Monday, December 31, 2012

Building funds

We went to church with Bonnie this past Sunday. It was a great experience to find out that they paid off the loan on the building extension. A neat fact of that is in December they needed $28,500 & that's what they received.

I've grown up hearing stories of how the Mormon people suffered to pay buildings off or build temples. Being at church on Sunday and knowing that we helped contribute gave me the opportunity to feel what the early saints felt. Sometimes the ownership is lost since buildings are paid off before built.

I liked that feeling.

Billy quote he likes

If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride -and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.
Paul Bryant

Monday, December 3, 2012

Pink pig...

I remember going on the pink pig in Atlanta with my family. We went once. However it was not at Macy's, i believe it was at a store called Riches.

Monday, November 26, 2012

My first project from Pinterest

I created my first project. It looks good for first wreath. I have always loved wreath but never felt creative enough to make. Always had my mom help. This time it was all me.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Brasstown Craft Fair & Decorating Mtn Home

The first place gingerbread house at Brasstown. Then after a swim we had a wonderful lunch at our favorite pasta buffet with soup and salad.  It was fun to sit at the fireplace afterwards too.  The ladies went to the craft fair and the men sat and waited at the area where the fireplace was in the lobby.  Sydney had a fun time speaking with the people that did the wooden bowls and walking sticks.  She stood and watched then asked some great questions.  When I asked her why she was so interested in the wood working, she said she felt like she was being a reporter.  She asked how they got into making the bowls, what do they do with the wood chips, and how long does it take to make a bowl are some that I know she asked.

Syd asking questions
 Decorating
This is Tiny Tim on the left.  He is 42 years old. He is the first ornament they bought and Billy would play with it every year. 
The ornament on the left Great Grandma G. Treadwell made and the one on the right is made by Grandma Bonnie Blitch.
 This is another made by Great Grandma Treadwell and the one below shows her initials and that it was made in 1983.
 Below we have Sydney and Grandma Bonnie at the mini tree.  Sydney decorated this little tree.  Then she untangled these little boxes of gifts to put below.


 Florida Santa Stocking Holder that we found for $1.00 at a Thrift Shop in Hiawassee, GA on Shop Small Business Saturday. 
 The Christmas Tree is decorated in the mountains... Now we have one to get down for GamMommy Stroud and one for our Quincy Home.
 OH, we had to play around with the decorated gift boxes that Sydney untangled before putting under the mini tree.  See the beautiful gals decorating the Blitch Mountain House this weekend. (The men did help by getting all the Christmas stuff out of the storage area on Friday because Saturday they were watching the  Thanksgiving College Football Games and didn't want to be bothered.)


 Oops, I wish someone would have said that my hair was a bit messy.

Thanksgiving from Pinterest

We did two things that I pulled from Pinterest this year for Thanksgiving.  A fruit turkey and a waffle cone and m&m cornucopia.

Photos on Turkey Day 2012

We took time for a few pictures and with our simple click and shoot turned out great!  I think this is one of the best pictures we have taken. 




I was able to get Sydney to smile for one picture too.

Father and Son campout, Blitch Style

Last weekend, it was very cold outside and Conner wanted to watch a movie at home.  So, Billy created a palette to lay on in front of the fire and we watched, "The Grinch" with Jim Carrey. 
Good old wholesome fun! 11/16/2012

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Sydney at her RAA Chamber Choir

A wonderful evening of singing at RAA Middle School.  
The really interesting part of us being able to attend this and Sydney to even being in the choir is...... This school year Sydney is taking band and high school level Spanish therefore she couldn't take chorus. If you aren't in chorus then you can't participate in outside of school chorus activities.... Sydney wanted to sing so badly that she begged Mrs. Prescott at the beginning of the year to allow her to be in the choir. I don't know how many times Sydney continued to ask but it must have been enough times because she sang.

Determination that makes me so proud of her. She wants to be Music Therapist so she is smart to do as much as she can with music singing and learning instruments. Then since we live in Florida it only makes sense to learn Spanish and learn it well. A talent to have as she wants to serve a mission.

Billy, Conner, Thomas, Beth, David and myself attended.

Have videos too...

