Awareness
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Living Through Superstorm Sandy
We were lucky. Sandy huffed and puffed but didn’t blow our house in. I wish the same could be said for tens of thousands of people along the north east coast line who were not so fortunate and still face the daunting task of pulling their lives back together. Sandy was scary. No two ways about it. We started to feel the effects on Sunday but the real storm arrived on Monday. The skies darkened. The trees began to sway more and more violently as the hours passed. The tension of what might happen began to grow in our stomachs. The power began to switch on and off, teasing us.…
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Inspirational Moms: Amy Norman and Stella Ma of Little Passports
One of the ways to teach our children to be compassionate and thoughtful of others is to teach them about the world around them. With knowledge and understanding of others comes an appreciation of the diversity that makes up our planet. I recently discovered a wonderful company called Little Passports that provides a fun and educational tool for parents to use that gets children excited about learning. I had a chance to interview the the two founders, Amy Norman and Stella Ma, both moms, and they talk about what inspired them to start Little Passports. Tell us what inspired you both to start Little Passports? Amy: I moved around a lot as…
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Presents – How Much is Too Much?
Can you believe Christmas is around the corner and the silly season is nearly upon us? Amongst all the feasting on rich food, indulging in plum pudding and hanging out with extended family, there’s the inevitable mountain load of new presents for the kids. It’s got me thinking lately, how much stuff do our kids really need? Deciding how many presents to give can be tricky. Most people would agree that kids today receive far more presents than we did when we were young. We love to see our kids’ faces light up when they receive what they wanted, but we don’t want them to develop an entitlement behavior…
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Looking Back I Made the Right Choices After All!
When I became a mom, I immediately felt the push-pull between making the right career choices and doing what was best for my kids. On the career side, it was a time when flexible schedules, job sharing, or work from home were concepts, just beginning to creep into the work environment…and that’s if you were lucky enough to be working for a forward-thinking enterprise. No, if you wanted to become upper management material (and I did), you had to arrive before everyone else, and leave when you looked up from your desk and saw the janitor coming down the hallway. Then there was the pull from wanting to be a…
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Toward the Stars: Empowering Girls
It’s not often you come across a person who so believes in their vision so much that they are willing to put it all on the line to make it a reality. Ines Almeida, the creator of Toward the Stars, is such a person. Her journey to create a global marketplace for empowering gifts for girls has been one of determination and hard work. She quit her job and put all of her life savings into Toward The Stars because of her desire to create a venue with a single purpose: to help reduce all threats to girlhood that crush our girls’ true nature and potential. The New Girlie-Girl…
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Family Relationships: Handle with Grace and Compassion
Three years ago I moved back home to live with my mom. This is may be out of the ordinary for a person in her thirties, maybe not. What was out of the ordinary was the fact that she and my dad were also living together, as roommates, after almost 20 years of being split up. It was an opportunity for me to enjoy the blessings of a two parent home. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if it were as easy as that? The hard reality showed quickly. It was pretty apparent that my dad was still reactive and quick-tempered, at times downright cruel. My mom as result was defensive, cold. These…
