My book is finally a "book"

Here is my post on our new website: Universal Intentions.

http://universalintentions.wordpress.com/blog/

As this new, exciting chapter in my life ramps up, I will be posting here from now on and my blogger account will be going away.  

I am still on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/UniversalIntentions

Please begin to share that the book - or the 6 free intentions in the book (see one idea below) make great gifts.  Thank you!

An Intention for my College Bound Daughter

I pray for strength. I pray for kindness.  I pray for patience.  I pray for enduring acceptance.

Please, Holy One, keep her safe from harm. May my daughter meet people that fill her life with laughter, good, clean, safe fun and life-long friendships she can count on.  May she be filled with your light and love so she attracts only that into her days.  Help her identify struggles quickly so the universe may bring her the solution she needs without pause. May He Who Is To Come enter her life for the first time this fall.  Let him be a brilliant young man who thrives on an impeccable work ethic.  Bring his unmatched character and never-critical self to shift her heart. When she needs space to be alone in reflection, he offers the time before she asks.  When she needs closeness and affection, he holds her in timeless silence.  He is tactful, considerate and gracious.  Those who meet him are instantly drawn to him.  He honors her wisdom as equal to his own. He never harms her emotionally and absolutely never physically.  His respect for her is unending.  This is my intention for my daughter, my glorious offspring.  Her grace is our gift.  Her happiness our perpetual quest.

Lessons Learned & Scars Burned

4:45 a.m. - As a parent, how do you not overreact to a situation with your kids and still make the acceptable and unacceptable clear?  How do you make your point without nagging?  How do you teach a lesson with a listening ear and not judgment?  How do you parent fully, love unconditionally and inspire whole-heartedly with your true authentic self when you are hurt and angry about something your teen said or did?  As I went to drop a car off for my now graduated 18 year old at 4:40 am this morning, the phone rang.  My raging daughter is wondering why the car was not waiting for her in the school parking lot after her graduation night lock in. Not only was I just walking out the door to drop off a car arriving, well before the 5:00 am time they told parents, but I planned to walk home myself – so she did not have to.  Apparently, now it is my fault the hyphotist did not show up and the student busses left the lock in early.  As parents, how do we set boundaries about acceptable behaviors toward us?  Are fibs and lies the same thing?  When your child speaks their mind with conviction - is that the same as sassing?  Is one okay and the other is not? At what age do we accept they don’t need to ask “permission” anymore? Now, as I send my first born off to college (we registered for classes at UMD last week) I hope and pray we have set her up for success. And, I hope and pray that together we have generated more lessons learned than scars burned.

Witnessing, no longer directing her path

As my child walks away from me, moving down her own path, it is agonizing to be a witness to her choices and no longer a director.  Help me be an attentive, kind, logical, rational, level-headed mother who demonstrates intelligence not crazy. Prevent me from forcing the wisdom I think I gained in my teen years onto her – our experiences are so very different.  Prompt my phrases OhWonderful Wisdom Parent and Creator to emerge from my mouth as she needs to hear them.  Just in the right tone, with the perfect word choice at the ideal time.  Let all auxiliary, clunky judgements shrivel up.  Stop life-harming actions before they emerge. Prevent criticism from flying out of my mouth or beaming sharply from my eyes.  Inspire me to be more quiet than quick-witted so I may listen more than I lash out.  It is my desire to be like my 72 year old friend Mr. Nimmer who has “learned the hard way” how to be a good listener.  He has no children of his own. His UST and 360 Journalism (organization) students are his kids. He is an honest force to be reckoned with.  I want to more fully discover my honest voice that does not cower in a corner or pretend there is no conflict.  I want to be the one she eventually looks back to and says, “Oh, now I see what you mean.” Even if it takes her a decade to see through the trees.  I am now and forever her SUPER FAN whether she sees it – or not.  It is a parent's dream to see an oldest child college bound and strong. You Go Krista, Go.

shift the trajectory of the energy of the world

As I wait right now for my beautiful 13 year old son to arrive home safely from school, I was finally able to cry while watching this video. I have not felt the same since Friday. When we send our children off to school in the morning, we trust they will come home to us each afternoon.  We are indeed at a crossroads in human existance.  I pray to God that in some small way, we Christians can shift the trajectory of the energy of the world for our children and our children's children so love will "flash mob" constantly in their lives.…..Watch the video below all the way to the end for a warm surprise.

