Spring is in full bloom. I can see it and I can feel it. It’ll be gone before I know it. That’s the way things to work – gone and replaced by something new. The flowering trees and shrubs are in full bloom and they are absolutely stunning with their pinks, reds, and whites.
Earth Day was Wednesday this year. Last year it fell on Tuesday and the year before on Monday. Next year, it will be a Friday. The day – April 22 – moves according to the calendar just as Earth is moving – every year, every day, and every moment. We live on a dynamic planet. Earth Day 2015 was two days several days ago. As usual, my timing is askew.
We humans share the planet with all other living things – all sorts of plants and animals. We are a dynamic species always evolving, always searching for ways to change our environment to best fit our needs. In doing so we have changed Earth.
Originally, humans wandered from place to place in search of food. Sometimes these early humans were successful and other times not so successful. However, we humans are clever and always searching for a better way and those early humans sought ways to find food much more quickly. We eventually learned that it was much easier to domesticate plants, animals, and learned to farm. So, we made pastures and fields where forests and meadows once were. Once we harnessed our food supply, we used our cleverness to adapt Earth even further.
And, that is how we find ourselves in the mess that Earth is in today. Continue reading Earth Day 2015
Legend has it that when the Romans defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War in 146 BC, the victorious Romans sacked Carthage plowing under the crops and sowing salt into the soil, rendering the land ruined. Probably by pouring seawater into the farmer’s fields because salt was valuable at the time. I learned this in middle school history in Mr. Burn’s class. It was a harsh punishment and the lessons of history are full of harsh penalties and punishments, of people acting with vengeance instead of reaching out and pulling up. Sadly, history repeats itself – repeatedly.
Last week I was in Mississippi to visit my step-mom and I had to leave a day early because of Octavia. Octavia was the winter storm that wreaked havoc across America’s midsection at the beginning of last week. I decided I couldn’t risk being stranded in Oxford or at the Memphis airport on Monday and flew out Sunday evening. It was a good decision because all of Monday’s flights from Memphis to Chicago and the first two flights Tuesday were cancelled. I got home and it was bitter cold here but the roads were dry, in part to large doses of salt when it has snowed. The roads are coated with a white salt brine that seems to leach from the road and sidewalks until the spring rains wash it all away.
Enough of the history and the weather lesson and on to science. Continue reading Salt from sand
It’s a new year, with the some of the same responsibilities. Perhaps, I need a new outlook?
Normally, January 1st is not the day I choose for resolutions, usually my resolutions fall in early June when school lets out for summer and I have more time to reflect, rest, reset, and restore. But, that is summer or rather ‘some ‘er’ which sounds like summer but means some are – as in some are and some aren’t. Some summers I am more successful with the ‘reflect and reset’ than others. This past summer was one of those in which the reset was not complete. Now, I find myself in the beginning of winter and new fallen snow is beginning to cover the landscape. It brings a new outlook to the world; it’s fresh, clean, pure, and powdery. Ivy tested it earlier and came inside, curled up on the hassock, and went back to sleep. It’s a new beginning, sort of.
It’s Christmas morning and we are all in Ohio. We are at grandma’s house and it’s quiet, very quiet. The kids are still sleeping, Ivy is curled on her pad, and B is visiting her mother – grandma – at the care center on the other side of town. She’s been at the care center since late September after a very nasty fall.
We arrived late Tuesday evening and visited with grandma. It was good to see her and laugh and tease – I hadn’t seen her since mid-July when I last visited Ohio. She’s my favorite mother-in-law and she still has her wicked sense of humor and a great smile. It was good to see both in action again. B’s been home a couple of times to check in on her mom and square up the house as best she could. It’s been a tough year for B and her mother – first B’s older sister passed away and then her dad passed away two months later. Truth be told, it’s been difficult for all of us.
We are staying in grandma’s house – but she’s away and it seems a bit odd. There is no one to sip coffee with in the morning and it’s even quieter than normal – even with two noisy kids and a dog. Yesterday, I visited with grandma in the morning and again in the evening. She was restless and had a difficult time settling down after dinner. I had taken a book to read to her – a children’s book – Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914. Based on the true story of the truce on Christmas Day in 1914 when the British and German soldiers took the day to stop fighting and share the meaning of Christmas with one another. This being the centenary anniversary of the beginning of the war several books have been published as well as a British supermarket chain, Sainsbury, produced a controversial video advertisement about the truce. Continue reading Stille Nacht
What do dynamite, Teddy Roosevelt, and Malala have in common?
I posed that question to my eighth graders last week. It was how I began my science instruction for the day and I tweeted it on my school Twitter account. It was Thursday, the day after Wednesday; because that is the way the week usually plays out. Friday came and went, then Saturday, and now it is Sunday morning.
