Anne's first blog post.

Hi i'm Anne Harjes. so let me tell you a little bit about me. I'm a daughter,sister,and i'm also a third grade student.On my free time I like to hang out with my friends.And most importantly I  like to spend time with my family.And this is how we came up with the idea for a mom,brother and sister waterfall quest.So we were thinking about what to do when summer were to start. We thoght we should go on a hike and see what we can find.But we also wanted to see something you can't just find anywhere.So my mom said WE SHOULD GO SEE A WATERFALL.I said we shouldn't just see one we should see as many as we can in the whole summer.And that is how we got the idea of what to do during the long summer.

If you are wondering how many waterfalls do I want to see. well I want to see all the waterfalls in Minnesota.But it will take alot of effort to do all that we want to do.
so thanks for hearing the bizz so i'll get back to you soon.

SEE YOU SOON!

A Start: Goals vs Stories

I'm an employee.  I'm someone's supervisor.  I'm a daughter, sister and wife.  I'm a college student.  And I'm a mom.  It was during one of my classes as a college student that I was introduced to the musings of Donald Miller, a Christian author.  I was drawn to his writings on "living a good story".  Essentially, Miller writes that many of us set the same goals over and over again and fail again and again (think back to Jan. 1 of any year) because we fail to recognize that goals get met in the narrative of the story.  In his words, "a story gives a goal a narrative context and forces you to engage and follow through" (Miller, 2010). 

Fast forward to today.  I'm sitting in front of my TV, still in my PJs, make-up smudged from yesterday, thinking about how quickly my kids are growing up.  This is something that every parent does (although I understand that really put-together moms who never have smudged make-up do exist ... but I don't know any of them).  Instead of wasting away our years together, I want these next 5-8 years to mean something.  Anne and Dylan are 9 and 10.  Will I still get another 8 years with them?  8 years where I still get to decide what they do, who they hang out with and what's for supper?  Probably not, but I'm going to take what I can get and hold it tight and live a great story. 

Which brings us to Anne and Dylan's Great Waterfall Adventure.  Previously the goal would have been something like this:
1.  Spend more quality time with the kids this summer.
2.  Get outside more.
3.  Get more outside exercise in our very few nice MN months (read "lose a couple pounds).
4.  Explore the often overlooked beauty in the nature that is right outside my back door. 

Instead, the story has began to unfold.  This summer we will discover as many waterfalls as possible.  Will it be time well spent?  Absolutely.  Will it meet the four goals above?  Probably.  Will I ever get this summer to do over again?  Never.