What I’ve been up to:

• I helped my kids build Olafs for the snowman building contest at school.
  

  Not perfect, but I'm not a helicopter parent and my 6 year old actually did a great deal of this himself.

• I finally got rid of all the girl scout cookies.
• Over spring break we visited the Las Vegas Children’s Museum and Death Valley.
• We took a trip to Denver and stopped at Arches National Park along the way.
• I got an interview at the grad school program of my dreams. The drive there was stressful and I got little sleep the night before. The interview didn’t go as magically as I hoped, but I didn’t totally botch it either. Now we wait.
• A whole lot of homework.

What I’ve been reading/watching/listening to:

• An Amazing Mom of Seven Who Won’t Ever Ask– I only read SDL occasionally, but I loved this post and that he was willing to help his friend in need. A mom of seven kids with multiple sclerosis is struggling to keep it together. If you can donate a few dollars to worthy cause, I promise they are grateful. Here are their follow-up letters.

• Frozen-Over and over and over. 😉

• Prochaska- Stages of Change– I thought this was a very interesting presentation by a behavioral health researcher about helping people change to benefit their health. There are 5 stages of change and how you approach a person (perhaps a patient) in helping them to change depends on what stage they are in. I really loved this video and I felt that his ideas gave me hope for improving healthcare.
• My husband and I have been taking a Coursera course together called Psychology and Buddhism. I’ve learned many things so far. It makes you think about our motivation for doing things.

Categories: being creative, education, health, healthcare, helping others, Las Vegas, parks, what I've been up to | No Comments »