Moving Mountains

"A woman knows life takes shape in big and small spaces and the movement in between. When we're simply ourselves, in the everyday act of being, we don't have to move mountains or make miracles, but sometimes we do anyway."

- Eileen Fisher

Think about it. In our day-to-day lives as wives and mothers, it's not always apparent that we're making difference. We move mountains all right, mountains of laundry, mountains of dishes and meals enough to feed armies. A thankless job is our specialty and we do it because, like the mountain climbers say, "It's there." Does anyone care that we've taken our commitment and our jobs seriously?

The Farmer and I consciously raised our children in an environment that I'll term an "entitlement free zone." They always say thank you for even the smallest favors and they're sincere. We've tried to show them through example that you only get from point A to point G by working through every step in between. And we never gave up. Ever. Believe me there were some tough times that made us both want to throw our hands in the air and say, "Enough!" But commitment doesn't mean just sticking around for the shining moments but for slogging through the most difficult times. Children learn commitment by watching it up close and personal.

I'm saying these things to point out the importance of making conscious decisions about our values and our ethics. Those decisions become a family operating manual or a mission statement.

Our lives and our work as parents can be incredibly ordinary and unappreciated. But there are those moments when we can stand back and take stock of what we've accomplished. And that's when we discover that indeed, in those everyday acts of being, we have moved mountains and made miracles happen.