Son Mattie’s time is about to get more precious.
Did I tell you that, in August, I am going to be a grandmother, again? It has been 12 years since we have had a new baby in the family and everybody, including the menfolk, are vying for the new baby’s attention.
Have you heard of the 10,000-hour rule? It was made popular by author Malcom Gladwell, who wrote the bestselling book, Outliers: The Story of Success. Mr. Gladwell said you need 10,000 hours practice at something to be a phenom. To be freakishly awesome, and to be such a standout among your peers that your first name is enough to tell people who you are: Think Peyton, Tiger, Venus, Kobe, Oprah.
No longer having mouths to feed at home, I was able to travel to Connecticut this past weekend to see a long-time friend of mine’s daughter get married. It was fun. The weather was picture perfect, the mountains and rivers plentiful, and the roads windy.
Young people often ask me, “What was your favorite age?” My answer is always the same: “Now.”
Everyone laments about all the negative news these days, but you can’t really blame the media. They are only serving up what we humans like to hear. I must admit, when CBS’s Nora O‘Donald starts her feel-good segment at the end of all her Evening News, I get up and leave the room to start dinner.
The Dallas Cowboys football team is about as close to a pro sports team as Arkansas gets. We Arkansans relate to them because their current owner, Jerry Jones, and their former coach, Jimmy Johnson, both harken from Arkansas. And their alma mater, the U of A, is a feeder school for the team’s new recruits.
Leadership has been a reoccurring theme the past two weeks. I’ve been…
My love of old structures and saving history is evident in the lifestyle choices I’ve made (i.e. the Dreamland Ballroom and my 1911 Craftsman-style residence). This preference began early. In 1975, upon returning home to Arkansas from Dallas, I took up residency in the aging Hillcrest neighborhood of Little Rock, Arkansas.
After watching a segment on 60 Minutes (my favorite show) about recycling plastic, I have been obsessed about reducing my consumption. Recycling is a myth. We’ve lulled ourselves into believing that by sorting and recycling, we were being good stewards of mother earth.
In less than two months, I have recorded three new radio interviews, torn my home up in a remodeling frenzy, bought a work-in-progress business in Miami with new travel expenditures, and happened to witness the launch of Elon Musk’s first civilian space launch with Space X from Cape Canaveral.
If you haven’t read Kristin Hannah’s book The Nightingale, then you need to put it on your book list. This soon to be made into a movie book has everything, except maybe laughter.
It is hard to believe I have lived in my house for almost 30 years. When first moving in with a budding family, it didn’t seem big enough. Now, it’s too big.
At this stage of my life, I find many of my friends are downsizing . I too have contemplated a smaller place, but with my still-nagging ambition, and possible fallacy to believe “bigger is better,” I just can’t pull the trigger and move into a condo.
This past flag season, which is the second quarter of every year, it seems everybody in America was looking to represent themselves with a flag.
At first, I thought it was just the flag business that was seeing unprecedented sales. But, after noticing all the bare shelves in other retail stores and after asking around, I realized that this phenomenon is all over the place. People are shopping and spending their eating-at-home savings and newfound stimulus money like crazy.
When I first started Flag and Banner, I waitressed at Sir Loin’s Inn to supplement my income. I was young and my boss at the restaurant, Mr. Aaron Ross, was a business mentor, of sorts. One day, I asked, “What’s it like to be the boss?” I’ll never forget what he said because it’s proved true over and over again. He said, “Being the boss is doing all the things you can’t pay other people to do.”