Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2006. We took Mattie to visit Peter's parents for Christmas in Boston. Behind Peter's childhood home are woods. Peter spent many days as a kid in these woods and wanted to share that experience with Mattie. Mattie enjoyed the adventure, but wasn't appreciating my need to capture this in a photo. How do I know? I can tell by Mattie's expression. He was giving me one of his "false smiles," because I had asked him to pause and look at the camera rather than the stream. Nonetheless, I caught that moment. As we head up to Boston at the end of the week, we will now be walking Sunny in these woods. Mattie would have thoroughly enjoyed doing this, he would have loved Sunny's companionship, and they would have been a great twosome.
Quote of the day: What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. ~ John Steinbeck
I get Steinbeck's quote in theory, but in my reality, I do not need to experience Winter to have a great appreciation for summer. I could live with summer weather year round. Today was 21 degrees in DC, but with the wind chill it felt like 8 degrees! EIGHT degrees! The wind was whipping, and things went flying. I had a flower pot that went airborne and all three of our bird feeders toppled over! In the past, on a day like this I would have retreated inside. But with Sunny that is NO longer possible. Sunny likes to walk and he doesn't seem bothered by temperature extremes! For him it is business as usual. So I walked him 2.5 miles this morning in terrible wind gusts! Mind you I was the only person braving the streets in this. For the first 15 minutes, it is painful, but then when your whole body freezes over, you start to forget how cold you are. Sunny and I will be having many adventures together I can tell this winter. I am preparing myself. It is funny when I wish for 40 degree weather days back again. In comparison to today, yesterday felt like spring!!! Just to put it into context.
This morning, Peter and I had a conference call with several professionals from Dominion Consulting. Dominion is Mattie Miracle's corporate donor. Peter knew many of these consultants when they worked together years ago at Arthur Andersen. I am deeply grateful that they stand behind our Foundation, us, and our mission. On January 24, the Foundation is holding an invitation only Round Table event on Capitol Hill to strategically focus with stakeholders [researchers, payors (such as private insurance and Medicaid), legislators, and advocates] on the implementation process for the Psychosocial Standards of Care. Though Mattie Miracle is sponsoring this, we felt that it would be important to have the session facilitated by a third party. So I reached out to Dominion Consulting, and they agreed to support us in this way. Which is a major gift given their level of expertise and skill set they bring to facilitation. We dialogued for 40 minutes this morning about how the event should go in order to maximize the time and energize the group to invest in this implementation phase and leave the event with solid tangible next steps and action items.
1 comment:
Vicki,
I find myself genuinely excited when you mention the next steps in implementing the standards of care in the area of Psychosocial needs.. I realize nothing happens quickly but the knowledge that MATTIE MIRACLE is working towards this goal, leaves me with a confidence that only good will come from this.
I will be thinking of you & Peter that day!!!
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