Tag: hopeful future

motherhood

Endings and New Beginnings

WFAM

After a quarter of a century with AT&T, Mad Dog is shifting gears and will be moving his talents to a new company.  To all the family and friends who have remained loyal to the brand throughout his career, we appreciate you.  

Click here to see the announcement:

Welcome to AND Agency, Mad Dog!

We are Florida bound! 

It is hard to feel completely at ease moving during a pandemic, but we are taking the longview knowing in our hearts it is where we are meant to be; close to family, long-time friends and saltwater breezes. 

We have already found our Amelia Island home.  We can’t wait to be so close to the beach!

1247423c64b26842bc57f79ed4635d6b-cc_ft_384
Welcome to Siesta D!

When your life has revolved around one company for so many years, it is a lot to digest as the magnitude of leaving it behind settles in.  Mad Dog and I have met some of the most incredible people that we are lucky to call our friends. We are so grateful they will continue to be a part of lives as we move forward.

All this nostalgia got me thinking back to when I first met Mad Dog. Initially, I often wondered if we were compatible.  He was a quiet yet intense go-getter poised to crush the business world.  I was an empathic social worker intent on saving the world one troubled soul at at time.  Mad Dog sensed this divide, too.  At one point I remember him considering a leadership position with the American Cancer Society.  I knew the non-profit sector wasn’t where he belonged, but it made me love him all the more for his thoughtful consideration of this.

As I watched him earn his promotion as the youngest (at the time) GM of a call center, I started to see firsthand the scope of his leadership impact.  He expected excellence on the job, but he also encouraged accountability across all facets of life.  One of my favorite stories regarding this career-defining time of Mad Dog’s life, is how he mentored one of his coaches into becoming the first college graduate ever in her family.  These types of exceptional stories became the norm.

That’s when I knew we were meant for each other.  We both valued making the world better than how we found it.  It may have presented differently for both of us, but the theme of lifting others up was the common thread that ultimately wove our lives together.

For me, the debt of gratitude I feel for AT&T knows no bounds.  Not only in the beautiful life it has afforded us, but because of the outstanding medical benefits provided that allowed both our boys to have top-notch eye care and sight-saving surgeries.  I won’t go into detail, but if you would like to read more about these experiences, click the links below.

Eye Am Thankful

Once Legally Blind, Our Son Now Sees 20/25

The video below (Mad Dog starts speaking around the 3:40 marker), is the full circle culmination of where it all started for Mad Dog as he helped re-launch a high-tech, revitalized Chicago North call center.  This is the moment I am the most proud of in his career. The way he speaks to our experiences with our boys and their vision challenges as well as our gratitude for AT&T says it all.

 

While it is hard to say goodbye, as we look back it reminds us of all that has happened we never imagined would. That is why we can take this leap of faith with confidence.  In this new phase if we encounter even a fraction of the kind of awesome people and experiences we did with AT&T, then we are certain the road ahead will be paved with more wonder than we ever dreamed possible.

Thank you for reading and see you at the beach!

 

family, motherhood

WFAM: Holiday Edition 2019

WFAM

cropped-img_4251.jpg

2019 will forever be known as the year Mad Dog and I became the parents of teenagers!

How did we go from this:

 

Image 12-18-19 at 11.36 AM
December 2018

To this:

IMG_8107
November 2019

Somehow our boys became young men in less than a year’s time!  No one tells you that when you become a parent.  That in an instant your children vanish and are replaced by grown-up versions of themselves.  Naively, I thought it would be more gradual.  How do I feel about this?  If I am to take a cue from T.Puzzle and his extreme articulation abilities which are common to thirteen year old boys around the world I’d say this:

“I dunno.”

or

“I don’t care.” (my personal favorite)

In general, despite some family growing pains due to the realm of the teenager, both boys are successfully finding their way in the world.  Academic success is part of that, and even this isn’t always smooth (A Humble Hero’s Journey), but it’s the intangibles that make them so awesome.  Like Mad Dog, our boys get better with age.

2019 was the year of dreams realized.  First and foremost, Mad Dog and I ventured to Africa (My Heart Belongs to Africa).  The magic of the African bushveld and all our adventures there have pushed me to keep writing.  I never know where it might lead, but I am learning to love the process and am grateful for any chance I am afforded to be published.

Fulfilling A Life Long Dream of Coming Face-to-Face with a Lion

Full Speed continues his basketball coaching journey by managing his high school’s freshman teams.  He takes great pride in this role making sure to dress the part on game days.  The freshman coach has expressed his appreciation for Full Speed’s strategical support and his positive leadership contributions. Something tells me this is only the beginning in what could be a life-long commitment to coaching for Full Speed.  He truly is in his element out on that court and we could not be more proud of him.

If coaching is Full Speed’s element, giving is mine. Thankfully, I married someone who supports this life vision.  Mad Dog and I were able to start our DeVaul Family Great Day Foundation this year.  Each month we are able to give to the causes we care about.  I am excited to see how it grows and where it goes.

And while some dreams were realized, 2019 was not without challenges.  Mad Dog and I continue to navigate the strain of ‘third-party’ influences on our marriage.  This has shown up in the fluffiest of forms:

Image 12-18-19 at 11.32 AM

The only way I make peace with Nora ‘stealing’ my man’s attention, is that she allows me to dress her up like a Disney Princess:

Image 12-18-19 at 11.32 AM
Girl, all is forgiven!