Fall Colors

I love the fall colors! It's kinda weird if ya think about it though... The leaves are dying and it's beautiful but in the spring the trees have a rebirth.

It's amazing to me how this earth works. I will give my praise and a grateful heart to a wonderful God and to his son.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Mother taught

Remember who you are and what you represent.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

smoked meat... yummy

beginning

 middle


 end


yummy

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

2012 Election Day

 On November 6th, I was up early helping monitor polls.  Here are two pictures I was able to get taken at the end of the day.  The most interesting part of my day was that the poll workers couldn't figure out what 100 feet was and I went and purchased a measuring tape so that I could help figure it out correctly.  They had me across the street behind trees.  When actually it was not even across the street, but I was nice and went across the street.  It was so cold.
I liked both pictures so I posted both.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Greek Food Festival

So fun! We went to the Annual Greek Food Festival... Yummy to my tummy. It think I enjoyed the most.  It really was great going all together. We just switched when we get the kids so instead of getting on Friday, it starts on Wednesday. Well, Sydney starts on Wednesday and maybe soon Conner can.  He came over Thursday because Daddy Ray was visiting.


Friday, October 12, 2012

Principal of the month... Guess who?

William Blitch, that's who.  

Billy was the Principal of the month for October 2012.

Way to go!  I am so proud of you! Billy works so hard for his students.  He is at work by 6:30am to 3:00pm and then his day doesn't end there.  He has parent's calling him in the evening about their child.  Being a principal is hard work!
Look at that handsome happy man of mine.  

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Billy is Kiwanis President

Billy was elected President of the Quincy Kiwanis Club.  We are all very proud of him and his community leadership. I got to have the opportunity to be there when he was installed.
To learn more about what Kiwanis does, visit the international web site at http://www.kiwanis.org/.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Want what...

Don't wish for what you want. Don't wait for what you want. COMMAND WHAT YOU and watch it come to you like MAGIC!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Goals Quote

"Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor." — Brian Tracy

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Brian Johnson – 50 Things I Am Going to Do Today

Today, I listened the reading twice

Brian Johnson – 50 Things I Am Going to Do Today

1) Grow. We’re growing or dying, either stepping forward into growth or back into safety. Seize every moment as another opportunity to expand your soul.

2) Dream. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

3) Floss. Do the little things to the best of your abilities. When you get in the habit of living at your potential with the mundane things, it becomes second nature to do the second stuff.

4) Breathe. Take a deep breath in, exhale.

5) Smile.

6) Sweat. Our bodies were made to move.

7) Shower.

8) Be nice. Wayne Dyer, Science of Kindness.

9) Be grateful. Think of three things that you are grateful for every day.

10) Drink water.

11) Take responsibility for your life (learned helplessness).

12) Meditate. Slow down, breathe, and quiet your mind for a moment or two or three.

13) Be here right now, the present moment.

14) Turn off the TV.

15) Open a book.

16) Learn out loud (audio books).

17) Pay your bills with a smile. Never let a dollar come in or go out of your hands without gratitude. Honor the exchange.

18) Get a journal and use it.

19) Ask yourself what you would do if you weren’t afraid –and then do it.

20) Ask yourself that question again and do it again and again. Do it ten times and you’ll be a different person. Do it every moment and you’ll be telling your story to the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “always do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain”.

21) Create a new habit. Ask yourself what is the one thing you know you should be doing that would most dramatically change your life, and then commit to creating that habit.

22) Become aware. When you’re aware you’re awake, not asleep. You’re not just going through the conditioned moments of your habitual life, you’re consciously creating it. Buddha – budh – one who is awake to reality.

23) Step forward. In any given moment you have two options, you can step forward into growth or you can step back into safety. Become aware of your behavior. Become aware of the decisions you’re making every moment of your life. Be conscience of who you are and the decisions you’re making, how you’re expressing yourself and what you’re actually doing. Your destiny is shaped by your moment-to-moment decisions so choose wisely and step forward.

24) Say yes.

25) Quit worrying about what other people think. There’s no way you can please everyone all the time. By worrying about what other people think of you and working hard to try to please them you’re losing the essence of who you are.

26) Listen.

