How often during a conversation with someone do you spend the time they are talking actively listening to him or her? Are you paying attention to them, or are you forming your response to them or thinking about how their situation isn’t all that bad and you’ve seen worse? Or perhaps someone is talking to you, and you just need to get that one thing done today and so instead of stopping what you are doing, you try and listen while still working on that task?

Being positive does not mean that you are naïve or that you gloss over the fact that there is so much trouble in the world today, being positive means that you don’t allow yourself to focus solely on the negative. Even on the best days you have, there will be negative factors, but on the best days there is so much else to focus on that we sometimes hardly notice. It is on the days when we aren’t doing the best that we need to intentionally be positive.

There is a something to say about being loyal. My grandpa always says, “Make new friends, but keep the old. Those are silver, but these are gold.”  Last week I wrote about being intentional, and this weekend I took my own advice. I made it a goal during another busy weekend of weddings to make sure and stop and see a friend who I hadn’t seen in way too long.

Happy Monday,

Over the last few weeks I’ve had one point or idea that has seemed to be popping up all over the place. It has come from sources that are not connected as far as I know, but all speak to the same point as if in unison. The idea is intentionality, and the importance of it. Intention is defined as “a determination to act in a certain way” or “done on purpose; deliberate” and “performed with purpose”.

In what I view as the culmination of all his books Jon Gordon puts all the pieces of the puzzle together in The Power of Positive Leadership. In the fall of 2014 Oregon Women’s Basketball head coach Kelly Graves mentioned a few things to me from the book The Energy Bus that he was using for his team and suggested I read it and also Soup.

The definition of true bravery is often misconstrued. I won’t get into everything that is labeled brave or what is and isn’t brave, that I leave for your interpretation after you read this.

Tonight something didn’t go as most people had suggested that it would go. Donald Trump defied all the predictive polls that suggested that Hillary Clinton would win, most predicted in a landslide. For many tonight there is a feeling of fear, a fear that has been perpetrated many. Many will see this as the “worst thing ever” or a reason to get angry, or does it?

I’m sitting here in Eugene, waiting for “the storm of the century” to hit.  So far, thankfully it isn’t been very bad in Eugene, out on the coast it has been a different story as they have sustained near hurricane force winds.

One of my favorite features in natures is a waterfall. Big, small, it doesn’t matter I love them all. Luckily I live in an area of the county that has waterfalls in much abundance. It seems that Oregon, has them everywhere and there is an especially high number of them within two hours of Eugene. This spring my brother, his fiancé, a couple friends and I took trips to several of the nearby waterfalls.

Numbers, they supposedly “never lie”. Numbers get most of the attention, but they don’t tell the whole story. If numbers told everything you needed to know then hardly anyone would look on the senior class of 2016 from the Oregon Women’s basketball team as a success. Sure the occasional person would see the numbers Jillian Alleyne has posted. Luckily for me and others, who have seen this team play, and gotten to know them a little bit over the last four years, we realize that numbers only tell a fraction of the story.

What kind of person are you when trouble is at your door? When the weight of the world is on your shoulder, are you the person you want to me? Do you stay the same person through tragedies for your friends and personal tragedies or are you strong for others but break down when similar things happen to you?

Few things are set in stone when working for my grandpa. This is another story that defines that. The last week of September I was supposed to be part of a sleep study for Washington State University.  The day before I was to step into the lab I was ruled out of the study because my veins were shrinking. Before the words had left my mouth telling my grandpa he had a plan, let’s go to Canada. As the week came to a close we planned a trip to Red Deer, Alberta. The purpose of the trip was two-fold, one reason was to check up on a company that was an investment and the other was to watch two horses that we had competing in Red Deer at a cutting.

One of my hobbies is photography. I do it in my free time and I have a blast doing it. I do not however consider myself a professional photographer. My grandpa however regularly makes it a habit of telling others that I’m a professional.

While I was doing marketing for Fairwood Retirement Village there was trouble brewing at the ranch.

The first task I was given was to start a marketing program at Fairwood Retirement Village in Spokane. For many years, Fairwood had success with minimal marketing because of word of mouth from its residents.

For the last couple of weeks I have been down in Arizona working on some projects and spending time with my grandparents. While cleaning out some closets with my grandma I found one of my old notebooks from when I liver here in 2011. I read through it and found a few good stories from my experiences with my grandpa and friends from 2010, including the introduction below, hope you enjoy it!

A little primer I wrote for Churchill Estates Retirement Community's blog this week as we approach the season opener for the Ducks vs Eastern Washington!

I wrote this post for a family friend Kim Chaffin, and her blog Heartfelt Ramblings of a midlife domestic goddess (Check it out here!) as part of her series Dirt, Trucks and Faith. (Check it out here!) I hope you enjoy it, and get a blessing from it!