Commerce, small business owners who gave away all kinds of items to help.
They are retired people who volunteer all around the city.
They are Pastors and Priests and Rabbis and Bishops.
They are football players, soccer players, cheerleaders and bandies.
They are all the amazing people who make Longmont what it is.

On the night of September 12th 2013 We forgot all that divides us and thought of only one thing.  

How can I help? 

And that, was a beautiful thing......

Seeing us truly, make a difference, one random woman (person) at a time...... 

Happy Easter!

         


 There is something about spring that always makes me smile.
I love waking up early and feeling the "Spring" air.  There is something about it.  I am suddenly transported back to my childhood  and walking to the bus stop on my way to Douglass Elementary school in Boulder, Colorado.

 It was the time of year you could stop wearing the big winter coat, and the clompy boots.   I didn't have to wear tights with my dress anymore and I could put shorts on underneath....( A key necessity for playing on the monkey bars!)  The grass started to turn green. Flowers were starting to poke through the cold, hard ground.

The birds were all around and different chirps serenaded me down the dirt road, over the bridge by the ditch and off to the bus stop in front of the Batstone's corral.   The sun felt different.  The air smelled different.

      Perhaps it was the fact that Easter was around the corner.  There were a couple of things I remember about easter.   My mom would drag out the Easter baskets out of the attic.  They would have the same plastie eggs in them with the same grass.  (sometimes the same black jelly beans in from the last year, if you were not careful!)  A new chocolate bunny,  refilled eggs, a coloring book, crayons and underwear and socks. I am not sure when the Easter Bunny became obsessed with my need for new underwear, but I suppose my mother's worries of me having on clean underwear in case I was in a car accident spurred that on......  Anywho, that was the contents of the Easter Basket.    The dreadful part was still to come.  My mother, would go out and get me a frilly, fluffy dress with a matching white purse and white gloves.

Now, my mother knew me. She knew I was much more inclined to play with GI Joe than Barbie. She knew I would rather shoot beer cans off the fence pole with my dad than knit.   She knew I would would ride my bike 50 miles an hour down the hill over baking a cake anytime.  Yet, every year, I would come home from school to this Easter Dress torture device.  The fabric might as well have  been steel wool.  It was itchy, it was stiff and it was horribly uncomfortable.  Then there was the gloves and purse set.    She would expect me to head to church on Sunday with these gloves on that would prohibit me from even my ability to open the car door.   The purse?  This thing could not even carry a pack of gum, let alone a basketball.  Why did the people at Fashion Bar hate little girls?   The good part of Easter was a ham dinner, mashed potatoes and homemade rolls, and the second you could get out of that scratchy dress and get into some real clothes.   

Now?  

I would love to have my mother over for dinner.  I could make a pretty decent ham and potatoes, but I would ask her to bring the homemade rolls or she would just be getting the heat and serve ones from King Soopers.  She has been gone for almost 34 years. 

 I am lucky to have my dad at my house with me.  He will appreciate the ham dinner, the hard boiled eggs and he won't notice the non-homemade rolls.    I won't have a lot of Easter dinners left with him.  I will enjoy them while I can. 

But my thoughts now turn to Christ.  The thoughts of that day when he died on the cross and suffered horribly.  The sadness of my own weaknesses and faults but then to his kindness and love for me, and for everyone.   My thoughts turn from the cross to the empty tomb.  To the thoughts that he is risen again and that he has conquered  death.   With that news, I can have hope to see loved ones who have gone before.  That is great news.  That is sit in the scratchy dress news.  That gives me hope and purpose to know that Christ expects me,  gloves, purse and all, to make a difference.   He knows we all can make a difference, one random woman at a time.  

Enjoy a video entitled "He Is Risen" from the

 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

And Happy Easter!!  

The parable of the Wontons

Chinese food......  One of my favorites.  I am not too picky.
I like Royal Wok for the quick lunch buffet for $6.20.
I like Orange chicken from Panda Express.
 I like Fong Garden because they deliver.

