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How to dare yourself into success

28 Jun concert

Most goals are hard. There’s a high degree of difficulty, and therefore a high risk of failure. And I never want to show up in front of friends, family, coworkers or (gulp) my boss as a failure.

But I am risking it all now.

My current goal is a biggie—it’s losing the equivalent of a gold brick in weight. I’m doing it the old-fashioned way: no pills, no programs, no prepackaged meals or bars … just good, old-fashioned counting calories, eating real food and literally walking my butt off. And it’s working.

But unless you live under a rock, you know that anyone who has tried to lose weight has failed (often more than once). So don’t you think I’m a bit crazy to admit that I’m doing something hard, something I’m likely to fail at, to everyone (including you, dear reader)?

Yup. Crazy.

But I’ve decided that this is exactly what I need to be successful. If I hide my efforts, it gives me the motivation-sapping opportunity to make excuses. To slack off. To quit. And that would most certainly make me a failure.

So, instead, I’m telling the world. Telling my marathon-running boss, my pageant-winning coworker, my REI-model coworker, my gloriously-skinny-after-two-kids cousin, even friends who will probably judge me for holding onto the equivalent of a spare tire’s worth of weight after each of my own two kids.

Oh, man. If I fail at this, I am in trouble.

But I would argue that getting to a goal requires a declaration that is exactly this big and bold. It means Continue reading →

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Getting lucky (The best job interview question, ever.)

16 Jan Clover

There’s a killer question one of my senior executives likes to ask of new people who are interviewing for a role at my company: “Do you think of yourself as a lucky person?”

This is a trick question, because there is a right (and a wrong) answer.

If you answer “No,” you will not be hired.

Let me explain. The executive asks this because he’s interested in whether interviewees have an optimistic view of life. He wonders if people feel they “get what they deserve” or if the universe does them one better, blessing them with great opportunities and people in their lives.

When we look for new employees at my company, we want a few essential ingredients, what we call SOAP: People who are Smart, Optimistic, Ambitious and Passionate. Some of my colleagues take this object lesson to its logical extreme and hand out bars of soap at our corporate training camps, reminding attendees (who are our rising stars) that we’re investing in them because Continue reading →

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The toughest apology I’ve ever written

10 Jan Apology

This is hard for me to write. An apology to my best friend. I’ve been paralyzed by fear that it wouldn’t be enough to rescue a relationship that endured for fifteen years before suddenly, almost inexplicably, it vanished. But here, I’ll try to explain.

It was November 7, 2009, and I was planning a trip to Seattle to celebrate two friends’ birthdays. I was going to take my best friend out to lunch during her short break from work (as a retail manager, her weekends were almost always filled with work), and then go to a dinner show with another friend for her milestone 30th birthday.

But when I got on I-5 to make the three-hour drive up to the Seattle area, a pounding rain storm slowed traffic to 25 mph, and I was stuck. I knew I couldn’t make it there by her lunch break, and so I called my best friend to tell her I wouldn’t be able to make it on time. She didn’t answer (she was probably working), so I left a message. I asked if I could take her to breakfast or lunch the next day.

I didn’t hear from her. I called her again that night, and again the next day. Nothing. Continue reading →

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Ten more work-from-home tips (what are you missing?)

2 Dec WFH coffee

I honestly couldn’t believe it when I sat down to blog for fifteen minutes on “work from home tips” how many would swiftly come to me. I ran out of time (the fifteen minutes per day I set aside for blogging) before I ran out of tips yesterday, so today, here are ten more:

