Sandra McLeod Humphrey's Blog, page 4
June 12, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Last Place Finish to First Place in Our Hearts!
Imagine This: It’s the Ohio Division III girls state meet and you’re competing for the championship in the 3200-meter race after winning the 1600 earlier in the day. With about 20 meters to go, another runner collapses on the track in front of you. What do you do?
Who: You’re Meghan Vogel, a senior at West Liberty Salem High School in West Liberty, Ohio.
What: The Division III 3200-meter Finals
Where: Columbus, Ohio
When: Saturday, June 2, 2012
You’re a junior runner, seeded seventh in the 3200, and you have only one hour to prepare for the grueling 3200 after winning the 1600 an hour earlier. Three laps into the race, you begin falling off the pace and you know it’s now a matter of just finishing the race. You’ve never been last, but you’re content to just finish the race.
Then with about 20 meters to go, Arlington High sophomore Arden McMath collapses on the track in front of you. You not only help Arden to her feet, you also help carry her across the finish line—making sure that she crosses the finish line in front of you.
You and Arden have never met before, but you help her out because you believe it’s the right thing to do.
Thank you, Meghan, for proving that it’s true that “It’s not whether you win or lose but rather how you run the race.”
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
For More about Meghan Vogel:
For More Photos, Check Out:
Something to Think about: What do you think you would have done if you had been in Meghan’s place?
Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!
Reminder: To be eligible for the weekly drawing for an autographed copy of one of my books (your choice of book), please leave a comment.
(Two Restrictions):
1) There must be a minimum of 10 visitor comments
2) Only U.S. residents please to save on mailing costs.
June 7, 2012
Birthday Celebration!
My blog will be a year old this month and to celebrate its birthday, there will be two changes:
1) Every Tuesday I will have a drawing (provided there are at least 10 visitor comments for my blog post that week) and randomly select a winner who will receive an autographed copy of one of my books (their choice of book). The prior week’s winner will be announced each Wednesday when the new post is posted. Just U.S. residents please to save on mailing costs.
2) Every other week I will be posting a brief article about someone recently in the news who has inspired us by his or her example and is a great role model for the rest of us!
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
John Wooden
June 6, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Serious Student to First Female Hispanic Astronaut
Imagine This: In high school, other students put you down because you like science and your teachers try to dissuade you from taking the “hard math and science classes.” Some of your teachers even tell you that you won’t go far in the field of science. So what do you do? Do you still take those classes?
You’re born in 1958 in Los Angeles, California, one of five children. You’re half Mexican and proud of your Hispanic heritage. Your grandparents are born in Mexico but move to the United States to raise their family because they want their children to have as many educational advantages and opportunities as possible.
Your mother is a firm believer in the value of education and teaches all five of you to work hard and get a good education, so that you can be anything you want to be. She also practices what she preaches. She takes college classes for twenty-three years and eventually earns her degree, taking one class at a time. She passes her enthusiasm for education on to all five of you.
You love school and aren’t afraid to work hard. Your favorite subjects are math and music, but you do well in all your classes. You also love to read and one of your favorite books is A Wrinkle in Time because it’s a story about a young girl who travels through time.
Even though your father leaves the family when you’re in junior high, you mother still encourages you all to work hard in school and to set high goals for yourselves. You learn to play the flute and music is a common bond between you and your brothers and sister. You become such an accomplished musician that you play with the Civic Youth Orchestra in San Diego while in high school. You even think that one day you might have a career as a classical flutist.
You continue to work hard and graduate as the valedictorian of your high school class in 1975. Even though girls aren’t encouraged to major in math and science in college, your high school calculus teacher makes math so appealing and so exciting that you decide to continue studying it in college.
At San Diego State University, you change your major five times before finally choosing physics (music, business administration, journalism, computer science, then physics). Physics proves to be a good choice and once again you’re the valedictorian of your graduating class. You go on to earn your master of science degree and doctorate in electrical engineering at Stanford University.
While in graduate school, some of your friends apply to be astronauts at NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). The astronaut program is now open to women as well as men and you decide to apply as soon as you finish your degree. After earning your degree, you’re hired by NASA as a researcher and in 1990 you survive the selection process with 2000 applicants to become an astronaut.
