Personal

18 10, 2016

Time of Non-conflict (TONIC)

By Shelly and Rich Howard|2017-03-06T11:16:04-07:00October 18th, 2016|Family Culture, Letters, Marriage, Parenting, Personal, Relationship|

Blah. Blah blah. Blah. Blah, blah, blah! This is the sound or noise that children, spouses, and friends hear when we try to communicate during times of conflict. Meaningful conversations and effective communication never occurs when people are angry, frustrated, exhausted, feeling defensive or mentally preoccupied. You cannot teach a child the principles of self-control while they are having a “level 10”meltdown in the grocery store. Nor can you discuss marital issues (parenting, finances, in-laws, [...]

6 09, 2016

Are you playing to win or not lose?

By Shelly and Rich Howard|2017-03-06T11:16:04-07:00September 6th, 2016|Finances, Health, Letters, Marriage, Parenting, Personal|

The Howards are HUGE football fans! In fact, we’ve had Denver Bronco season tickets in our family since 1968. With the 2016 pro football season kicking off this Thursday (a Super Bowl 50 rematch!), we are reminded of a coaching philosophy that actually transcends many areas of our lives. It’s the idea of playing to win versus playing to not lose. In football, there is a particular strategy that some coaches use to protect the [...]

26 06, 2016

Romeo and Juliet’s Tipping Point

By Lis and Dave Marr|2017-03-06T11:16:04-07:00June 26th, 2016|Letters, Marriage, Personal, Relationship|

Let’s pretend that this true story is typical of marriages. We’ll call the wife Lis and the husband Dave just for convenience sake. This marital drama developed over many years long before children arrived. It started out happy, took a turn for the worse where arguments were not uncommon, then righted itself into a ‘happily ever after’ scenario. The story starts as they typically do identifying threads of meaning long before the players come on [...]

24 06, 2016

Romeo and Juliet Grow Up

By Lis and Dave Marr|2017-03-06T11:16:04-07:00June 24th, 2016|Letters, Marriage, Personal, Relationship|

ROMEO If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? [...]

8 06, 2016

Commitment, Exchanging Value, and Sex

By Lis and Dave Marr|2017-03-06T11:16:05-07:00June 8th, 2016|Letters, Marriage, Personal, Relationship|

It’s wedding season. A recent nuptial at a beautiful location south of Denver captured the fantasy of many a blushing bride. The location was pastoral perfection, the weather ideal, the ceremony handled with the right balance of solemnity, humor, and emotion. It really was enjoyable to watch the couple exchange vows, the participants and parents hold back tears, and the attendees dance the night away. A dream wedding. Today’s letter is the first part of [...]

18 04, 2016

Reaching Your Potential

By Shelly and Rich Howard|2017-03-06T11:16:05-07:00April 18th, 2016|Family Culture, Letters, Marriage, Parenting, Personal|

For those of you who know us, we are nuts (mostly Rich) about goal setting, planning objectives, formulating mission statements, etc.. for ourselves individually and collectively for our family. And while we enjoy these kind of developmental/growth tools (mostly Rich), they are basically tactical and action oriented activities that serve the underlying message of reaching one’s potential. We describe and define reaching your potential as being “the best you” that you are capable of being [...]

4 04, 2016

Freedom To Grow

By Shelly and Rich Howard|2017-06-20T07:25:16-06:00April 4th, 2016|Letters, Parenting, Personal, Relationship|

Do you give your children the freedom to fail or make mistakes? Or more appropriately, do you allow them freedom to grow with personal responsibility and ownership? Whether you are a child or an adult, failure is not failure if you learn and grow from it. As parents, it’s especially difficult for us to see our children suffer frustration, experience emotional pain or the discomfort that comes with failing or making mistakes. However, in order [...]

21 03, 2016

Take Five

By Shelly and Rich Howard|2017-03-06T11:16:05-07:00March 21st, 2016|Family Culture, Letters, Personal, Relationship|

In our Five Minute Warning letter, we discussed the idea of creating an environment to succeed by establishing a time frame for obeying and honoring relationships through offering a window of compliance. Similar to that idea, last summer, a dear friend of ours from Trevor’s baseball team shared with us a pearl of wisdom she had heard in a sermon at her church and how she creatively applied it in her family – Take Five. [...]

15 03, 2016

Standards in your Oyster

By Lis and Dave Marr|2017-03-06T11:16:05-07:00March 15th, 2016|Family Culture, Personal, Relationship|

This issue of getting the kids involved in family chores and what to pay them for allowance, if any, was a confusing bit of parenting for the Marr family. Now that the kids are grown and we can reevaluate our handiwork, we can validate some of our decisions and might revise others. Family chores are life’s maintenance activities that must get done in order to have a reasonably orderly life. As always, in raising children, [...]

7 03, 2016

Actionless Intentions

By Shelly and Rich Howard|2016-03-12T08:39:10-07:00March 7th, 2016|Letters, Parenting, Personal, Relationship|

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” ― Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) / Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) This might be a bit overstated for our topic today, but it does drive home the point. How many times have we said this: Someday I’m going to… Once I get through this, I’m going to… This spring I’m going to… I’ll do it next time… …and then it never happens. You don’t follow through or, [...]