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Showing posts from December, 2018

Get Your Walk On

Starting tomorrow, the American Public Health Association (APHA) is once again sponsoring the Billion Steps Challenge. The goal is to get more Americans walking and moving and engaging in physical activity. You can join my team, HHWWalkers, on Move Spring. Move Spring is a free app that you can download on your phone to track your steps. I will be using Move Spring as well as my smart watch to track my steps every day. The goal for the first week is to walk 1,000 steps a day. If you want to know how much that is, it is approximately half a mile. I find that I can easily walk 1,000 steps a day just walking around the house, work, or my neighborhood. I know there are those who can walk more than 1,000 steps a day, and they are encouraged to do so. However, I wanted to start small so everyone can join in increasing their physical activity. Last year, I started doing the Billion Steps Challenge in late spring. In fact, the challenge was almost over when I started. I initially started wal

The Story Behind "Cow In The City."

This past week, I finished writing, illustrating and self-publishing my first children's book. The book is about a cow named Henrietta who leaves the farm and decides to move to I-Moo-Wa City. She is excited about living in the city, but then she discovers the challenges of living somewhere new. The book is dedicated to my nieces and nephews, and a cow that got loose one day. That's when this all began. Almost 15 years ago now, I finished my year-long fellowship in executive administration. The organization was reeling from the effects of a no-confidence vote, and the CEO was about to retire. Many of the executives were worried about losing their jobs or how things were going to pan out for them. They were also concerned about this merger organization and what would happen to it following what turned out to be a years-long battle. As a fellow, I was caught in the foray, tossed between executives, hoping and praying that someone would hire me, and worrying I wouldn't ge

Sing Someone's Praises

I was a camp counselor during college. Since I was in college for nearly ten years, I gained a lot of experience as a counselor. Working at camps taught me some important life skills that I was able to use the rest of my career. As a camp counselor, you have to be up and energized and enthusiastic about everything every day. Picking up rocks off the hillside as a cabin? Super fun! Fantastic! Hiking through the woods on a rainy day? What an adventure! Campers not getting along? Figure out what they like about each other! One of my tricks to deal with a cabin of girls who didn't get along was to have them do an exercise. The exercise was to sit down one afternoon and write down 10 things at least they liked about every other girl in the cabin. They couldn't be superficial things like, "her hair is pretty, she is skinny, she is tall." The items had to be real things that were only about the person. The girls really took it seriously. Why? They wanted to hear the nic