After a year of intensive training, you become the first female Hispanic astronaut in July 1991. In April 1993 you’re the only woman on a crew of five astronauts aboard the shuttle Discovery when it is launched into space. And you make history as the first Hispanic woman astronaut ever to travel in outer space.
Since then, you completed three more missions and continued to work for NASA on robotics and space station research and development. You have worked hard all your life and are an extraordinary role model for all of us!
“Don’t be afraid to reach for the stars.”
Ellen Ochoa (1958- )
Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
Giving Back: Ellen Ochoa is a mentor and helps young girls pursue their dreams no matter what they are.
Did You Know that Ellen Ochoa is also an inventor and has three patents in the area of optical processing?
Something to Think about: Why do you think a good education was so important to Ellen’s mother?
Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!
May 30, 2012
The Versatile Blogger Award
I want to thank Tegan Whalan for passing The Versatile Blogger Award on to me! Tegan has a great blog about dogs at http://leemakennels.com/blog/ and her “Some Thoughts about Dogs” blog was just voted one of the “Top 107 Pet Blogs” which I might add is a well-deserved honor!
Instructions for the Award:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award
2. Include a link to their blog.
3. Paste the award on your blog.
4. Share 7 things about yourself.
5. Pass this award on to as many as 15 blogs you enjoy reading and let them know about the award!
Seven Things about Me:
1) My horse Soltero Allegro (“The Happy Bachelor”) was afraid of men.
2) My husband and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last September.
3) After my chemotherapy, my hair grew back curly. (Alas, my curls are now long gone!)
4) I’m a certified chocoholic!
5) I am technologically-challenged (REALLY technologically-challenged!)
6) My new book Making Bad Stuff Good! will be coming out later this year.
7) I love taking our Aussie puppy RAZZ to her puppy obedience classes.
15 Bloggers Who Are Versatile:
Andrea @ http://www.womenincrimeink.blogspot.com/ (Women in Crime)
Cherrye @ http://www.booksthatsow.com/ (Books That Sow: …)
Clara @ http://clarbojahn.wordpress.com/ (Clarbojahn’s Blog)
Darcia @ http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/ (A Word Please)
Elaine @ http://elainestock.blogspot.com/ (Everyone’s Story)
Jo Ann @ http://storyquestbooks.com/blog/ (Story Quest Children’s Books
Kate @ http://whenkateblogs.blogspot.com/ (When Kate Blogs)
Margot @ http://hookkidsonreading.blogspot.com/ (Hook Kids on Reading)
Nike @ http://nikechillemi.wordpress.com/ (Crime Fictionista)
Olyn @ http://omarblue.blogspot.com/ (Omar Blue and K-9 Town)
Ronna @ http://goodreadswithronna.com/ (GoodReads with Ronna)
Shelley @ http://bookfare.blogspot.com/ (But What Are They Eating?)
Stuart @ http://stuartaken.blogspot.com/ (Stuart Aken)
Susan @ http://www.susantaylorbrown.com/blog/ (Susan Taylor Brown)
Terry @ http://family-bookshelf.org/ (Family Bookshelf)
Thanks Again, Tegan!
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Young Boy with a Dream to Space Eploration Hero
Imagine This: People have dreamed of reaching the Moon for hundreds of years, but no one has ever tried to land a spacecraft there. Now that may actually be possible and you dream of being the one to do it!
You’re born August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio, the oldest of three children. Growing up, you love to read and, in the first grade, you read ninety books.
One Sunday, when you’re six years old, your life is changed forever! You’re supposed to be at church, but instead, you and your father sneak off to the airport where a pilot is in town offering rides in his Ford tri-motor airplane known at the “Tin Goose.”
After that first plane ride, you want to fly, and you spend all your free time building model airplanes. You make hundreds of model planes and even build a wind tunnel in your basement to test them.
By the time you’re nine, you’re decorating your bedroom with planes hung from the ceiling, and when you’re not building model planes, you spend your spare time reading about planes.
At fifteen, you begin taking flying lessons. Each lesson costs nine dollars an hour and you work at a hardware store, a grocery store, and later a pharmacy to pay for your lessons. Soaring through the sky is worth all the hard work!
