Milestones

We generally think of milestones as being major accomplishments.  However, as I embrace moving forward one day at a time, it's encouraging to consider addressing, accomplishing and celebrating as milestones, anything that we complete that might have impeded our progress.

Milestones are as unique as the individuals who achieve and recognize them.

1000 Things to Say? Yes!

When I began this adventure - 1000 posts ago, with the encouragement of Christine and Janet, I wouldn't have done it if they'd told me I had to post 1000 times. Thankfully, they both assured me that only one post every week would suffice.  And, what an inspiring project it has been!

Things I've realized:

• starting is often the hardest step and encouragement is crucial
• we all have more to share than we know
• attempting something contemporary and new to us is another way to continuously learn and relate to younger friends and associates
• expecting to share information makes us more observant and communicative
• no one has 1000 things to spontaneously share
• setting an achievable goal is motivating (it's exciting to realize that I've exceeded the once per week objective nearly five times!)
• we never know who might be touched by the things we share
• reconnecting with old friends is a joy
• stuff that happens to us might encourage another
• creative outlets take different forms at various stages of our lives

Proud Mama

I've taken the longest break from blogging since I began two years ago - three days.  This has been a milestone weekend for our family with Julia's graduation from Georgetown and Gar's from Kinkaid.  Apparently, each year, one Kinkaid family has dual graduations the same weekend, and this year it was us.

Every parent should be so lucky to have children who they love, admire, respect and enjoy spending time with. We have always been thankful that Julia and Gar are great friends. And their great friends continue to enrich our lives.  I am so very blessed.

Milestone Moments

At this time next week, we will have two newly minted graduates. The years have literally flown.  There are major celebrations to mark these passages. I now know that there have been 525,600 milestone moments in each year of my precious children's lives :  waking, sleeping, growing, playing, smiling, learning, laughing, crying, trying, competing, eating, walking, talking, testing, resting, running, swimming, cooking, hunting, fishing, travelling, driving, flying, winning, losing, reading, singing, biking, texting, phoning, dating, dancing, skating, coming, going, and always loving.

 

Moving Forward

Life is full of milestones.  May is the month of graduations and weddings.  Each of these ceremonies recognize all that has come before and celebrate the exciting opportunities that lie ahead.  We aren't always as astute in the corporate setting at acknowledging the close of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. 

Yesterday, Sterling Bank's Leadership Council met for what we expect to be the final time (our merger with Comerica is expected to close in the 2nd quarter).  It was not only a chance to thank each of these top Sterling leaders for their contributions but also for each attendee to individually and collectively reflect upon relationships, accomplishments and futures.

Part of moving forward is acknowledging what has been.

Last First

Wednesday morning was quite emotional (for me, not him), as I photographed Gar for the 14th and final first day of school picture at Kinkaid.  He's naturally excited about this amazing year. And, we're excited for him.  I've loved each age and stage of Julia's and Gar's lives, so my heart says that a Southfork experience of continuing to benefit from their daily presence would be fabulous.  My brain knows that our job as parents is to love and guide our children to independence. 

My heart and brain are in agreement that as much as I cherish the present, the future will also be fabulous. Here's to a year of cheers and tears!

1 Year + 25 Days

A new milestone for me!  In 390 days, I've created 365 blog posts.  Not bad for someone who initially assumed that once per week was as much as I'd be willing and able to commit...

I would never have imagined all that I would gain from this experience including:

• embracing the discipline and commitment to continue
• reconnecting with friends and establishing new relationships
• becoming a hyper-observer (my term for always looking for things to share from daily encounters)
• boosting creativity
• establishing credibility with Gen Y
• challenging myself - okay, the first post was a known challenge; daily posts created a new bar
• connecting experiences, learnings and relationships that might not ordinarily be connected
• making as many new personal and business connections as I've made

I am most grateful to each of you who have read  and shared my posts!  And, I love the comments that are posted, or much more frequently, delivered individually to me.  And, I am thankful to those who have requested permission to use my posts in other publications.  I Lovett (love it) when you ask to share my posts.

Maybe in year 2, I'll revert to the initial once per week expectation...

Still thinking about next steps!