As I do my best to navigate ‘sharing’ Mad Dog, I am reminded that I, too, apparently have some boundary issues when it comes to Max.  When he came into our house over six years ago at the age of ten, I never thought he would live to see so many holiday seasons with us.  He is a reminder of all that is good in the world.  He may be cranky on occasion but he is a living, breathing form of what unconditional love looks like.

Image 12-18-19 at 11.32 AM
When you’re sixteen going on seventeen…

Even though we are blessed with the most incredible boys and perfect dogs, we are happy to announce a new addition to our family!

Please welcome Roho the baby elephant! (yeah, I kind of freaked out my sister, too. All she heard was ‘baby’ and thought I had lost my mind)

Image 12-18-19 at 12.31 PM

We are fostering Roho for the next several years in the hopes he will learn the needed skills to successfully return to the wild after losing his mom to poachers.  I will be getting my first pictures and official updates of his progress as Christmas arrives.  He, by far, is my most well-behaved child.

Welcome to the family, Roho!

While we are so grateful to all the wonder 2019 supplied us, we are even more excited for what the future will bring.  Yes, some of it may be unexpected and yes, it may not always look the way we imagined, but we have to be willing to let go of the life we wanted to live the life we are given.  In my experience, the life we are given always far exceeds anything we believe we could want.

Happy Holidays to All. 

Thank you for reading and may 2020 bring all your dreams alive!

Will the real Gardner Minshew please stand up?

LOVE

children, eyesight, gratitude, health, mommyhood, parenting, surgery

Smooth Sailing

WFAM

T.Puzzle came through his second surgery and all looks well with both his eyes.  The doc checked the first eye while he was under and it appears his prescription improved a couple diopters (yay!).  She also said that as he grows his prescription may improve even more.  Imagine that!  More good news about my child and/or children and their vision.  We’ve come along way from ‘legally blind‘ and ‘your baby’s vision is worse than his brother’s’ type of information sharing with medical professionals.  Hooray!

This is what 'happy juice' looks like.

The overall surgery experience was much like I expected.  He was absolutely miserable during the eye drop portion (as was I) and he woke up madder than a hornet’s nest from anesthesia.   Nothing a solid nap (for Mommy, too!) and Cheerios couldn’t solve.

He is so brave.

Love you, T.Puzzle!

T.Puzzle checks out his awesome surgical cap situation.

Related Articles
children, gratitude, happiness

My Friend, My Brother

WFAM

The boys have been sleeping in the same room. When we upgraded little T.Puzzle’s bed from a crib, we purchased a trundle bed with this intent in mind. Usually, T.Puzzle goes to bed in the ‘super secret spy’ pull-out part, and then Full Speed slips in quietly (sort of) a few minutes later to the upper ‘big boy’ portion. They know the rules. If Mom so much as hears a peep out of either one, Full Speed will be immediately relocated to his own room with no warning and no questions asked. So far, I haven’t had to follow through on that threat. They must actually want to be in the same room. After all the smack-downs I have witnessed I find this shocking.

They decided to mix it up over the weekend. They decided to sleep in the same bed for fun.

Little T.Puzzle thought this was remarkable. When I was helping him get dressed the next morning he said, “Mommy! Full Speed slept with me on my Thomas sheeps!”

Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

gratitude, life in pictures, mommyhood

Reflection

WFAM

Against my better judgment and my own free will (Mad Dog is very persuasive), we took the boys to Box Seats after lunch. It actually wasn’t as overwhelming as usual. The place was pretty dead and almost serenely quiet. The boys had unlimited access to the newly installed NASCAR racing games, and Mad Dog and I shared cocktails and some actual conversation.

Then, I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye on one of Box Seats’ 137 television screens was a horrendous sight. And, then another and so on and so forth. The show was called ‘Bite Me with Dr. Mike’. It’s on the Travel Channel and flashes of dung beetles, some type of internal organ and other visual displays of grossness kept parading across the screen. I totally get that this is a show men may prefer, but it did little to convince me that Box Seats is a place that I want to regularly hang out. Now, maybe if they played ‘Sex and the City’ reruns and had weekly cosmopolitan specials, I could change my mind.

After 15 car races we were finally able to make our escape. The boys were being fairly well-behaved so we thought they could handle getting their hair cut. Of course, they did not sit still for one minute while we waited for their turn. They stood on chairs a couple times, attempted a wrestling smack-down and had a Power Ranger war. However, they responded well when reprimanded and when it was their turn for a trim, they were almost angelically (and mysteriously) well-mannered. Little T.Puzzle especially surprised me. He climbed up to the barber’s chair like a pro and yanked his glasses (they aren’t really made for yanking but oh well) off his face even before he was told.

I felt almost human. This is how I imagine my life could be. I could be in public and realistically know my kids won’t be perfect, but will be manageable. I even had a lengthy and lovely chat with another Mom of two boys that were a few years older than mine. She had much empathy about the physical and mental demands of raising young, active boys. She didn’t seem too scarred by her experience and that gave me hope. I always believe the strangers we interact with in the world are here to teach us something. They reflect back to us the things that sometimes we are unable to see within ourselves. Maybe I’ll make it through after all.