Thursday after a long day at work Travis and I decided to phone in an order to Royal Wok and pick it up on the way home for dinner.  After some discussion on what Hank would like, Travis called in our order and we headed up to North Main Street to pick it up.  I sent Travis in with some cash and then sent a couple of quick emails out while I waited in the car.  Travis came out with a large box that seemed way to big for our order, but didn't think much of it.  We headed to home.

Travis and I continued to chat, when my curiosity got the best of me at the stop light.
"What did you order again Trav?"  I ask.
"Sesame Chicken, Beef Lo-mein,  Beef and Broccoli, white rice and wontons." He says.
 I glance back to the large box in the back seat of my car....   I reached back and opened one of the top Styrofoam box.  The box contained 10 wontons.
"Um, Trav, how many wontons did you order?"  I ask.
"I asked for 5." he says.
I open the next Styrofoam box and see another 10 wontons.   I count the Styrofoam boxes..... there are 5.   I begin to laugh.
"Honey, I think we have 5 ORDERS of wontons, instead of 5 wontons."
Travis spins around and looks at the back of the car.
"No way!"  He says.

We pull into the garage and carry the box into the house where upon further inspection, we see that there are, in fact, Five boxes of wontons.  50 wontons for me, Travis and my 84 year old father.

We had a good laugh, and I thanked  Travis for the smile he gave me.   Luckily, he has a good sense of humor and the wontons will live on in family folklore.  But it got me thinking....

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place"  

                                                                                                          George Bernard Shaw 

Travis thought he ordered one order of five wontons.  The person on the other end of the line heard five orders of ten wontons.  How often do we not communicate very clearly with each other? How often do we think we know exactly what the other person meant?

So many problems could be avoided if we had better communication with each other.  I know I often struggle with listening, understanding, not assuming things and allowing my bias or perspective to cloud the conversation.   I avoid conflict and sometimes don't want to have the difficult conversations because I am not sure how to have them.   I keep working on them.  Little steps by little steps I try harder to be a better communicator, because relationships are worth it.  People are worth it.   When you are struggling to understand someone,  think of the parable of the wontons.   Are you saying what you really mean?  Are you hearing what the other person really is saying?   Sure, our 50 wontons was a pretty painless price to pay for a moment of miscommunication,  but sometimes, the stakes are a lot higher. 

How about our communication with our Heavenly Father?  Do we really communicate with him though meaningful prayer, or do we toss out our order for 5 wontons?  Improving our communication with our Father in Heaven is a great step to really learning how to talk to someone.  God loves you.  He wants to hear from you, and he wants to talk and understand your needs and concerns, joys and happiness.  Improving the communication there will have a huge impact on our life.

Communication.  We can all take a minute and do a little bit better job., and in the process, we will all make a difference in our amazing world,  one random woman at a time. 

2013 Fasten your seatbelts!

It really was only a little bit ago that I was writing about 2012 knocking at the door. 

 How did it fly by so quickly??  

I have given up on writing resolutions, mostly because every year I write loose 20 lbs, live on a budget, have sparkling clean cabinets and closets, put scrapbooks together, cook more often and be a better person...... so, really, do I need to say those again??? 

Today on facebook I saw a picture and a quote from President Monson from Mormon.org.   I wanted to share it here.

“Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it’s a cinch. Decisions Determine Destiny.”

                                                                                              Thomas S. Monson

"Many people agree that the key to successful change is to set realistic goals and recognize achievement and progress when it is being made, no matter how small or insignificant it may appear to be."


So this year, I am not going to measure life by the yard.  The scoreboard is unplugged.  The comparison chart  in my brain that I use when I see one of my amazingly talented friends do something I can not do and I suddenly feel like a failure is disconnected.   I am going to use the mirror as my measure and I am going to listen to the spirit to guide me to do what the Lord needs me to do......an inch at a time.   Two events this past year taught me the lesson of an inch at a time.  

Hiking to La Fortuna waterfall in Costa Rica.  

