Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Personal Best

Spencer's Owl

Last week, Spencer drew and cut out this owl. When he brought it in to show us, he announced that he had, "done his personal best". At the public school he is attending, in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, the children are taught "life skills" such as: active listening, identifying feelings, conflict resolution and, of course, doing their personal best.

Don't get me wrong, I think these are good skills to learn, but I got to thinking, how nice would it be to tell the mortgage company that you haven't paid your bill yet, but you are doing your personal best? Sam is ready to give it a go at work; sorry the deal didn't close - I was doing my personal best. Actually, I love the phrase and I even tried it out myself last week; I was unloading the dishwasher, cooking dinner and had three children asking for three different things and I just looked at them and told them I was doing my personal best. Owen and Laney were, of course, not being active listeners, but I think Spencer was very empathic to my situation.

Well, I am off now to make a delicious lasagna that is nothing short of my personal best.

PS From the poll, it looks like some of the food manufacturers have some work to do with their labeling (100% would like to see where their food is grown) and China needs to work a little harder at achieving their personal best because 78% of you would not (knowingly) buy a food product from them.

6 comments:

Greenie Gardens said...

I think this posting is your personal best! It was adorable. The owl is really nicely done. Good Work! Mom

Mary said...

Oh, how funny! My son once asked me if the bowl of Cheerios I was giving him was a part of his "complete breakfast." I told him it WAS his complete breakfast.

Love the owl, byw!
xoxo,
Mary

Mrs Furious said...

Oh funny... I'm gonna start saying that!

Marianna said...

Ah yes, the wonders of public schools (assuming he is in a public school here). I do like the idea of using that phrase to get out of binds, though!

Marianna

p.s. That owl is really cute!

Blog a Blurb said...

hi there! My personal best is keeping me from my blogging, but do so enjoy seeing all the pics. Love Spencer's drawing and Owen's bird. Too wonderful. Great pics, too.

Kari (GrannySkywalker) said...

I have done my personal best to get back to this post and comment on it. Obviously, my personal best leaves much to be desired. However, I have identified the feelings that have kept me from total efficiency and, in an effort to speed up my response time, am actively listening to that little voice inside my head that's telling me to forget my houseguests and just HAVE FUN BLOGGING! Of course, I will need to work on my conflict resolution if I choose to take that route as I'm fairly certain my houseguests will wish to "discuss" my decision at length. Thank goodness for public schools, eh? I've learned so much........