Coffee Time Reflections with Silvia Escobar

I was listening to an interview this week with Jon Acuff and Michael Hyat, two of my favorite writers, when Jon made an amazing statement. He said one of his goals as a dad was to have a schedule in which he was interruptible for his family. That is to say, he could put aside… Continue reading Are you interruptible?

People hugely underestimate the amount of real work required to achieve their goals. If I realize how much work it takes to fulfill my goals, then it won’t be a shock when I need to put in the effort to accomplish them. In a world where accomplishing more while working less is glorified, it is… Continue reading The Myth of Effortless Success

For most subjects, I strongly dislike extremes. Whether it be politics, religion, always and never thinking, to name a few. Extremes are usually dangerous and closed minded. I like balance. I like to be in the middle where I can see in all directions. I find that it helps me learn and be open to… Continue reading The Myth of a Balanced Life

Whether it’s with your spouse, child, the whole family or a friend, there is something special about going out for breakfast. Recently our daughter decided to write down all the local places we like to go for breakfast. I was surprised at how many places we’ve gone to locally. And that’s not including the repeats!… Continue reading Why you should be going out for breakfast

I love vacations. In our 40 years of marriage, Arturo and I have had seasons when we have gone on expensive vacations, and seasons when we have had staycations and everything in between. The most important thing for me about a vacation has always been the time that is carved out specifically to relax and… Continue reading Vacations are not just a luxury

I once had a conversation with a mom who wanted to homeschool her kids but was deathly afraid of ruining them. She was afraid she was not qualified to teach them. She was afraid she didn’t know enough. Shockingly, she had been a high school teacher in a public school before she had kids! Now… Continue reading If you have kids, did you know you are a homeschool parent?

Last week I gave some suggestions for summer activities for families with kids. Today I’d like to dive into a few things we can do as adults to enjoy the summer. Remember to put them on the calendar and respect those days. Don’t be too quick to cancel them. They have the potential of bringing you… Continue reading Summer Ideas for Adults

When our six kids were younger and at home, we would sit together as the end of a school year came and talked about what we wanted to do in the summer. I would write everyone’s ideas and from there we started with the most mentioned and worked our way down to the least likely… Continue reading Getting ready for summer fun

In raising our six children, we learned many things. Sometimes we learned just in time to put them into practice and sometimes as a result of making mistakes. Among them, there are three things that we were very intentional about implementing. 1. Mutual Respect: There is a belief that is often used as an excuse… Continue reading 3 Aspects of a healthy family

This is the third and final part about The Baggage We Bring to Our Relationships. The first week I shared about the importance of identifying the baggage we carry from our past. Last week I talked about recognizing the role our baggage plays in how we see things and how we react. And today I… Continue reading The baggage we bring to our relationships (part 3 of 3)