Happy Birthday Lars

Webster defines Leadership in four ways; The activity of leading; The body of people who lead a group; the status of a leader; and The ability to lead.

But does that really define leadership?

Wikipedia says this; “the ability to affect human behavior so as to accomplish a mission designated by the leader”

My 7^th grade English teacher, Mrs. Daley, said that you cannot define a word by using that word in the definition. So, what is the definition of leadership?

Feel free to share your thoughts.

We are going to sell Eden to the Circus as soon as she learns a few more tricks

Lars had his 1^st Birthday this week, on Thursday. They say the first year is the hardest, but I’m beginning to realize that my son is going to be hard no matter how old he is. One year down, 17 to go…

I went to an EMS Leadership conference this weekend in Grand Island. I had a five hour drive alone on
Thursday (after brownies and cinnamon ice cream for Lars) and at first, it was nice. Then, it just became boring. No cell phone signal in the hills, not much for radio stations, nothing to look at out the window except, well, hills and prairie land. No kids demanding my attention for pacifiers, crazy music, cups of water, crackers, books or ‘magna-noodles’, as Eden calls it. It was relatively quiet and peaceful. It was very weird.

The conference was extremely useful and got me thinking. I think the hardest part of being a leader of a small town volunteer squad is that, many times, you have people who don’t want to be lead. You can’t be an effective leader if you don’t have people who want to follow. So, the real questions becomes not “How do I become a good leader?” but rather, “How can I effectively help people desire to be good followers?”

Daddy had the kids this weekend, or at least, he was the taxi driver. He took them to daycare on Friday, but Stacey called him and said Lars wouldn’t stop crying and what should she do. I guess the rest of the day was no better. Laura had them on Saturday and, naturally, Lars slept for her for 3 hours. Then I had the long, solo, boring, dusky-watch-for-antelope drive home.

Eden loves Sunday School. However, she is convinced that the Psalmist is saying, “Oh sing to the Lord, for He is Good” instead of, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is Good”. So, her memory work is a bit off, but she’s getting the idea.

Lars, though a year old now, is not yet crawling. He takes the scooting concept to a whole new level and it’s hilarious to watch.

Weather is still warm here most days. Wake up to 50 degrees and by afternoon, it’s 85 and toasty. I took out all my annual flower gardens & pots in preparation of canning season. I did tomatoes & corn this week and with it so warm outside, I was literally cooking myself in the kitchen. Next week, I may can while wearing a bathing suit. Doesn’t really fit the theme of ‘autumn’ but might be more comfortable.

Our street is still unusable and we continue to park in front of our house on the dirt slash mud road. We have a brand new from the factory, shiny red fire hydrant in our yard now, in a new corner, which they had to tear up our concrete sidewalk to put in. In preparation of putting in the new pipeline on the driveway side of our house, the old line on the dirt road kept blowing valves, and they’d have to dig farther and farther in front of the house to seal them. I was feeling bad for them and we gave the workers some of Lars’ birthday brownie. That cheered them some.

Hopefully, we’ll have access to our garage someday soon…

This week’s YouTube video is, as Al quotes, “Like a Train Wreck. It’s horrible to see, but you can’t stop watching it…” We sincerely hope you enjoy it and want to puke, all at `the same time.