27) Put the sock straight in the hamper. Wash the dish and put it away. Do the little things the way you know you should.

28) Push yourself. William James, “you have enormous untapped power you’ll probably never tap because most people never run far enough on their first wind to ever find their second”. The training effect – 1, overload your body with more stress than it can currently handle, enough so you’re out of your current comfort zone and 2, overcompensation, the body repairs itself so next time it’s stronger.

29) Move. Take action. Flow (river vs. pool of water). Don’t let the pond scum grow.

30) Be authentic (authentic means to be your own author). Be you. Don’t pretend to be anyone or anything else (read “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior” by Dan Milman).

31) Stop. What one thing do you know you should STOP doing? It’s not serving you anymore and it never did. Replace that old behavior with a positive one.

32) Act “as if”. Who do you want to be? Get that image. On a moment-to-moment basis act as if you already were that person.

33) Regain your balance. Put your arms straight out. Spin around five or six times to get off balance. Stop spinning, put your hands together like you’re praying and stare at your fingertips, then look all around you. When things get stressful you can look all around you to get perspective or focus on what you know to be true, what your intention in life is.

34) Go straight at your problems. Take them head on (read Pilgrim’s Progress). Problems kick your butt when you avoid them, don’t show your backside.

35) Serve. Give yourself to the world (read Man Search for Meaning by Victor Franco). “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it; for success, like happiness, cannot be pursued, it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintentional side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself, or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself”.

36) Be the change (Gandhi).

37) Fill your water pot and hit the rock. Consistently train yourself to be your best. Buddha, “little by little a person becomes evil as a water pot is filled by drops of water, and little by little a person becomes good as a water pot is filled by drops of water”. The stone cutter hits a rock with a hammer, people say “wow, he’s strong” because he broke a huge rock with a single blow but they don’t know he’d been hammering a long time. No one is lucky enough to reach any level of excellence without an equally diligent and consistent effort. Hit the rock.

38) Be consistent. Focus on consistency not intensity. Aristotle, “we are what we repeatedly do”.

39) Be inconsistent. Be willing to change your mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”.

40) Embrace opposites.

41) Make your room your cave. Bedrooms are for sleeping and baby-making.

42) Support someone in the process of achieving greatness, anyone and everyone who has the courage to follow their dreams and try to make them a reality, including you.

43) Follow your bliss (not someone else’s or what you think it should be).

44) Use a dictionary. Write your new word down. Expand your mind.

45) Quit comparing yourself to others (you have to be either inferior or superior, and neither is a good basis for a loving relationship).

46) Brush your teeth. While you’re doing it, look yourself in the eyes and say “I love you”.

47) Squeeze the old Kiegle.

48) Stretch.

49) Quit milking the cow (eliminate dairy).

50) Say thank you. Go to bed with those words, wake up with them, and pop them in during the day.

 

Help Develop Others Talents

9 Characteristics of Emerging Leaders

  1. Cultivating a high standard of ethics
  2. Great leaders have high high high energy --- play hard, have fun! Sometimes have to change how do things. Have to get movement better, then better money.
  3. Learn to work priorities --- do the hardest 1st, which Judy Gray taught me this. But it is easier said than done. Funny thing is that when you do you won't worry.
  4. Got to have courage-- be able to jump in the water before testing. Sometimes will be off balance to get job done.
  5. Working hard with dedication and commitment. Focus on what matters-- here's what paid to do is get leads. Got to get results. Don't worry about what others think of me. Care about getting job done. Be confident about who are as a person.
  6. Getting goal oriented-- understand what goals are. People without goals work for someone that does have goals. Not placed to keep job same but to make it better. So next person who gets job has something to live up too.
  7. Maintaining constant enthusiasm-- have to get game face on. Inspired enthusiasm get by way of going and where going to be, comes from within. Can't be beat up or tired in from of people lead. Enthusiasm also comes from accomplishing goal. ***Important: Bigger Goal, Bigger Vision, Gvies Enthusiams.*** FYI-- If don't have inspired contagious enthusiasm then what you do have is contagious... Ouch! What are we/I passing forward?
  8. Staying Level Headed-- tough decision, stay calm to a point that everything is not emotional tone. Staying levelheaded decisions based on facts not emotions. Can't expect people to be like you, everyone is different.
  9. Helping others to go-- help all people grow just help everyone.
Additionally...