  1. Buy a beautiful water pitcher, put cut lemons or cucumber in it, and put it in your line of vision to help you instill good habits (drinking lots of water).
  2. Make your walls work, too. On a wall near your workspace, install a magnetic white board, use it to write up key projects or things you’re thinking about. I also like long, magnetic strips that I can easily clip papers to. Don’t forget to hang professional certificates, plaques, etc., just like a “real” office. The more real you make it, the more it will serve your purpose: inspiring work.
  3. Avoid housework during the day, or just schedule yourself thirty minutes to do it. I sometimes tidy up the kitchen while waiting for my lunch to cook, but little else. I have a housekeeper come every other week so I can maintain my focus where it belongs.
  4. You probably won’t take a lunch break, so take a SOMETHING break. When my daughter was tiny, I scheduled a mommy-baby outing, like meeting other moms or taking the baby swimming once per week for two hours, instead of going out to lunch once per day for a whole lunch hour. (Here, I laugh, thinking of how infrequently I did that when I was in a corporate office.)
  5. Eliminate distractions. Don’t even consider trying to work with kids around. Your work will be sub-par because your focus just won’t be there. Don’t work with TV on in the background. I love reading blogs and playing on Facebook, but I focus that time in short, 15-minute spurts during a break.
  6. Shop for food carefully. You have the freedom to eat anything in your fridge, not have to pack lunch, and cook your lunch. Use it and shop accordingly and help your diet along, then you can splurge a bit extra when you go out.
  7. Have happy hour with friends often. It makes you stop work and gets you out. Also, be sure to schedule regular coffee dates, lunches, and attend networking events to stay connected to professionals in your area.
  8. Walk 10,000 steps per day. One of my best mentors is a strong advocate for this, but it’s easy to walk only 1,000 or 2,000 steps per day if you’re working from home, because even the walk from the parking garage to the office counts as exercise from those who don’t WFH. Get a pedometer to keep track, or find another physical challenge. You must make it a point to exercise and be active.
  9. Connect with your colleagues. Use every tool you can—email, IM, Skype, social networks like Yammer, webinars and desktop sharing to be as connected as possible to your work people by communicating proactively about projects. I am obsessive about being on time for meetings to ensure folks feel that I am here, present and without distractions.
  10. Put everything in the cloud, so when your laptop dies, you’re not toast. I love the integration of Dropbox with my iPad, iPhone and PC laptop.

Finally, here’s one bonus note: Working from home is an enormous privilege, and one I don’t take lightly. I started doing it because I couldn’t physically move to Seattle to accept a job promotion, so it was a compromise to stay with my company.

Therefore, when I do travel for work, I do my best to never complain. Sure, I have my share of drama en route when I travel to our global headquarters office in Seattle on a regular basis, and I hate spending nights away from my family. However, I will gladly take these hassles on a monthly or twice-monthly basis as a great trade-off for the hassles of commuting on a daily basis.

If you’ve worked from home, I’m sure you have more tips and ideas. Share them in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.

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Busting the myth of “PJs, soaps and bon-bons” for work-from-home

1 Dec WFH laptop

Hi! I’m here with another fifteen minutes about work, purpose and time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity, especially since I work from home and am always trying to make a greater impact with the hours I have. Ultimately, I am not judged by how long my rear is parked in my chair, but by the quality and quantity of my final deliverables.

Perception vs. reality - this might be how some people imagine working from home, but the reality (at least for me), is and must be intensely focused.

Often, when I tell people I work from home, they say, “Oh, that must be nice. Working in your PJs, setting your own schedule.” The implication is that it’s easier than working from an office.

But after five years of doing this, I conclude that’s it’s just the opposite. Although WFH creates tremendous freedom, it comes with a price: tremendous accountability.

That means if you beat your head against a brick wall for forty hours trying to produce something that really should have only taken eight, that’s what you get credit for. Eight hours. And no matter how hard you worked on that forty-hour project, everyone will assume you spent eight hours working and the other thirty-two watching soaps and eating bonbons.

It’s often a can’t-win situation. So, if you work from home sometimes or all the time, here are a few tips I’ve developed to help me make the most of my time.

  1. Establish a work schedule. Since I generally need to end my workday by 5:30 or 6:00 because that’s when daycare closes, I often do extra work in the evenings after the kids are in bed.
  2. Set limits. I am willing to answer my office and mobile phones outside of work hours, but I don’t answer during dinner, don’t obsessively check email while away, and I rarely work weekends to maintain balance.  
  3. Jealously guard your workspace. Make it the prettiest, tidiest, most user-friendly area in your house. I painted my office terra cotta orange, bought a custom desk, got dimmer lights and more.
  4. Keep up appearances. My home office is in a very large bedroom—so large it accommodates a 13-foot L-shaped desk, two monitors, two printers, four filing cabinets, two book shelves, a white board and two cork boards. It looks like a real office. The problem is, the room is so large that we put an extra bed on the opposite side (we have a separate guest bedroom). Since my webcam is set up on my computer monitors, it points away from my great desk and office space, and directly toward the bed. It looks like I’m attending a meeting from a bedroom (so tacky!). So, I hung a small curtain rod in the middle of my ceiling and bought two beautiful silk drapes. Now, on videoconferences, I look like I’m in a studio.