La Fortuna is a beautiful waterfall in the Costa Rican Jungle.  It is amazing.  The only issue with La Fortuna, is..... the stairs.   I am not sure how many stairs there really are.  Some say 400.  Some say 500.  Some say 900.  One guide to the area just lists  it as a "slippery and precipitous trail." 

It is a hike and it is "slippery and precipitous"  (in case you were wondering what that word meant...)

pre·cip·i·tous  

/priˈsipətəs/

Adjective Dangerously high or steep. (of a change for the worse) Sudden and dramatic. Dead on definition.....BTW...... While you are headed down, you keep seeing the waterfall in the distance, so it looks awesome, and you are excited.... but there is this nagging feeling in your gut that what comes down must go up... and unless there is a hot air balloon, or elevator at the bottom of this baby, you are walking it back up...      This was my second trip to La Fortuna, so I knew what to expect.  It had nearly killed me the summer before.  Part of me wanted to skip it.   I had seen it before.  I could just relax and enjoy the quiet of the jungle, and let the group go down.... but I knew better.  I knew 50 was lurking around the corner, and I needed to hike those stairs at La Fortuna again.  So I did.  One step at a time.  And it was amazing.  I wouldn't have missed it for the world..... and I made it back up those slippery and precipitous stairs... all 400, 500 or however-many-hundered of them there are.... One step at a time....

Then, this summer I climbed the GREAT WALL OF CHINA.   

My son Travis and I on the Great Wall

I was on the trip with an amazing co-worker, Lauren, and her husband, Adam.  We decided to head to the "harder" side of the wall as it was less crowded, and we were sure the views would be great.   Most of our students took off to see how fast they could do the wall, so the three of us ventured off up the wall.  At first, it was like everything we did in China.  We would slap each other and jokingly say, "Hey! We are in CHINA!"   The hike up the wall became harder and harder and steeper and steeper.  My Colorado body was dripping in humidity sweat.  

 Lauren and Adam would pause for me to catch my breath.  At times, I was tempted to just turn around.   After all,   I was in China.  I was on the Great Wall.  It was amazing and I had seen it.  I could go back down and get a cold Orange Fanta and wait for the rest of the gang.  But Lauren reminded me that I really wanted to get to the top.  We wanted to go all the way up!!!  We could do it, one step at a time, and we could stop anytime we wanted to. ( Now, my young friend Lauren had no trouble whipping up the wall, she was just being kind to her older friend....)  

Then she said reminded me I was days away from turning 50.  How cool to remember that the year I turned 50 I climbed the great wall of China.  We did it.  We hoofed it up the wall.  I marveled at the scenery.  I marveled at the architecture.  I thought of those who lost their lives building that wall.  I thought of those it defended in times of war.   I was climbing history, and I had no idea if I would stand on that ground again in my life.  I was going to the top.    


One Step at a Time.... 

Now I was grateful to have my friend Lauren there to poke me and prod me to remind me that I really did want to go all the way to the top.  We all need friends to cheer us on when times get tough or when we feel we can't do it.    Hopefully we all remember that we have a friend who never leaves us, as hard as the road may get, as difficult as the challenge may be, our Savior, Jesus Christ is always beside us.  He cheers us on and knows the deep potential for excellence that is within all of us.  He knows how hard the road is because he walked it himself.  He knows how to succor us.  

So this year..........

• I may not loose 20 lbs....  (although I really am going to try!) 
• I may not really live on a budget... (although I married a financial analyst...so that will help!) 
• I may not have sparkling clean cabinets and closets..... (although today I did organize my sock drawer!) 
• I may not do scrapbooks..... ( but I made my son a great memory book of our trip to China for Christmas!) 
• I may not cook more often....(although I made a mean pulled pork today in the crock pot!)

• I may not become a better person.......(actually, the chances of me becoming better are in my favor.....as long as I try....a little bit... every day.....) 

 You see, because Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it’s a cinch. Decisions Determine Destiny..So let's all make 2013 a year of inches.  Because we all make a difference.....one random woman at a time!