We are all connected

This blog is usually about reasons to celebrate.  My heart is heavy today thinking about all those families in Oklahoma and my friends who are tweeting from shelters in Arkansas. Life is a precious thing and some days we take that for granted.

Today I attended a lunch fundraiser for Women Helping Women and the question of the day was "What brings you Joy?" My mind was immediately filled with those moments spent with friends and family when I laughed until I cried. These were happy memories and I was glad that there were so many of these moments to remember.

When I came home from this event the news about the devistation in Oklahoma was worse than I had originally heard.  Then I learned that Zach Sobiech passed away. I didn't know Zach.  I had not even heard about him before today. But his life's story is something that has to be shared.  His life message was one of making people happy.  Live life with Joy.  You don't have to wait to hear that you are dying to start living.  Watch his story here:

Tomorrow if you have the luxury of small problems then find something to be joyful about and share that joy with someone else.

To help the families in Oklahoma consider visiting the Red Cross Website and donating.

To help kids who have to spend time in hospitals consider donating to Child's Play - an organization dedicated to making every kids stay in hospitals a little bit more normal.

We are all connected.  Share your heart and make the world a better place.

Why We Drive Chevy's

Kim Orlando from Travelingmom.com
at the Chevy Test Drive

Why do we drive Chevy's?

Simple.  

Because they're so much fun.

Me After leaving the
Chevy Test Track at Epcot

I'm a driver.  I love getting behind the wheel and going on a road trip. It has been this way for me even before I had my driver's license.  And Yes I have seen the USA in my Chevrolet and would do it again in a heartbeat given the chance.

So you can only imagine how much fun I had this last month when I was able to join in on an out of this world Test Drive as a guest of Disneyworld and Chevrolet.  A group of the Travelingmoms from Travelingmom.com met up at the Yacht Club at Disneyworld and we were treated to an afternoon of test driving our favorite versions of the chevrolet lineup including the Chevy Corvette.

Later that day we went out to the Chevy Test Track at Epcot and experienced the design process and thrill of a simulated high speed test drive. Thanks Chevy and Disneyworld for that very fun day.

But the Travelingmoms aren't the only ones who love driving Chevrolets.





Alex Smith, from Dave Smith Motors drives up to the Leadman Triathlon at Silver Mountain in one of his favorite Chevy Camero convertibles.

Every summer the Corvette Club has a strong showing at Depot Days, a festival in Wallace Idaho.   Almost every street in Wallace is taken over by vintage cars.  The Corvettes are lined up, hoods up, for everyone to come by and talk with their owner and exchange fun stories and memories of great times spent driving these beautiful cars.

On another event the Corvette Club of Spokane visited Silver Mountain and filled the parking lot with row after row of beautiful automaking excellence.

The only thing more fun than looking at these beautiful cars is driving one.  Seen here is my friend Maurine Karabatsos of QRGameplan.com behind the wheel at a full speed test drive on a closed course.  You can see a short video of Maurine on the track on the QRGameplan facebook page.

If you aren't as lucky as Maurine to get behind the wheel of a Corvette and go top speed you can still have fun with Chevy's by downloading the Chevy app.

This app allows you to virtually visit a Chevy showroom and customize your favorite model comparing features.  This is a pretty fun app even if you aren't shopping but just want to build your dream car.

Finally, Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Yes.  This is the front of my beautiful Chevy.  With four kids, two dogs, friends of kids, and gear this Chevy has room for all of us AND a 40 gallon tank which allows me to get to where I'm going with fewer stops.  This is the most beautiful Chevy in my opinion.  

What is your idea of a beautiful car?  What are your fond memories of driving?  Join the Travelingmoms on Monday May 13th Talking Cars, Style and the New Chevy Impala with @travelingmoms 5/13 9p ET #ChevyUrbanStyle #ad #TMOM. For more information and to RSVP for this twitter party (there may be some awesome prizes) visit bit.ly/18OYcLQ

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Full Disclosure: Chevrolet provided  the Travelingmom retreat participants with a travel stipend to attend the event and participate in the test drive.  All of my opinions are my own.  The Chevrolet Suburban pictured in this post was purchased years ago and that purchase was not influenced in any way by any perception of a possibility of a future small compensation by the Chevrolet company for a potential but unrequested blog post.  This specific blog post was not compensated.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!

May 7th is National Teacher Appreciation Day.  Our friends over at VolunteerSpot probably have all kinds of great ideas on how to appreciate your favorite teachers.

I have never really been the Martha Stewart room mom with the perfect cupcakes or the perfect Teacher Appreciation gift.  But I do appreciate those people with that talent.

And I do appreciate our teachers.  It's a crazy job with super high expectations.  People drop off their kids and expect the teachers to be perfect (some are) and to make sure that their kid, no matter how unruly, is safe and will learn something that day.   Often times teachers and administrators end up spending their entire day dealing with cyberbullying issues and have a hard time even getting to the teaching part.  In classrooms today there is a huge disparity of knowledge from the gifted kid to the challenged kid to the kid who really doesn't care to be there - and our teachers are tasked with teaching them all at the same time.

Snaps to all those teachers going in there day after day with a renewed hope that they will make a difference even if it is only for one kid.

So, while I was looking for a great picture of a teacher to accompany this post I typed in the keyword "teacher" and came across this picture of H.P. Blavatsky.  She lived in the 1800's and was a teacher of Theosophy.  Basically, theosophy is an occult type study.  She explains it as being a blend of Science, Religion and Philosophy.  In her book The Studies of Occultism she talks about using your power for good not evil, although, admittedly, I have only skimmed through a few pages so far and so am not giving a full book review here.  I am not a supporter of occult studies or the Dark Arts but I have found Helena's life story fascinating.  She was born in Russia and traveled through Asia and the Middle East in pursuit of wisdom.  Her curiosity led her on some amazing adventures.  Her wikipedia page is amazing and I would love to read her travel journals (if they existed - I haven't found any clues to the existence of a travel journal by HP Blavatsky but would love to read that if it existed).

There are two titles by her available for free on the Gutenberg Project site:

Studies in Occultism
and
From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan

She is also credited with the translation for Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Grand Inquisitor

CLICK HERE to check out her other books available on Amazon.

On May 7th be sure to let the teachers in your life know how much you appreciate them.  Perhaps one fantastic way to celebrate this day is to honor the teachers in your life by being curious and learning something new today.

GUTE FAHRT!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Padre nuestro,
que estás en el cielo.
Santificado sea tu nombre.
Venga tu reino.
Hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día.
Perdona nuestras ofensas,
como también nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.
No nos dejes caer en tentación y líbranos del mal.
Amén.