  • Fix problems rather than talk about them. Look for solutions
  • Problems aren't stopping places but discussion points to move forward
 

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Quote from "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl

From the author's preface to the 1984 Edition
"Again and again I admonish my students both in America and Europe:
'Don't aim at success--the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.'
For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run--in the long run, I say--success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it." pp. 16-17. Here is where I found the summary of "Man's Search for Meaning".
I heard this quote today while listen in my Auto University... Downloaded from www.learnoutloud.com that came from the audio read of "50 Things To Do Today" by Brian Johnson. (summary on this coming up next)

As I work on being a better leader, this came to me as I have shared with my team that you have to focus on the right objective and if it is to just make sales and not caring about the people you serve then you will fail.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Get Results! Leadership Academy

Below are points that caught my attention in Rob Falvo's and are in no particular order.

  • It's all about Results when it comes to the destination.
  • Have the destination in mind before starting journey.
  • Be best leader you can be.
  • It's about getting people I'm responsible for to be the best they can be.
  • I'm a coach and I'm also a player... Mgr is coach Reps are players.
  • Coach is only as good as the players they have on their team.
  • Leadership is a lifestyle choice. I've made that lifestyle choice. BB will sure tell you that I have when it comes to our house. He will say, if Mommy's not happy then no one is happy.
  • "If through learning, I'm through." john wooden
  • From Harvard Business Review podcast, "you can learn from stupid people, just learn what not to do".
  • That's not who I am but that's who I was.... (Sarcastic voice) Wow, someone can change. (Serious voice) I believe that life is all about learning and improving. So, we all have had hurdles to overcome and some did. Sometime is was just crawled over, but you made the improvement. Yeah and congrats to you for bettering yourself!
Rob provided four improvement tips:

  1. Be coachable
  2. Be committed to life of learning/improving
  3. Study lives of great people
  4. Develop weekly system of getting more knowledge. For example: read 10 mins a day or subscribe to podcasts listen while driving.
Then, PASS IT ON. SHARE IT!

I am EMPOWERED!

For the past few days, I have been at LDS School. No that's not Latter-day Saint School. Which I personally thought it was a neat similarity when I started working for AIL but actually it stands for Leadership Development School.

I learned so many leadership applications and will proceed to share in my following posts over the next few days. I have been looking for this type of knowledge and it is wonderful that my company have these services within house that can help me improve. No matter how many books I listen to or read it is always great to have an in-person experience. Just like the time I got to meet Zig Zigler. What an honor!

Side note: "It's not the terrible two's but the terrific two's, the terrific threes and fabulous fours." Which was something Zig said on a tape my mom once listened too, which to me it means, always look for the positive of the experience. Then when Sydney was those ages, I applied that to my parenting and we went through the terrific two's!

Then another quote I heard at the Tallahassee Civic Center was, "Make your car an Automobile University". To always be learning and I have tried too do this in my life.

It was energizing to hear other people that are leading my company are doing the same too.

So..... AIL has a few of our own Zig's and ihad the opportunity to soak up some great tips. For the purpose of this blog, the following people are the ones I will share some great golden nuggets: Rob Falvo, Scott Smith, Larry Strong, Dom Bertini and Susan Fuldauer.

The theme was: EMPOWERED.

For-which I do feel very much empowered. Get ready Central and Northern Florida!

 

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Playing keep away

After Family Branch Night, we found the kids playing keep away outside.
It was like a traditional family outing to me.
Then when we tell then it's time to go, it's who can get to the car he fastest.
It's a race to the car!
I do believe Sydney had the upper hand because she was much closer.
It's a race to the car!
Now, I just love my iPad since I have found apps that make my blogging after and therefore easier. I am in love with YouTube too. Since, I just take tins of pictures, it is better to make into a video instead of posting all of them.

P.S. the kid in the middle is Nick. Son of Sydney and Conner's favorite people at church. Syd likes James and Conner Sister Barber.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Visiting Teaching conf.

What a wonderful day at church. Look at the creative decorations.

I was even on the program.