    Do NOT work from the couch. It will kill your back.

  5. Invest in your space. Buy a space heater, foot stool, cozy blanket, coffee warmer or whatever to keep yourself comfy and at your desk. Don’t work from your couch, it will kill your back and arms.
  6. Establish a hygiene routine. For me, it works to get up, immediately review and reply to e-mail, check my daily calendar, then go get ready, shower, change and eat breakfast.
  7. Think differently about wardrobe. Instead of a workweek/weekend division in your clothes, your closet will morph into ultra-casual (think yoga pants) for WFH, cute casual (jeans and jackets) for any reason to leave your home, and dress-up (for office visits/going out). Keep your PJs as PJs (that is, always dress for work, even if it’s just yoga pants), and always dress well when leaving the house or having people over.
  8. Dress nicer than necessary when visiting an office. They’ll think of you that way even when you’re at home in yoga pants.
  9. Open your windows, be sure you get a lot of sun and connect to the outside. Otherwise, you might start to feel like a mole underground. My desk overlooks my whole backyard and some seriously busy squirrels.
  10. Light a candle while you work. Let it be a centering reminder of what’s important. I also use a handwritten task list to keep me focused.

I’m out of time, but not out of tips. (Again, working from home demands I’m strict with myself about time management.) Tomorrow, I’ll be back with ten more ways you can improve your work-from-home experience and productivity.

What is your work from home experience? What tips do you have to share? Comment below!

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You know you’re rich when…

29 Nov Are you wealthy? How do you define prosperity?

I watched with morbid fascination this past weekend as news reporters relayed the following Black Friday-related stories.

  • Stores including Target, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart opened on Thanksgiving night, further stretching the shopping marathon.
  • A couple camped outside of an electronics store from Monday through Friday morning (yep, they spent their Thanksgiving on the sidewalk) to be first in line to get $199 42-inch TVs and $299 laptops.
  • A dozen people were sent to a hospital after a woman pepper-sprayed a crowd during a scuffle involving sought-after items in a large retail store.

Do any of these stories bother you? At some level, each put me on edge.

The name Black Friday originated in Philadelphia, where it was originally used to describe the heavy, disruptive traffic on the day after Thanksgiving, according to Wikipedia. Later, an alternative explanation suggested that “Black Friday” is the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are “in the black”.

That’s really what Black Friday is about—retailers making a profit. But at what expense? This year many national retailers set a new precedent by opening on Thanksgiving. It makes me sad, thinking of my best friend (a longtime retail manager) and how she was never able to spend Thanksgiving with her family 250 miles away because trying to get Black Friday off work was impossible.

The Macy’s CEO tried to spin it another way, saying that seasonal workers don’t mind the extra hours, but I still find it sad that many retail workers have to choose between being employed or being with family.

I also find the decision to camp out for bargains quite sad. Just how much money are they “saving,” anyway? I put a pretty high premium on the opportunity to sleep in (or even just be at home, not away on business), so the idea of spending several windy, rainy nights in a tent on a sidewalk does not appeal to me.

I do this mental arithmetic: How much is my time worth? How much money am I actually saving? The answer to this question informs lots of my choices about money, including whether to hire a housekeeper (it creates time I can spend with my family instead) and myriad other conveniences.

By the same token, when I don’t choose convenience, such as when I choose to make my kid’s birthday cupcakes instead of buying them at a store, it shows how much I value what I am creating.

My core reaction to all of the shopping lust that crops up during this so-called giving season is a real assessment of what wealth is.

Are you wealthy? How do you define prosperity?

Are you rich? Are you wealthy? Are you prosperous? By almost any measure, I am.

I should clarify. Before you imagine me in a totally different tax bracket, I’m not among those with elite wealth, what I’ve heard described as “jet money.” At that level, you aren’t just going on fancy vacations … you’re flying there in your own jet.

Sure, that’s wealth. But I think too many people see that as the only definition of wealth, and fail to appreciate the prosperity in their here and now.

One way I used to describe prosperity post-college was “you don’t have to balance your checkbook before ordering a pizza.” It’s great to be able to splurge—even on pizza—without second-guessing your financial means.

