I’m not looking forward to next week; here it is a Saturday and it has been a really long week… the problem is, I was on vacation Monday and Tuesday. Sheesh, next week is going to be a long one.
Leslie attended what she referred to as a “reveal party” this week. After carefully questioning her about just what exactly was supposed to be “revealed” I finally determined it was a gathering to celebrate the announcement of the gender of a new baby to a couple who had elected not to find out until that very moment. The announcement was to be made by cutting into a cake whose color (blue for boy, pink for girl) would broadcast the gender of the unborn child. I asked Leslie who was responsible for ordering the cake and for ensuring that the cake was the appropriate color and she told me that a sealed envelope was given to the store, but that no one other than those who baked the cake would have prior knowledge of the gender of the child. All I could think was, “What if they baker screws up and when they cut into the cake they find a chocolate cake?” Congratulations, you’re having… a dog? Maybe a giraffe or perhaps a velociraptor (yes Microsoft, velociraptor is a word and yes, I have spelled it correctly. As someone who grew up reading Jurassic Park 47 times I think I am qualified to make this determination)?
Speaking of chocolate cake… As I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed this morning I couldn’t help notice that a number of people were posting about running a 5k or signing up to run a 5k; it was all very discouraging as I had been sitting there simply wondering if I could muster up enough energy to roll my office chair across the office to the freezer to grab an ice cream sandwich.
Earlier this week I had a discussion with an employee that had me scratching my head at first. Having been initiated in into the not-so-exclusive parenting club, I have learned that the term ‘blowout’ has a certain meaning. It wasn’t until recently that I learned there are people who don’t know what this term means, or they think that it refers to something that happens to your tires. Anyway, this employee came into my office one morning this week and told me that he needed to go back home for something. A little irritated, I asked him why. He looked me in the eye and said, “I had a blowout.” At this point my horrified mind is struggling to comprehend what he just told me and all I could manage to stammer out was, “Whoa! That’s a little bit too much information.” Quizzically, he looked at me and then turned around and proceeded to show me a rip up the seam of the seat of his pants that had occurred during the morning stretch. Greatly relieved I told him, “I’m a new parent, you can’t use that term and not expect me to interpret it differently.”
Last week I tempted you with a morsel of insight I have recently gained by questioning you about what your family mission statement would be. This week, unfortunately, I cannot complete your glimpse into this aspect of our lives as it has yet to be completed, however, I will give you a peek into our process. As you may have gathered, I was recently challenged to put my family’s mission statement to paper. I used a number of guides on how to write a business mission statement and one of the interesting I found is that I kept reading that one of the large benefits of having a good mission statement actually comes through the process of having to write it. It has not been an easy process, even as Leslie and I sat down and discussed our values and how they related; however, what is written about the matter is absolutely true, there is much value simply in the process of developing the statement.
While our final product is not yet complete we have made significant progress in identifying and aligning our values; then drafting our responses to four key questions which will help shape our mission statement. Our four questions are:
- What do we do?
- How do we do it?
- Whom do we do it for?
- What value do we bring?
With our answers as the foundation I believe we will be able to come up with a well thought out and well-crafted mission statement that matches what we have identified as our family’s purpose in this life. I am very excited to see how it turns out.
A Clever Name for a Blog 