Thursday, February 6, 2014

Really! Reading Does Increase Intelligence

Are you weary of teaching your five year old to sound out words? Have you given up on the dream of your less-than-stellar-student getting into college?  Is it easier to grab the remote than to grab the keys to drive to the library?  Read this:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/23/can-reading-make-you-smarter

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The First Mile

After over a year of neglecting this blog, I'm making an effort in 2014 to give it some attention.  It's selfish, really.  I read oodles of great stuff on the Interwebs and I'm going to try to use this blog as a central storage place for my favorite items of motivation.  Because there are so many different aspects to my life (wife, mother, housekeeper, engineer, educator, reader, runner), I will be compiling the most motivating articles that relate to those topics.

Life is hard, right?  And messy.  Yes, messy.  Very.  And hard.  Did I mention that?  There's a life analogy that has been sticking with me for the last few months that applies here.  As a runner, I hit the pavement for training runs several times a week.  I began to notice that every single time I start to run, the first mile is extremely hard.  My legs feel heavy, my lungs seem tight, and my brain screams, "Quit!"  It doesn't matter if I've had a day of rest prior or if I ran 18 miles prior; the first mile is always excruciating.  But after that first mile, my legs feel less heavy and my lungs seem wide open. By the time my watch says mile two, I feel as if I could run for hours.

This analogy holds true for every aspect of my life.  The beginning is so hard.  Getting started is excruciating.  Whether it's trudging through a hard-but-good-for-my-brain book or diving into a new computer program, that first mile is hard.  So, I turn to others who are so eloquent at motivating me through that first mile.  It's on this blog that I'd like to start compiling that very motivation.  Here's hoping you garner some motivation and get through that first mile, too.