ButterTree & Biscuits

Valentine’s Day is around the corner — heart-themed store displays and chocolate galore! It got me curious about how different families celebrate. Is Valentine’s Day about romantic love for you — the day you call a babysitter, go out to a fancy dinner with your spouse?

The reason this topic came up is I was having a conversation with my friend Sara. (Not her real name.) She’s a mom, raising two kids, and she was telling me about an article that changed the way she parented; it discussed the importance of independent play for children, and she realized she may have been hovering...

"My daughter is three and a half, and every morning she’ll come into my bed to wake me up . . . or sometimes she’ll come in the middle of the night just to snuggle. One particular morning, when I told her it was time to get ready for school, she said, ‘I don’t feel like going to kindergarten’."

I can’t help but think how empty my life would be without my poodle Carlota’s little skip and a jump out of bed and towards the door every morning. Without our little chihuahua Pipp and his snorty, happy approach when I sit on the  couch with my coffee.

It’s the first week after the holidays and I have to admit I’ve been feeling low-energy. It got me thinking about how winter can sometimes be hard on people. I had someone in my life tell me over the holidays that they were having stress dreams — that they weren’t even fully enjoying their time off because they were already counting days until they had to go back to work. And these last few weeks I’ve seen people transitioning back into their old routines — packing to travel back home, facing the unknowns of the new year. 

Some of my big goals for 2022 are to deepen my relationships, widen my social circle and improve my communication. Over the years, I’ve found different goal setting strategies that work for me. One challenge I’ve often faced is getting caught up in the needs of the moment then falling out of line with my overall mission.