KAREY SHANE

Thank You Deborah Kenny

Thanks to a link I discovered on Rochelle McConkie's Facebook page, I've been following the ripple effect that Deborah Kenny started in education through her Harlem Village Academies. What she has done to raise the bar for teachers is revolutionary. Her approach focuses first on raising expectations for teachers! 

The Gift of Pain

Fibromyalgia has given me one gift. It's something that so many of us rarely experience because life is so hectic. It's something that is so simple that it's easy to pass by. It's something that seems so hard, but nothing could be easier.

Half the Sky 2

Reading Half the Sky is has brought the spirit of Christmas into my heart. I can't explain it. I'm having a wonderful time here in San Clemente with family; yet even though my feet are grounded in this cherished family time together--shared meals, making origami birds, playing board games and fishing off the pier--my spirit feels as though I've stepped on an invisible conveyor belt that's whisking me to a world of equally powerful purpose: to lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees.

I arrived here two nights ago after slowly reading, outlining, and making notes of Half the Sky during my flight from Denver. I think I got to page 26 or so. After we all went to Morton's for an incredibly sumptuous meal, I went to bed exhausted. But the most amazing thing happened. I got chills just now thinking about it:

The First Butterfly

I'm here because of a small, simple things. Hope. Gratitude remembered. A smile. Laughter even when life is hard.

I'm here because of what happened the day I took my homemade butterfly to a cute 16 year-old new mother in my neighborhood who had just given birth. It was a day when it would have been easier to stay inside my little cocoon. But I had held her baby a few days earlier, and we started a new friendship.

I accomplished the "great feat" of getting outside myself by telling myself, "Just do it now. It might make her smile. Just get out the door." What happened next was amazing to me.

I'm here because of a small, simple things. Hope. Gratitude remembered. A smile. Laughter even when life is hard.

I'm here because of what happened the day I took my homemade butterfly to a cute 16 year-old new mother in my neighborhood who had just given birth. It was a day when it would have been easier to stay inside my little cocoon. But I had held her baby a few days earlier, and we started a new friendship.

I accomplished the "great feat" of getting outside myself by telling myself, "Just do it now. It might make her smile. Just get out the door." What happened next was amazing to me.