On your sixteenth birthday, you receive the best possible present, your pilot’s license. Now you can fly on your own. You have your pilot’s license before your driver’s license.
You love science, math, and astronomy and find the planets and stars to be almost as amazing as airplanes. You’re particularly fascinated by the Moon.
In 1947 the United States Navy offers you a scholarship for study at a school of your choice, so you begin work on an aeronautical engineering degree at Purdue University. In return for the scholarship, you agree to join the Navy after college.
Before you can earn your degree, however, a war starts in Korea, and in 1949 you’re called to active duty with the Navy. After some brief training, you’re assigned to an aircraft, the USS Essex, as a fighter pilot. Your dream of being a pilot has come true.
You fly seventy-eight missions during the Korean War and receive three medals for courage. You also become known as a pilot who can handle all kinds of danger.
After your tour of duty is over, you return to college. After graduating in 1955, you head to Edwards Air Force Base in California where the American government is building and testing new kinds of airplanes, just what you’ve dreamed of doing!
Your most exciting job there is testing the X-15 rocket plane which is almost like going into space. On one flight in 1962 you reach a peak altitude of 207,500 feet.
On February 20, 1962, astronaut John Glenn orbits the Earth three times in the space capsule Friendship 7, and you decide to apply for NASA’s (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) astronaut program.
Out of hundreds of hopeful pilots, you and eight others are chosen in September 1962. You work hard and in January 1969 NASA names you commander of Apollo 11. For the first time human beings will try to land on the Moon and you’ll be their leader. And the rest, as they say, is history. On July 20, 1969, you become the first human being to walk on the moon!
The young boy who had dreamed of flying planes had indeed left his mark in the history of space exploration!
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong (1930- )
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about Neil Armstrong
Giving Back: After leaving NASA, Neil Armstrong joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace engineering.
Did You Know that Neil Armstrong has a crater on the moon named after him?
Something to Think about: Do you really think it was his first ride in an airplane when he was six that inspired Neil Armstrong to dream of becoming a pilot and later an astronaut? Why or why not?
Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!
May 23, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Social Recluse to One of America’s Greatest Poets
Imagine This: You love to write poetry, but during your lifetime you’re all but ignored and have fewer than a dozen poems published out of your almost 1800 completed works.
You’re born December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, and you have an older brother Austin and a younger sister Lavinia (Vinnie). Your father is a successful attorney and very strict and your mother is quite frail and is often sick. Neither of your parents displays much emotion or affection.
Like most Amherst families, you’re Congregationalists and follow the tenets of New England Puritanism. The Puritans believe that spiritual purity can be achieved only by strict adherence to the values of simplicity, order, and austerity.
Your family is not very literary minded and your father discourages you from reading any books other than books of a religious nature. He believes that reading can be a bad influence on the minds of young people.
You attend the Amherst Academy where you study such difficult courses as Latin, geology, botany, and philosophy. Then, at sixteen, your father sends you to the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary where you’re expected to believe in God exactly as you’re instructed. You do believe in God, but you have to find your own way to believe.
Your school considers Christmas a pagan holiday and when you find out that you’ll be spending Christmas Day fasting and praying in your room, you leave school and return home. After the holidays, you return to school and your father writes a letter of apology for your leaving school without permission.
In March 1849 you develop a bronchial ailment and you return home for a month to regain your health. While home, you keep up with your studies, and pass all your year-end exams when you return to school.
In August, you return home permanently with mixed feelings. You’re happy to be home, but you feel that perhaps you failed to take advantage of all the opportunities Mount Holyoke had to offer.
At nineteen, one of your favorite books is Jane Eyre and you develop a special bond with the heroine. You long for the high-spirited and adventurous life that Jane Eyre lived while you’re still being treated as a child, especially by your father. You’re very much a part of the active social scene at Amherst, but every time you try to become more independent, your efforts are discouraged.
By the spring of 1853, many of your friends have left Amherst and are living independent lives which only heightens your feelings of loneliness. You spend a lot of your time writing letters to your friends and learning how to look at things the way a poet does. You write about the simple things of nature such as sunsets, flowers, and small creatures.