By far, my favorite description of wealth is from my mom. My folks married early, lived frugally and worked tirelessly for years to build a small business and raise two little girls. After more than a decade of work, my folks finally “made it,” which (to me, in middle school) meant the ability to buy clothes at the mall, not just at Goodwill and garage sales.

“I felt like we were rich when I could go to the grocery store and buy anything I wanted,” my mom said.

And isn’t that a great measure of wealth? Consider how few people in the world have access to a wealth of choices in a grocery store, much less the means to buy whatever they want?

So, throughout this holiday season as you enjoy giving and receiving, consider your own definition of wealth. Do you have enough? Plenty? Prosperity? Wealth?

I believe I do, and that alone frees me from the compulsion to shop at 4 a.m. or grapple with other shoppers over some discounted item. I have everything I need.

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Ten tips to make gift-giving more memorable (without a trip to the mall)

24 Nov Gift

Hi there! In anticipation of Black Friday tomorrow, I’m taking fifteen minutes to share some gift-giving strategies that will help you avoid the chaos that is the mall. Here are ten tips:

KIDS

Build a library—No matter what their age, consider giving kids your favorite books from childhood.

Instead of toys, buy children experiences. (Happily, these toys are donations.)

For younger kids, the beautifully illustrated Caldecott medal winners are always a good choice—avoid bland books that feel more like flash cards than stories. Parents will thank you for helping them avoid reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear for the 347th time.

Create an experience—Buy an admission to a water park or play area (and join them in the experience, too!). One of my friends took her tween niece and nephew geocacheing, which was a huge hit. For a bigger gift, buy a family membership to the zoo or children’s museum, which they can enjoy all year.

Connect to their interests—For teens, special interest magazines are a great choice (teen magazines focusing on sports and art), as are sports equipment, sleeping bags for camping and sleepovers, summer events such as a music day camp, adventures like horseback riding, and age-appropriate event tickets.

ADULTS

Think local—support a local restaurant by giving a gift certificate or choose a gift from a local boutique. Tickets to an event (“Taste of ___” or a music festival) or a subscription to a performing arts group are also great choices. If the adults have kids, offer to babysit so they can go out and enjoy their gift!

Think consumable—whether you offer homemade goodies, gourmet ingredients, local wine or spirits, adults can appreciate an indulgence that won’t end up in a landfill or donate-to-charity pile. I love giving Penzey’s spices to help friends replace old and dusty spices lingering in their cabinets. Penzey’s cinnamon alone will blow your mind.

Think charitable—consider what matters to the recipient, and choose a charitable gift that supports the cause they’re passionate about. This might spawn a more charitably minded family tradition.

WEDDINGS

Wrap smart—Sometimes a card can get separated from a gift, and the happy couple will feel quite embarrassed about sending a broadcast message to their wedding guests asking, “Hey, who gave us this toaster?” Avoid any confusion by sticking the card inside the gift box (or taping it to the gift box) before wrapping with paper.

Celebrate the future—Consider giving the couple something they can enjoy for the long-term, such as bottles of wine to be cellared until their first, fifth or tenth anniversaries.

Send it—Don’t bring your gift directly to the wedding or reception site because it can be a huge task to gather and transport these gifts home. Instead, send it to the couple’s address before or after the wedding (but not immediately after the wedding, as they might be away on their honeymoon and can’t collect a package from the front porch).

YOUR SPOUSE

Finally, for your spouse or significant other, I think the best gifts are those that create more time and memories together. Buying a limo tour for wine tasting, a weekend stay at a cozy, romantic hotel or a class you can take together creates memories that will last far longer than this coming holiday season.

So, enjoy each other and celebrate the best thing about the holidays—special time with friends and family.

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I am thankful for … mentors who guide my career

24 Nov Hopscotch

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday—we celebrate our many blessings, we give to the less fortunate, there’s always room at the table for another; we cook, eat, nap and watch football. What could be better?

There’s more: I’ve never had someone get mad at me for failing to buy them a Thanksgiving Day gift, or send them a Thanksgiving card. The hardest holiday shopping is the Costco parking lot the day before the big event, and even then, it doesn’t require traffic cops like the mall does on Christmas Eve. (Not that I’d be caught dead there and then.)

