Weekly Wrap and 5 Facts

Hope everyone has had a great week! Here are some highlights from our home and ministry…

• Our Key Team is planning some fun JAM Sessions in 2012…stay tuned for scheduling to see if we’ll be in your area (or contact us if you’re interested in having us come and work in your city!)
• Tomorrow, Rebecca Hamilton and I, along with Rebecca’s daughter, Abby and my daughter, Annie, will be teaching at JANUARY THAW (Cleveland Catholic Diocese.) The topic: Out of the Box Outreach.
• The kids have begun a new semester…I think everyone likes a fresh start!
• Listened to Margot Starbuck on Midday Connection this week…our family is reading Margot’s book, Small Things With Great Love: Adventures in Loving your Neighbor. HIGHLY recommend this!! (Margot and I went to the same camp when we were kids, and I was so happy to learn about what she is doing!)

And now…

5 Facts for Friday:

1. I did not win a Golden Globe this year. So disappointing.
2. Regarding regulations for network television, the Supreme Court commented, “One cannot tell what is indecent and what isn’t.” Really? Maybe we should get some kindergartners on the high court…I’m pretty sure they know the difference.
3. Pot roast on a snowy evening = pure comfort.
4. Congrats to my fabulous in-laws, Winslow and Barbara Wetherbee, who celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary this week!
5. Sometimes parenting requires heroic acts of trust and courage.

Have a warm weekend~
~Katie

Around here…January edition

Around here, we’ve welcomed the new year…

Around here, it snowed…my very favorite cozy kind of weather.

Around here, the semester just ended, which meant two teenagers converted our living room into a library while they studied for finals.

 

(and it also meant a yummy dinner at our favorite Mexican place to celebrate their hard work! We always do this BEFORE grades come out, because hard work is its own reward…) And yes…I know the poinsettia is dead. Give me a break. My gifting does NOT include horticulture.

Around here, we celebrated Aunt Catherine’s life at her funeral last Saturday. Her influence shaped my own motherhood tremendously. She raised a child with disabilities during an era when no services were provided by the school…and she did it with acceptance, resolve, patience, and a great dose of humor.

Around here, we’re relaxing on Martin Luther King Day. My sister and I have already talked on the phone, remembering the year my dad made us write a report about Dr. King that we had to present at dinner time; he felt we didn’t have a good grasp on the influence of this great man.

Here is an excerpt from a speech Dr. King made at a school just six months before his death:

 

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill. Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star.

For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

Around here, we’re thinking about these great words.

~Katie

Stay tuned for…Communicating about kids with disabilities in the age of social media.

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone, and happy new year to you! I’ve been absent for a while…I took a blog-break during Christmas vacation. Once we turned the page on the calendar, I was busy getting ready for a conference. Right now, I’m sitting at the Asheville Regional Airport waiting to board my flight to Atlanta, and then, by dinner time, I’ll be home!

I have so much to share with you…2012 is going to be a full year here on the blog~ and in “real life!” Just a few “previews” for you:

• A series about including teens with disabilities in church programs
• A summary of the Montreat Blaze Conference, including some pearls of wisdom from Tony Campolo (guaranteed to make you think!)
• A report on mental health issues and how families–and churches–can work together
• Interviews with some of my favorite folks…parents of kids with disabilities~ you’re going to love these people, and you’ll learn from their experiences
• Pictures of Mitzie. Because, after all, she is the wonder dog.
• Five Facts for Friday~ because we need to have some fun

And much, much more! 

Hope you all have had a good start to the year~ I’m looking forward to learning with you in 2012! And, now, I’m off to see these people:

Blessings~
Katie