Write It Down

One of the books on my shelf of "greats" is a little known paperback called Write It Down, Make It Happen.  It is about the power of the written word in our lives.  I think most of us know something about this.  Writing a shopping list for instance makes it more likely that we will arrive home with everything we need.  Writing down goals or desired qualities works the same way--at least according to this author.
I've recently brought this idea into my discipline of the girls old enough to write sentences--Madeleine, Mia and--just barely--Grace.  Writing assignments are usually given for arguing, yelling at each other, driving me crazy etc.  I try to give them good sentences that can work as mantras and "make things happen".
When Mia and Grace got into it a couple of weeks ago, I gave Mia the verse "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me" and Grace, "I am a peacemaker".  I think Mia had 50 sentences and Grace 30--a lot for a kindergartner but, she deserved it.  Below is Grace's list of sentences:

 I should have taken the time to get her real writing paper.  This is an index card.  Anyway, she started off well.  Hopefully as she wrote "I am a peacemaker", she was making resolutions about how well she was going to treat her sisters in the future.  How she would always be the first to walk away from an argument or turn the other cheek.  As she went along though, her sentence shifted to "I am a pacemaker" and then "I am a pacemekan".  What is a pacemekan?  If that Write It Down Make It Happen author is right, I may have one on my hands very soon.  

Other things written down:

We have a wonderful steamer machine thanks to Kevin and Abby (thank you!) but I never read the directions which are now long gone and so I don't really know how to use it.  That normally isn't a problem because Chris takes care of getting the vegetables on the table.  The other day though, he was having a moment with his grill and he needed me to get the carrots done.  We had guests over and I was talking and cooking other things and asked him to please write down what he wanted me to do--this is because I am a very bad multi-tasker when I am talking or reading.  As you can tell from the above note, the instructions were very simple.  Somehow, I still managed to put the carrots on for five instead of eighteen minutes and got quite the look of disbelief from my husband.  (At times like these, he generally brings up my degree but I swear that a working knowledge of kitchen appliances was not required.)

 This photo was taken the morning of Chris' birthday after our oldest daughter had expressed her love for her dear dad by plastering the whole house with all of my post-it notes and a whole roll of scotch tape.  It was worth it.  Say what you need to say as I always say.

You may recognize this from a few posts back when I took pictures of a few recent purchases.  This was one I was unsure of at the time but I am now certain I love it.  My original plan for Chris' birthday had been to decorate it with photos, notes and drawings from the girls and maybe a few quotes and of course messages from me.  I have 24 S hooks to work with which leaves a lot of room for the imagination.  As it turned out, it came down to the wire and I had no time for anything more than a few quick decorations.  It occurred to me that it might be fun to print out pictures of some famous people--significant to us--and write messages from them to Chris.  Here's one:

So, I had House, Elvis, Hunter Pence, Dave Matthews, Darth Vader, John Mayer.  I think that's it.  I liked Hunter's--"Ask for more, you just might get it" (Hunter Pence recently won an arbitration hearing that increased his salary quite a bit) and Dave's "Could I have been Chris Doyle?"(paraphrase from his song Dancing Nancies).

 The spiral stand is now on the table in our entry way wearing the chicken hat I gave Chris and waiting to be decorated for the next big day.

So, after all that, my advice to you--be careful what you write down.  It just might happen.  You might even wake up parenting a pacemekan.  (I'll keep you posted on that one :)

Have a great Wednesday!