Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge.  Our prompt for the month of November was "Enjoy Life!", adfergeth The first backstory may be a huge stretch, but hear me out. I had to attend a weekend business meeting.  As you may know, I work for hubby's IT company, and I consider my role the lowest on the food chain. it involves purchasing toilet paper rolls. I hope this makes you smile because of course that's just one of many things I am in charge of. Anything event organization and holiday related falls into my scope, too ..read more

This weekend I covered an event that was organized for around 50 families with a special needs child. The intitiative was called "the gift of a smile", and it was lovely.  The guests were greeted personally as soon as they entered and were allowed to look around at everything that had been prepared for them in the festively decorated event hall. Passing the lovingly decorated refreshment hut, some immediately headed for the winter wonderland: props such as a life-size reindeer and a sledge invited them to take an imaginary ride through the snow. Tables with arts and crafts, toys ..read more

Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Challenge and happy Monday! Today's question is What are 5 things that bring you passion? This feels like the same question as on Day 2: What brings you joy? What is the difference between passion and joy?  This is what I found upon googling: Joy and happiness are both descriptions of feelings one has in a moment. Passion, on the other hand, describes the inner drive / motivation / longing / love for a thing or person. Interesting!  As an HR person, I often think about what drives some people (and not others) in a business environment. I'm old eno ..read more

Welcome back to another episode of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Today's assignment is to write about How are you grateful for the life you are already living? Short answer: Immensely! And so are you! How do I know?  See below, I found this on Kebba's Facebook page, and it is simple, but oh so true:  Powerful, isn't it. It should include "your fridge/pantry are the dream of the hungry" and "your family and friends are the dream of the lonely people." You get the picture though. Yes, we always strive to have and be more, and we tend to forget how far we've come, and to be grateful ..read more

Photo Credit: Tuur Tisseghem on Pexels On Day 28 of this Ultimate Blog Challenge the question is What would your friends tell you is your purpose? Tough question. I'm trying to think. Sometimes people will tell you "you should do so-and-so professionally", and you'll shrug it off. Basically what I talked about when I had to List your favorite Non-Work related Activities. Here's what comes to mind: Selling homemade baked goods Party / event planning Teach / coach Translations Make videos Networking It is not widely known that I enjoy watching true crime documentaries ..read more

Happy Friday and welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Today's assignment is to talk about What did your parents or guardians tell you that you’re good at? I was thinking about that when I was writing about compliments I get.  Let's structure the answers in a unique way. Here are things my Mom would tell me I'm good at: Art. When I was as young as 4 years old I would get up shortly after 6am, after Dad left for work, get dressed and start drawing, painting, you name it, at the kitchen table. When Mom got up, she was usually greeted with several pieces, usually there'd be peop ..read more

Photo by Pixabay Welcome back to the last week of October's Ultimate Blog Challenge. Today's question is How can you provide more acts of service? Similarly to yesterday's topic I'm reluctant to add more to my plate, call me selfish.  I mean, I'm already helping out, donating, contributing, if anything I'd like to reduce my load.  Except, could there be acts of service that don't take up a lot of my time and effort? Or that don't feel like a chore? Looks like just last night I got an opportunity to do so. My editor-in-chief, aka the lady who manages the quarterly vi ..read more

Today's question for the Ultimate Blog Challenge series is What meaningful things can you add to your routine Now that is a tough question!  What routines do I have?  And do they need to be (more) meaningful? I feel like my plate is pretty full as it is, now I need to add meaning? As in intention? Purpose? So instead of getting up, having breakfast, getting a shower and getting dressed for work, I need to add yoga? Or decorate my toast?  Mental load much? I can tell you what meaningful thing I will add to my morning routine as of November 23: I'll put our elf on the shelf, actua ..read more

Photo by Lisa Fotios Hello, happy Monday and welcome back to October's Ultimate Blog Challenge. Bevor we get to today's question, let me update you on the election results: The populist, xenophobic, misogynist party has won an inordinate number of seats at the expense of moderate, social and environmentally friendly parties. Add to that the fact that none of my carefully - and intentionally - selected candidates made it into the National Council :-( With that out of the way, here's what we're talking about today: What do you often get complimented on? Is it just me, or a ..read more

Welcome back to October's Ultimate Blog Challenge. Today's assignment is to List your favorite Non-Work related Activities Ha, how much time you got? It's hockey season, so my list starts with Attending my son's hockey games Filming and putting together videos of the youth team's games Attending my grown-up team's game or watch on TV I have to tell you this random anecdote in my capacity as an involved hockey fan. This Friday we went to my team's away game. The opponent was the team my husband and his cousin root for. This reunion alone made it a great night.  My team already led ..read more