It takes a village . . .

While I'm not a strong Hillary fan I do like the title that she (or was it her editor?) chose for one of her books. I learned the strength of the village when managing my staff at Foremost; I was fortunate to have three of the most interesting people under my supervision to pull together in support of my mission. My 'village' now has various locales and I find that I'm now fortunate to view and participate in others' villages. The learning continues . . .

On Saturday morning I met with Jan, Anne, and Jenny to work on our Technology Mission Partnership project with Albright Church. We all carry a strong passion for this project and bring different viewpoints to the table -- Jan from the business sense, Anne organization, Jenny culture, and me? I'm not sure exactly where I fit in but perhaps I offer the insight and empathy of those women struggling to change their circumstances as a former single mother. I never thought that would be an asset but I have learned that in order for one to succeed one must undergo some type of a transformation. It's like Christie's favorite children's book, The Hungry Caterpillar . . . am I in the crystalis stage now? Anyhow, we did alot of brainstorming and came up with some really wonderful ideas and plans on how we can take our program out to the community. Here we come!

Sunday I spent the most wonderful quality bonding time with Christie -- we volunteered for the Channel 10 fund drive. We had never done anything like that before and I was elated to watch Christie interact with the other volunteers and do her very best at her 'job'. Not only had either of us ever volunteered for a Channel 10 event, but neither had we volunteered at anything together (other than walking in the Menomonee Falls Christmas Parade with her beloved Pudgie but I don't think that counts)! I am certainly blessed to have a daughter with such a community-minded vision as my Christie. I'd love to take credit for that but those of you who know my Christie know that's all her -- the pure wonderment of it all. The fund drive was an orchestrated event where everyone had their marks and were 'live' at a second's notice. I was quite impressed with the level of organization that pulling something like this together required. Yes, they've done it a couple of (hundred) times but WOW! We'll certainly do this again. Here we come!