But I digress. It’s Thanksgiving, and I wanted to share what I’m thankful for. Since this is a blog about work and purpose, I wanted to specifically acknowledge mentors who have been important to me: I got a wonderful surprise via Facebook last week, which was a blog post via aPriori International about my blog post on styles. You can read the whole thing here, but my favorite part is this:

We don’t bring Heidi’s blog to the forefront just because she is a participant in our programs or because her latest post references the principles we espouse. Rather, we feel her documentation of her learning expands the risk that is inherent in learning. By jumping into Market Force courses, Heidi admitted to herself that there are things in her life with which she needs assistance, from employee assessments to personal time management to … whatever. And so by writing about her learning, she is taking a greater risk, a critical action in the process of becoming your “whole self.”

The thing that this post immediately brought to my mind was Charles Bukowski’s poem, “The Rape of the Holy Mother.”

Before that title freaks you out, read what this poem is really about: “To expose your ass on paper/ terrifies some/ and/ it should:/ the more you put down/ the more you leave yourself/ open/ to those who label themselves/ “critics.” (full poem here)

As Travis Carson, author of the aPriori post above, rightly says, learning is inherently risky. And that’s why today, on Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for mentors.

Mentors challenge you. They allow you to fail. They guide your learning and your experimentation. They’re not about “thinking out of the box,” they’re about tearing that whole damned box apart.

Which is pretty cool, don’t you think? So here’s my list (and only just a start) of career mentors who have helped me make pivotal choices.

I am thankful for Yvonne Young, my second-grade teacher, who constantly repeated the phrase, “You are loveable and capable!” She built tremendous self-esteem (and daring qualities), and her expert storytelling remains so memorable that I try to mimic it with my own children.

I am thankful for Andy Gottesman, my high school debate coach. Winning in debate helped me feel fantastic about myself in high school even though I was pretty nerdy. That’s a big deal, but more importantly, I truly believe that speech and debate skills got me through college and prepared me for the world of work.

I am thankful for Cliff Rowe, my college journalism professor. Cliff literally changed my life when he prompted me to apply for a fellowship even though I hadn’t declared a major in journalism. I ended up winning the fellowship, a $1,000 stipend to intern at a newspaper, and then Cliff then directed me to an idyllic summer at the Port Townsend-Jefferson County Leader. By the end of five months there, I was hooked, and spent the next nine years in newspapers.

I am thankful for Pat Jenkins, my first, full-time newspaper editor. He took a chance on hiring me fresh out of college and pushed my writing far, far forward by taking the time to show me how I could improve (not just making corrections and moving on). He helped me develop strong reporting skills to really immerse myself in a community, and also helped me navigate some tricky political stories that resulted in the resignation of a judge.

I am thankful for Dan Cook, my business reporting editor, whose passion for digging into a story completely changed my reporting style, who managed to reign in this spitfire with good humor and tons of patience, and who taught me the value of having conviction in your work (and knowing when to take a pass).

I am thankful for Lynn Parsons, marketing and business development consultant, who understands the value of real business relationships (not just LinkedIn connections) and how to manage clients with diplomacy and grace, and who I admire tremendously for running her own firm through any economic cycle. She is the master of client service.

I am thankful for Craig Robbins, Chief Knowledge Officer and “dean” of Colliers University, who has given me hours of insight into work styles and systems, and who has the kind of advice that is tough to hear but absolutely essential if you want to get through any roadblock.

And I am also thankful for Katherine Steen, director of Colliers University, who since 2006 who has given me the platform and opportunity to speak to a broader audience, share my expertise and connect with people from around the world, and tackle challenging projects with zest.

There are many more on the list, but I wanted to recognize the people above because the each played a pivotal role in my career development. I am deeply grateful for everything they shared and invested in me.

If you’re from the USA, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you’re not, give thanks anyway. I’m taking this weekend off blogging to spend with my family, but I’ll send you a post later tonight on gift-giving and see you back here on Monday, Nov. 28.

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Dear experts, ninjas and gurus … are you really?

23 Nov Ninja eye

Hi, I’m Heidi, and I’m not an expert.

Which makes me part of the 0.0001% of all people currently blogging, tweeting, posting and consulting—that is, the tiny minority of folks who don’t claim to be experts.

Or ninjas. Or gurus. Don’t even get me started on how clichéd these labels are.

My friend Nancy Brady pointed out that virtually everyone on social media claims to be an expert on social media (she, by the way, is one modest exception). But in the next 15 minutes, let’s look at three ways of establishing expertise:

10,000 hours – In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he points to both the Beatles and Bill Gates as success stories because they amassed 10,000 hours of practice and experimentation in their chosen fields.

