A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama (through daily doings). If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

My friends Jeremy and Elizabeth Sobkowiak were in the midst of an overseas adoption when they got word that the birth mother of their son was pregnant again, and wanting them to adopt the baby. They had already decided that they would never turn down a sibling adoption, so they immediately said “yes.” But now, after having raised almost all the funds for their overseas adoption, they have to raise all the fees for this adoption, too. One of the ways they have been raising money is through Just Love Coffee Roasters.

If you’re looking for ways to make your Christmas gifts more meaningful this year (or just looking for some really great coffee), please consider buying this fairly-traded, sustainably-farmed coffee to help Jeremy and Elizabeth bring their babies home. As if that weren’t enough incentive, 5% of every sale of Just Love Coffee goes to support clean water projects in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya.

Here’s the link to their coffee sales page https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/zzpetals/. You can also go to their blog, ZuZu’s Petals, to read more about their story and to see other ways to support their adoption.

A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama (through daily doings). If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

I’ve been really enjoying expressing myself through art lately. It’s fun especially because I never drew much, and never thought I was an artist, but I always wished I could be. Turns out all you really need to do is just draw, and not worry about whether you’re good or not. If you’re drawing, you’re an artist! You too!

Very interesting study! http://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-your-research-what-makes-a-team-smarter-more-women/ar/1#.TlAFtC1WF-A.facebook

The finding: There’s little correlation between a group’s collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members. But if a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises.

The more women in a group, the higher the group scored on their tasks –brainstorming, decision making, and visual puzzles, and solving one complex problem.

Another great quote from the article:

What do you hear about great groups? Not that the members are all really smart but that they listen to each other. They share criticism constructively. They have open minds. They’re not autocratic. And in our study we saw pretty clearly that groups that had smart people dominating the conversation were not very intelligent groups.

That last bit reminds me of 1 Corinthians 12. “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”

Gorgeous day in Boston today! Yesterday was my birthday, and it was a good one. Some highlights:

Z, the four year old I babysit for drew me a picture of a “birthday tornado storm,” with lots of wind, smoke and lightning. Love it.

I went with Z and his 15mo old brother, N, to the Boston Nature Center, where we saw lots of birds, including wild turkeys, hawks, robins, I think an osprey, and my favorite, red-winged blackbirds. They are so beautiful, with the flash of red against the shiny black. I took them as a personal birthday present. And just seeing the kids running around and loving the outdoors was wonderful.

Pushed myself at the gym for a new personal record: 2 mile run at 5mph. I started running in February, and it took me weeks to even run a mile at all; weeks more to run one at 5mph. Yesterday I did two!

And one of my favorite writers/bloggers, Glennon, posted a wonderful quote by Amma that made my day:

“The essence of motherhood is not restricted to women who have given birth; it is inherent in both men and women. It is an attitude of the mind. It is love, and love is the very breath of life.” Amma (not mine, the hugging saint of India)

We Are All Mothers.

Oh, and the title of this post is from one of Z and my favorite books, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.

We’re going on a bear hunt

We’re going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We’re not scared.

Whenever I say to Z, “What a beautiful day!” He replies, “We’re not scared!” What a wonderful affirmation, don’t you think? Let’s go!