While visiting Philadelphia with your sister Vinnie in 1855, you meet the famous and charismatic preacher Charles Wadsworth and you’re both attracted to each other. Although he’s married, you begin a correspondence with him that lasts until his death in 1882.
Your life begins to change in the second half of the 1850s. You write more poetry as your social life declines. By the end of the decade, your preference for seclusion has begun to emerge and you retreat to the shelter of your house and garden.
It’s during this difficult time in your life that you begin to write poems about the joy and pain of loving someone and being in love. And soon your poetry becomes the most important thing in your life.
As your poetry becomes increasingly more important to you, your social circle grows smaller and smaller and your eccentricities become more pronounced. You never go anywhere anymore and you wear only white all year round.
But your poetry pours forth at a phenomenal rate over the next decade. By the time you die on May 15, 1886, from Bright’s Disease (a kidney disorder) at age 55, you have written almost 1800 poems, but only seven have been published.
After your death, all your poems are eventually published and you become recognized as a major American poet. You are also recognized as one of the most legendary figures in literature, renowned for your personal eccentricities as much as for your poetry.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“I dwell in possibility.”
For More about Emily Dickinson
Giving Back: Emily Dickinson was one of America’s early female poets and served as an inspiration to other poets for generations to come.
Did You Know that most of Emily Dickinson’s poems have no titles?
Something to Think about: Emily Dickinson is still considered an enigma today: some feel she was unable to escape the prison of her melancholy while others feel she was quite content and at peace with the secluded life she chose. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!
May 19, 2012
The Beautiful Blogger Award
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Many Thanks to Darlene Foster at http://darlenefoster.wordpress.com/ for this cool award! Darlene is a published writer, traveler and dreamer. She has won prizes for her short stories, has a story in the anthology Country Roads and has written and published two children’s novels Amanda in Arabia and Amanda in Spain.
Instructions for the award:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award
2. Paste the award on your blog
3. Link the person who nominated you for the award
4. Nominate 7 bloggers
5. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominated
So here are 7 random things about me:
1) While I was growing up, I lived in forty-six states.
2) By the time I entered junior high, I had attended 29 schools.
3) Our kids had a dog the size of a small pony and a pony the size of a large dog.
4) We always have a house full of dogs and cats adopted from our local Animal Humane Society.
5) I’ve ridden a camel (and, no, it wasn’t in the Sahara Desert).
6) I’m a breast cancer survivor.
7) During the summer I swim 1/2 a mile every day.
And here are some blogs worthy of the Beautiful Blogger Award and I’m passing the award on to them. Please check them out (I know, I couldn’t stop at 7):
Amanda @ http://www.booksbyamanda.com/blog.html
Deeone @ http://releasingmetoday.com/
Delinda @ http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/
Dicy @ http://www.dicymcculloughbooks.com/blog/
Heather @ http://desiresofmyheart.com/blog/
Layne @ http://amitypublications.wordpress.com/
Linneann @ http://linneann.wordpress.com/
Martha @ http://marthasteward64.wordpress.com/tag/martha-steward/
Peggy @ http://pstrack.blogspot.com/
May 16, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Painfully Shy Boy to “Champion of Positive Thinking”
Imagine This: You’re tired of being so shy, so filled with self-doubt, and living like a scared rabbit, but what do you do about the inferiority complex that’s making your life so miserable?
You’re born in a rural Ohio town in 1898, the son of a Methodist pastor who’s also a physician. As a young boy, you’re painfully shy and you run and hide in the attic whenever you see visitors coming to the house. You’re also thin for your age and lack your younger brother’s more rugged and athletic build. This makes you even more self-conscious about your physical appearance.
You admire your father a great deal, but being the son of a pastor isn’t always easy. Sometimes the other kids tease you because you’re a “p.k.” (preacher’s kid), and because you’re a preacher’s kid, your teachers always expect exemplary behavior from you.
But it’s during your adolescence that you really begin to develop a terrible inferiority complex, and you tell yourself that you’ll never amount to anything. When you realize that everybody is beginning to agree with your negative self-appraisal, this just makes you feel even worse! You’re tired of living like a scared rabbit, but you don’t know what to do about the inferiority complex that’s making your life so miserable.
