February 4, 2025
I might love you more than most.
You are my favorite way to start the day
You are still spectacular.
What a true miracle.
I’m so thankful that the woods affords a beautiful backdrop for your splendor.
I have more photos of you in my phone than anything else
I can’t resist, no matter how many I see, they still give me pause.
Hope delivered every morning.
January 7, 2025
I have had a little word for the last 15 years. Most of those years my word was related to my profession. I realize now that I defined myself almost entirely by that role, the one I had for 15 years, as a literacy specialist and coach. When I began to decide to retire from that role, I gave up my writing. At the time, it seemed that I didn’t want to write about anything positive and so did not want to write anymore.
However, I missed writing. Each week I would write on my Tuesday to-do list, write a blog post. I didn’t. I would think of something to write about as I was waking, taking a shower, or making coffee, even on a drive. I might write a quick note on a post it of the topic, but I didn’t write it.
After I retired, I was … bereaved. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. It seems like it would have been the perfect time to write. But I didn’t. I had mostly written about my work so what would be interesting about my Swedish death cleaning or my dog walking or my sunrise watching.
I settled into a routine and every morning I wrote WRITE on the top of my to-do list. But I didn’t write. I thought about writing. I read about writing. I sent people instagrams and blogs and articles about writing, but I still didn’t write.
Next week, my husband is going to retire and potentially we will be in proximity with each other nearly all day every day, something that has only happened when we are on vacation and random days in the course of our 43 years together. Why today did I decide that I could write?
For the last 15 years, I have had one little word chosen the first week in January. This year’s word unlike all the professional driven words of the past, is about that unemployed, set-your-own agenda that the two of us will be making from now on. That will be an adventure. Another adventure, different from all the ones we have had before.
I don’t think it will include sky-diving or bungee jumping, but it will be adventurous anyway because it will be something we have never done before.
Happy New Year and here’s to adventure.
Here are some quotes about adventure:
The Promise of a New Day
May 14, 2024
There is a promise of ‘pick-of-the-week’ today though it’s currently cool-ish and overcast. With optimism and the promise of an after school baby shower, I put on an old favorite sundress, a bright orange sweater, and some tropical jewelry. Sunglasses not needed on the ride over, but I wish that my fingernail polish matched the orange in my dress, sweater, and shoes. I’m listening to the radio and thinking about the juxtaposition between spring and feeling older.
As I get to campus, I see a walker moving across the back part of the parking lot. I swing into my space, turn off the car, and walk around to the passenger side to collect my school bag, lunch, water, and that happy present for the new mom. As I round the back of the car, the walker, a woman near my age with earbuds says, “Good Morning!” This is a usual occurrence though I haven’t seen her in particular before, so I respond “Good Morning!” and continue around to collect my things.
As I lift out of the car, she is standing in the same place. She takes her ear buds out. “You look so beautiful and spring-y”, she says. “I love how teachers do that dress thing.” She smiles. I return her smile. I had never even consider my dress choice as something strangers notice and smile about. I pause, hmmm to myself.
I love how we do that optimistic, springy dress thing too.
The Process
December 5, 2023
The parchment paper is perfectly square.
The cookies are perfectly round.
Each cookie is not precisely a quarter inch thick.
The sugar coating might be uneven.
These cookies and their counterparts might be my greatest accomplishment.
You’re shaking your head right now.
How can these misshapen, ill-sized cookies be my greatest accomplishment.
It’s really quite simple. They bring a whole group of people together… anticipating, discussing, tasting, smiling, laughing and generally filling themselves to the top metaphorically and actually with holiday joy.
I meant for that to happen.
It’s a metaphor actually.
You don’t have to do anything perfectly or photo-ready. It doesn’t have to always work out perfectly or maybe even at all. Sometimes you have to wait hours or even days for the end result and even then, you wish just a little bit that it was slightly better than it turned out. It turns out that it still tastes sweet, brings smiles, fosters hope, elicits joy, and generally gets the job accomplished.
If you show up day after day, year after year, dependable, joyful, willing, the effort will be appreciated. The results will be remarkable. The legacy will be cemented.
