davidNprogress

The time is now Conner is starting his final fall semester of college and will essentially be done with his degree at the end of this semester. The spring will bring his capstone class, graduation and the start of being fully on his own. It is the dream of every parent for their child to grow up and exceed the life they have lived. We want our children to have an amazing life with a good job, a loving family, financial success, adventure, service to the community and a heart for God. I grew up without strong dreams for all of these things and yet somehow ended up blessed to have much of them. Could I have done more and could I have been more? Absolutely! Nonetheless, we have done our best to live our lives as a positive example for our son and fully expect that he will move on to excel in his own way on his own journey. The path to this point has not come without adversity. Conner is a survivor after having experienced the great trama of his cliff accident his senior year ...

I still remember the day I realized that my daily diet coke habit was stealing my retirement dreams. At the time, Coke was running a promotion using a code from a bottle cap to get prizes. You would save your cap, enter the number on a website and points would add up for something fabulous. I kept these caps in a desk drawer and it did not take long for these to really pile up since I had a long time frequent habit of visiting the machine at work several times a day. There was the before work Coke, mid-morning Coke, lunch Coke, mid-afternoon Coke and usually something towards the end of the day. One afternoon I looked at the pile of caps wondered how much in cost that represented. Next, I began to think about cost over time and if I continued this pattern what it would mean in the long term. The final kicker was when I plugged in my average monthly diet coke spending into a savings calculator and considered how much $5 a day applied to retirement could mean if saved for the ne...

This week is Thanksgiving and there is no doubt that many folks will take time to reflect and be thankful. That is a very good thing. The truth is that the spirit of thankfulness is something we should have every day of our lives and there is no need to make it a holiday. At the same time, the coming together of family and friends plus a chance to eat three slices of pie in a day is something I do not plan to pass up. Daily thankfulness and an attitude of gratitude are important for a happy life. Gratitude or “the state of being grateful” would seem like a simple thing, unfortunately, there are way too many people that just do not get it. When we place ourselves in a grateful state the world seems less burdensome and the future is brighter. I believe that anyone can dig deep no matter their current situation and find a reason to be grateful. Not only does this state feel good but there are many studies that show people who live with a spirit of gratitude experience ...