Core val­ues… we all have them, whether we acknowl­edge them or not.  So what are yours?  Can you eas­ily tell some­one what your core val­ues are?  Do you design your life around your core val­ues?  Do you live your core val­ues? Read the rest of this entry »

In this econ­omy it is more impor­tant than ever to keep your skills up-to-date.  It also is impor­tant to keep learn­ing new skills to keep your­self valu­able and able to han­dle new tasks.

I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing the roller coaster of learn­ing new skills for the last sev­eral months.  I’m try­ing to become adept at the tech­nol­ogy involved in cre­at­ing and run­ning an online busi­ness.  There have been moments of sheer frus­tra­tion.  Read the rest of this entry »

Friends.  What more can I say.  Friends can be a strong sup­port sys­tem to help you strengthen the har­mony in your life, your fam­ily and your work.  Who else will lis­ten to you as you vent, as you try to work your way through what you are deal­ing with, as your shed your tears or help you cel­e­brate when you over­come your obsta­cles. Read the rest of this entry »

An issue we are fac­ing right now is the whole quag­mire and emo­tional roller coaster sur­round­ing aging par­ents.  For­tu­nately, my par­ents, who are 88 years old, are still in fairly good health and in their own home.  They need some care, but for the most part their health and men­tal capac­ity is still allow­ing them to be independent.

On the other hand, my husband’s par­ents are not doing as well.  I’ve watched his fam­ily try to accept the loss of his mother whose delight­ful mind and per­son­al­ity has suc­cumbed to Alzheimer’s and is now in a care facil­ity.  I’ve watched his dad try to adjust to being “home alone.”  I’ve watched the sib­lings try to adjust to their mom no longer being the heart of the fam­ily.  It has been a painful and rocky road. Read the rest of this entry »

Work­places today are filled with stress. Employ­ers are stressed because of the econ­omy, for­eign com­pe­ti­tion and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions. Employ­ees are stressed because of the fear of down­siz­ing, com­pe­ti­tion, the loss of their ben­e­fits, inter­ac­tion with their boss and co-workers, or increased work­loads. Read the rest of this entry »

As I think about strength­en­ing the har­mony in my life (and in help­ing oth­ers) one of the first things that comes to mind is the mul­ti­ple “hats” we all wear.

In my life, I wear the hat of spouse, mother, grand­mother (of eight and it is the absolute blast), daugh­ter, sis­ter, busi­ness owner, friend, gar­dener, Great Dane and cat care­giver, bird feeder, vol­un­teer and per­pet­ual learner.  Try­ing to fill the role of each of these can be a daunt­ing task.  Main­tain­ing bal­ance across all of them is dif­fi­cult if not impos­si­ble. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the cat is out of the bag.  I know I should be pro­ject­ing this air of pure con­fi­dence, but I think it is impor­tant for the integrity of this blog to reflect what I am actu­ally feel­ing.  Trep­i­da­tion.  Excite­ment.  Amaze­ment that I’ve got­ten this far. Read the rest of this entry »

The topic of my sec­ond post (Yea!!  Feel­ing really expe­ri­enced now…) is to explain the pur­pose of this blog.

The  pur­pose  of this blog (StrengthenTheHarmonyBlog.com) is to

pro­vide arti­cles, resources and of course com­ments from the read­ers about top­ics and ideas that strengthen the har­mony in your life, fam­ily and work. Read the rest of this entry »

This is my very first post on my very first blog.   Wel­come to  StrengthenTheHarmonyBlog.com

I finally took the leap, mas­tered the tech­nol­ogy (well, almost mas­tered) and launched this blog.  Let me tell you, it was a leap.   Read the rest of this entry »