It isn’t just a cookie…
May 16, 2023
We often have the urge to rush to the finish line, do tasks quickly and hurry during these last weeks. I suggest that savoring is in order. Having some moments of gentle reflection, but how to maintain that?
The last two weeks my consults with teachers have been rushed, missed, derailed, disjointed and generally unhelpful. Or were they?
For the first two weeks after our April vacation, we had a period of re-entry and readjustment. We looked to our ‘finish line’, the 35 or so days until the end of this school year. We also began to think about our next year as well.
It might not have looked like that to a passerby.
Sometimes those talks are the norm, chats about RtI meetings upcoming, book clubs, end of year assessments, keeping up engagement. Sometimes, these meetings contain other subjects, recent Netflix offerings, books on our reading lists, what we are making for dinner.
I try for balance. A sandwich of chat. A little personal (ish) chat and a connection to the work we are doing. Much like the students, we have to work to keep our engagement up as well even in the midst of interruptions. The last of the state testing days, some wrapping up meetings, trainings for next year’s new math program, illnesses, even heat, affect our energy and slow our rhythm as we work to give all of us-students and teachers- closure for this school year.
A simple meeting or so I expected, fell into momentary chaos yesterday afternoon as the time left ran smack into end of year assessments and documentations. An effort was made to simplify assessments incorporating them into daily routines and using students’ daily work fell into the abyss of concerns about changes and timing. Everyone needed to take a deep breath, especially me.
It was unexpected. But should it have been? The time to review what will happen at the end of the year is not perhaps with a month left. To me, it was plenty of time, but Memorial Day always looms large, no matter that we teach routinely into June.
Sometimes we have to just let the chaos happen, the worries spill out, the messiness occurs… and then move on. Probably everyone left knowing what they need to know about the end of the year assessment documentation. Many vented some possibly long-standing frustrations. Most were already prepared for the upcoming tasks. So we move like my newly view Cuban snail, we move carefully forward to the end of the year.
The next couple of weeks, I will be helping with end of year assessments, but also with end of the year celebrations and end of year reflections. I will try to savor all the moments.
A ball of red
Balances on the rim of sea
Creasing the horizon with shades of pink
Dropping down as if pulled by a mysterious force
Every night the minor miracle
Falling into the sea
Gathered crowds disperse
Home with their visions expanded
A poem a day this month. Today a alphabetical poem.
A poem a day through April. Today, a Wordy 30. Thirty letters- 6 words, 5 letters each.
Fresh
Fruit
Juice
Booze
Blend
Straw
A tanka is a a 31 syllable poem consisting of five line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form. A poem a day for April.
We travailed in search
Of manatee or mermaid
It was difficult
Surprisingly so, but why
You survive by hiding out.
In keeping with National Poetry Month, I am writing poems in April. A nonet is a nine line poem with lines constrained by syllable length in descending order beginning with nine. Here goes.
We noticed you there busy in the sand
Approaching we admired your shells
How did you find all of these?
You turn, your hand outstretched
Your smile, so very bright
For you, she offered.
Surprised I reach
The shell
Treasured
I’m writing along in April, trying out some poetry styles. Today’s inspired poem, a list.
What have I left behind?
What haven’t I left?
Dozens of pairs of sunglasses
My favorite blue pot
One fishpond with shiny goldfish
That mailbox with the sunflowers
A lilac bush whose scent drifted in the window
Some broken friendships
My southern accent
Most of my regrets
Seeking Ways to Grow Proficient, Motivated, Lifelong Readers & Writers
We are still reading. A lot.
A place where students lead and teachers follow.
Observations about myself and others
The Life of An Acreage Farmer in Iowa
Authentic Discussion About Your Best Life Blend: Marriage, Parenting, and Career
A journey of writing... my teaching life, my family life, and my journey through life.
Be Who You are
International teacher & Mom to a teen and tween
Writing to learn
to making big changes
My thoughts on books, education and life.
Writing, reading, observing
Reflections from a Coach 