Hi, All!

Hope you are doing well. Personally, I am loving the cooler weather.

To read this week's post, please visit: www.allynevans.blogspot.com

If you'd rather read the article here, you'll find it near the end.

And something new...

Some of you might remember I had toyed with the idea of starting a mother/daughter community. Well, I did more than toy with the idea. I had it all set up and ready to go. What stopped me were the requests to join I was getting from unsavory folks. And they sent pictures! After much thought, I decided this was not the environment I wanted to create for girls and mothers and deleted the site.

Here's what I did instead...

The Alert Parent!(www.thealertparent.blogspot.com) This blog will be the official home for my parenting columns that will be printed in daily newspapers.

To make it interactive, I'll be inviting parents and girls to send emails and take surveys, etc. (It's still a work in progress right now.) We'll offer other features as we build and grow.

Have a great week and many blessings.

"The Daffodil Principle"

Have you ever heard of the "Daffodil Principle?" I love this story and use it often when talking to young girls about pursuing their goals.

The story of "The Daffodil Principle" originally appeared nearly ten years ago in Jaroldeen Edwards' book Celebration!

Here's how it goes...

The daughter kept pestering the mother, "Mom, come visit us. We'll go see the Daffodil Garden."

Eventually, the mother made time and visited her daughter's home one Tuesday morning.

The day turned out to be cold and rainy, but the mother made the trip anyway. Before arriving she had already decided she would tell her daughter they would go see the daffodils another day. The roads had been slippery and the fog had set in.

But her daughter wasn't so easily swayed. "No mom. We're going. You must see the daffodils."

The mother, daughter and grandchildren all piled in the car. "It's only a few blocks from here," the daughter said.

After a twenty minute drive they turned down a gravel road. They stopped beside a small church. Posted on the wall of the church read a sign, "Daffodil Garden". They parked and headed in the direction the sign indicated.

As they turned the corner, the mother looked up.

She saw thousands of daffodils. The colors varied: deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. The daffodils covered five acres.

The mother asked her daughter who planted the flowers. Her daughter said, "One woman." She pointed out the house where the woman lived. They made their way to the house. On the front porch they found a sign that read:

"Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking".

The first statement answered the question of how many. It read "50,000 bulbs." The second statement explained how the daffodils were planted: "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." And the last statement answered the question of when the lady started. "1958."

The mother walked away from the Daffodil Garden forever changed. She couldn't stop thinking about the woman who had planted one bulb at a time.

The visit changed the mother's life. She understood the lesson. She realized that it only takes small steps to move forward towards your goals and desires. The mother learned: "When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. "

We too will find that we can write a book, build a business, make new friends, reach our financial goals. Yes, we can change our world one small step at a time.

There's a little more to the story...
In 1999 Gene Bauer's ranch house burned down. The daffodils survived.