During high school, you try to earn some extra money by selling pots and pans and you drive to another part of town where nobody knows you. But you become so flustered during your first attempt to sell something that you get right back into your car and drive back home.
Your inferiority complex continues to plague you even in college. You’re so self-consciousness when called upon to recite in class that you often become confused, tongue-tied, and red-faced from embarrassment. You describe yourself as “having the biggest inferiority complex in the state of Ohio!”
Then one day an event occurs that changes your life! After class, your economics professor has a no-nonsense talk with you. He tells you that your self-consciousness is really mostly self-centeredness and that it’s time for you to get over your shyness and inferiority complex and become a man. He also tells you that being a minister’s son you should know where to go for help. You take your professor’s advice and have a long talk with God about your problem. Although your shyness doesn’t go away completely, it does improve a great deal.
After college, you work for a newspaper for a year and then return to school. You have no intention of becoming a minister, but you find you like theology and in 1924, you graduate from the School of Theology at Boston University.
You begin to gain a reputation not only as an excellent orator but also as a minister who can simplify the Word of God so that everyone can understand it. You even try writing a book but become so discouraged that you throw your manuscript into the wastebasket. Fortunately, your wife rescues the manuscript from the wastebasket and sends it to a publisher. Your book is later called A Guide to Confident Living and makes the best-seller list.
In 1952 your book The Power of Positive Thinking is published and is unequaled in sales by any book except the Bible. It remains on the best-seller list for many years and is translated into twenty-three languages.
By the time you retire from the ministry in 1984, you have come a long way: from a young man with a terrible inferiority complex to being one of America’s most influential, most popular, and most beloved preachers!
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)
Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about Norman Vincent Peale:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUSeQ...
Giving Back: Norman Vincent Peale’s ministry which emphasizes “the power of positive thinking” has influenced millions of people all over the world.
Did You Know Norman Vincent Peale was one of the most influential clergymen in the United States during the 20th century?
Something to Think about: What do you think about the professor’s statement that Norman’s self-consciousness was really mostly self-centeredness?
Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!
May 15, 2012
And the Winners Are …
Congratulations to the Grand Prize winners Marnie Pohlmann and Patricia Day who won the Kindles in our John 3:16 Marketing Network Giveaway Blog Hop!
I hope everyone enjoyed our Blog Hop and here’s the list of winners for my DARE TO DREAM BIG! blog! I’ll be checking with each of you to get your mailing addresses and the first name of the person for whom you’d like your book autographed.
My DARE TO DREAM BIG! Blog Hop Winners
Kim Cole
Stan Faryna
Darlene Foster
April Gardner
Deborah Malone
Glenda Knapp Parker
Marianne Wanham
Dawn Wilson
It was an awesome blog hop and if you’re interested in learning more about the John 3:16 Network, please go to our website: http://john316mn.blogspot.ca/
Again, Congratulations to all the winners and
May you always follow your heart and
never give up your dreams!
May 9, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG! blog receives the Sunshine Blog Award!
I want to thank Sharla Shults for passing on the Sunshine Award to My DARE TO DREAM BIG! Blog–what an unexpected honor!
Sharla is one of those extraordinary individuals who sees the beauty in everything and her poetry reflects this. She considers herself not the writer but only the messenger–from His hand to hers, from her heart to yours.
You can enjoy her poetry on her blog catnipoflife at http://catnipoflife.wordpress.com/ and to use her own words:
Observe life at its best, listen to life’s songs, embrace life’s bounties, breathe the breath of life and savor life to its fullest!
Now it’s my turn to share the Sunshine and pass this award on by paying it forward again to ten bloggers who inspire me and bring Sunshine into my blogging life:
Pam Courtney at http://mylmnopreadstokids.blogspot.com/
Peggy Strack at http://pstrack.blogspot.com/
Micki Peluso at http://mallie1025.blogspot.com/
Christine Hannon at http://ahairdressersdiaries.wordpress.com/
B. Swangin Webster at http://booksshoeswriting.blogspot.com/
Eric VanRaepenbusch at http://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/
Read Aloud Dad at http://www.readalouddad.com/
Donna Martin at http://donasdays.blogspot.com/
Martha Steward at http://marthasteward64.wordpress.com/blog/
Planet FASSA at http://www.planetfassa.com/blog/