The 10,000 Hour Rule is usually attributed to the research done by Dr. Anders Ericsson in the early 1990s. He and his team divided students into three groups ranked by excellence at the Berlin Academy of Music and then correlated achievement with hours of practice.

They discovered that the elite had all put in about 10,000 hours of practice, the good 8,000 and the average 4,000 hours. No one had fast-tracked. This rule was then applied to other disciplines and Ericsson found that it proved valid. (Learn more about this in the complete article.)

I can’t claim to be an expert in social media based on this metric, and so I don’t (I really don’t think playing on Facebook counts). Regardless of my Klout score, I’m still an explorer seeking new knowledge, not a master with nothing more to learn.

I will, however, claim to be an expert writer—in seven years as a journalist, I wrote about 1,400 stories. Add to that a novel and a half, a media relations handbook, poetry, short fiction and scores of letters and personal correspondence, and I’m confident I’m well over the 10,000 hour mark.

Nineteen books – some claim that to become a subject matter expert, you must read at least nineteen books within that given area of expertise. That makes sense—consider what you are expected to absorb in college.

I’d heard of this line long ago, so when I changed my career focus from journalism to marketing, I dove in, intent on digesting at least nineteen books immediately.

This paid off—I was immediately able to speak a language that I hadn’t learned in my journalism classes. I kept track of the books I’d read (now well over forty titles), and then I supplemented the most significant books with dozens of five-page book digests from getAbstract (thanks to Colliers University). The five pages are more than enough to pull out key ideas and help me decide whether to read them in greater depth.

I also used the same strategy—choosing 20 core books and reading abstracts on others—to quickly ramp up my knowledge of customer service for my company’s service excellence initiative. And I did the same thing before becoming a parent for the first time.

When people look to you as the expert on a subject, you’d better be a well-rounded one—it’s not enough to be that teacher who simply stays one chapter ahead of the class.

Knowledge + Skill – True expertise is a combination of both what you know (information you absorb through learning) and what you practice (abilities you hone by doing). So it’s not just nineteen books’ worth of knowledge, or 10,000 hours of practice to create skill—I think expertise must be a combination of both.

Would I be a writing expert if I had 10,000 hours of practice but no formal training in grammar? I don’t think so. Would I be a marketing expert if I’d read nineteen books, but had never worked in the field? Fuhgettaboutit.

Expertise is knowledge and skill. It’s learning the body of work that came before you and then applying it with your own creative talents. Are you an expert? It’s a tall order, I know, but nothing’s stopping you from gaining more information and practice to be able to eventually—legitimately—claim that title. GO

P.S. I’ve seen professionals approach their local marketing staff and say, “I want to be an expert in Green Building. Can you make me a flyer that says that?”

Once my laughter dies down (ahem, you want a print flyer to advertise your green practice?) I really want to make the point that you can’t market yourself into being an expert. One blog advises, in How to Position Yourself as a Subject Matter Expert, that you should focus on networking, social media, blogging, newsletters and “Offer exciting promotions!”

Hold your horses. While I support communicating your market identity to the world—it’s critical to your success—I would hope we all spent at least ten times as much effort actually building our expertise. Copyblogger has a great post about becoming and expert, or try eHow’s suggestions.

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Another reason to celebrate

19 Nov photo

I’m usually not blogging on the weekend, but today I wanted to take a moment to share the reason I’m celebrating: My daughter, Audrey Joyce Katherine Tretheway, turned one year old. She can walk and run, but still has no teeth! My best friend calls her a mini-me.

Audrey (or AJ) is named for treasured people in my life:

Audrey Nelson, my grandmother, an amazing artist, children’s author and cook,

Audrey DeWitt, my husband’s close family friend (very much like a grandmother),

Joyce Tretheway, my husband’s grandmother (She was better known as G.G. Vodka–the GG stands for Great Grandma–because of her drink of choice in the afternoons. She baked seven banana cream pies for our wedding.),

Katherine “Kitty” Stout, my grandmother who always speaks her mind,

Katherine Steen, my friend, exceptionally smart chick and tremendous supporter.

I know it’s a long name (my son also has two middle names), but I imagine that given the strong women and incredible love behind it, the names will serve her well.

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