Blessing, Peace and Healing love this holiday season to you

...http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Vnt7euRF5Pg&vq=medium

What did you love to do when you were 10?

I am declaring today "Deb Lande’s Line in the Sand Day." While it may seem overly dramatic to declare a day for myself, it is not unfounded.  See my dog Star?  Now SHE knows how to declare a day, and a spot in our home, and claim it for her OWN! Today I begin my first full week of unemployment since January 2012.  And, it is the second time I have been unemployed in less then 12 months.  So today I begin an intentional quest for a new "career,” not a new "job."  The two efforts have very different energies.  Last year, when I lost my job, I slammed onto job seeking websites, I pounded out e-mails to everyone I knew while attaching a polished resume, I updated LinkedIn and  sought connections, and I met with every warm body that would have me.  Sound kinda desperate?  Yep. That’s because I was.  This time, I am different. This time I choose to breathe, reflect, and pause instead.  There is a great article in the Star Tribune today called "stop being average and start being extraordinary."  It asks us to ask ourselves:  What comes easy to me? What do other people tell me that I do well? What did I love to do when I was 10 years old?  Within these simple questions are the answers to our passions.  While I may not be able to ride horses for a living, or perform on stage professionally, I may be able to work a little of those 10 year old activities into my career path.  We shall see.  I will be working on writing about these questions today and remembering my core strengths: Belief, Intellection, Connectedness, Positivity, Self-Assurance. Thanks for your encouragement through the career transition. Jhttp://m.startribune.com/lifestyle/?id=176032491&c=y

Iowa pride, passed on to daddy’s girl.

Here is the thing about college towns.  People are completely crazy.  An old man walked up to my husband in the Hawk Shop in Iowa City and asked if he could buy John's sweatshirt. “I like that sweatshirt.  Can I buy it from you?”  Really?  We are IN a shop with 100 sweatshirts and you want the one my husband is wearing? Wow!  Iowa.  I’m all Minnesota – all the time - so you have to appreciate how difficult it is for me to "get" the complete chaos that surrounds Iowa Hawkeye Pride.

We are at the University of Iowa for an admissions tour which of coarse forces me to first admit I am OLD enough to HAVE a 17 year old daughter and then makes me realize my fabulous daughter will not live with us next fall.  This PRIDE thing has possessed my husband for life.  This contagious disease has now rubbed off on – actually implanted itself – upon my first child and only daughter.  I held it together most of the admissions tour but then we stepped into a dorm room.  COED dorms? Really?  Visitor “in and out” books monitored by none, over-night visitor are any one.  Are you kidding?  “You gotta let go sometime mom. You might as well start now,” our white hatted tour guide coached us as we stood there dumbfounded.  All I could see was two college freshman having sex on a loft bed and one of them looked like my daughter.  NOT OK!  As we exited the dorms, a screaming, drunken boy hanging out his car window hollered “Come to school here man it’s &*^*% the shits, man.” The females in our admissions tour group rolled their eyes.  Are THOSE the kinds of boys that will be sleeping above and below us…I mean sleeping a floor above and below us in the dorms?  Oh, wait. Maybe it was just us MOMS of these 17 year olds deep in a horror-filled trance.

Whatever the case, Krista’s in. Hook line and sinker. As I watched her walk a few paces ahead of me next to her dad I could not help thinking…I should have seen this coming the day I married this man.  Iowa pride, passed on to daddy’s girl. In that instant I looked up and she was 9 again, walking hand in hand by his side.  What’s a Minnesota girl gonna do but buy an “Iowa mom” shirt and step aside?