I’ve been feeling guilty lately. I haven’t written, blogged, or read much outside my realm of eighth grade science and history since Thanksgiving. I was looking at my blog and reflecting about its purpose and my commitment to the blog – writing, and in life in general. I looked back at the history of the blog back to my first year, 2010, and every afterward. In December, I fell off a cliff. It wasn’t just this year, it was last year and every year in December my posting dropped off and in each month there is a significant gap between Thanksgiving and the next post, today’s post is 17 days after Thanksgiving. I find comfort in the fact that every year I seem to be consumed by a vortex. It’s every year, not just this year.
Which is why I found the above riddle so intriguing. Continue reading Tweets and time
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with family, friends, and memories – past, present, and future.
We are supposed to wake up in Ohio this morning, but we’re did not. Instead of travelling to visit B’s mom, we decided to stay home. It was a tough decision, but the right one. B and O are sick, or were sick, or in the process of getting better, or somewhere on the continuum and it’s just not worth spreading our germs to grandma or anyone else. So, we stayed home.
The turkey is in the oven, the sweet potatoes are cooked and cooling on the side burner waiting for B to turn them into sweet potato casserole. I need to clean the beans and the table, but, first, I need to say thanks. It smells like Thanksgiving in our home.
I am incredibly thankful. I have so much for which to be thankful. After getting the turkey in the oven, I sat down with a cup of coffee to read the newspaper. Ivy snuggled up beside me, resting her head on my thigh warming my legs. I read about Ferguson, Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington, the Nor’easter hammering the northeast, the Bears and today’s football games, and a guy named Steve who runs an incredible hobby shop. I read my horoscope and the weather where I learned that this Thanksgiving will be the coldest in Chicagoland in 58 years. Yikes. Then, I called my mom in Texas to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving, then my step-mom in Mississippi, and texted my brothers, too. Then, I sat down to write a short post.
It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been blogging @MakingDaysCount for over four years and this will be my fifth post. I went back to read all four, they are below.
It’s amusing how time blurs lines and memories. I enjoyed re-reading each post. I smiled, laughed, shed a tear, and watched the rocket videos, boy that was fun. I remember writing each post and where I was. Interesting. Every year, I wrote a list of why I was thankful and I don’t believe I could have written a better list of why I am thankful, so I won’t. You are welcome to go back in time as I did and re-read, but please take time to be thankful in your world.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Make Your Thanksgiving Day Count, make the next day a million and six times better than the day before it and pay it forward. Light the world with your smile. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, saying thanks and praying for wonderful day with many more to come.
Thank you.
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Angular.”
On the way home from school yesterday I stopped at a local independent bookstore in downtown Naperville. Downtown was bustling with activity and I waited patiently in line to purchase my books – Truce, Shooting at the Stars, and The white House is Burning: August 24, 1814 as well as to get B’s wristband for the author visit Monday, 41‘s author will be speaking and signing books and B had purchased two copies to be signed. Very cool.
Downtown Naperville is a busy place. It has local merchants as well as the big guys – Barnes and Noble, Williams Sonoma, and Starbucks all nestled in mostly older buildings with new construction and updated storefronts along city streets just wide enough for street parking and two lanes of traffic. The sidewalks are usually crowded with shoppers and yesterday was no different.
As I left, I looked around – up and down and stopped to notice the buildings and there intricate moldings and brickwork along their roof lines. Such lovely structures dating back to the early twentieth century. It was a lovely day and the blue sky and bright sun finished the scene.
It felt wonderful to be outside and breathe the cool late fall air, even though it felt more like the dead of winter. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in America and the holiday shopping season begins the following day. Tuesday afternoon the shoppers weren’t waiting, they were making their days count – early and often. I have much for which to be thankful, Thank you for following along, reading, commenting, liking, and helping me Make the Days Count.
Making the Days Count is my angle, what’s yours?
Achievement – something that has been done or achieved through effort; a result of hard work (Merriam and Webster)
Last weekend our high school football season ended. The Tigers were one of eight teams left in their class – one of sixty-four left. When the siren sounded last Saturday afternoon, there were sixteen teams still standing – two teams for each of Illinois’ eight classes from 1A to 8A. The Tigers have been there before and it was the team goal at the beginning of the year. It’s the goal every year. It’s the ultimate Achievement.
It was a GGGGRRRREEEAAATTTT season and fall to Providence 6-23 pic.twitter.com/8iW1Fm1A1u— Clay Watkins (@makingdayscount) November 15, 2014
High school football season. It was a long season and long journey. It began the day after school let out in June with summer practices and weekend summer 7 on 7 tournaments. There was a three-week break between summer workouts and the beginning of August practices. The break was long enough for W to break away to the cottage and a squeeze in a 50-mile canoe trip to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.
The Tigers played twelve games. They lost the first two games, won the third and then, lost the next two games to reach mid-season 1-4. In early October, the playoffs looked unreachable. However, through hard work, determination, and a little good fortune – I am not calling it luck, they won their next four games and qualified for the playoffs and were seeded 13th of 16 teams in one side of the 7A bracket. Continue reading Weekly Photo Challenge: Achievement
It’s been over two weeks since I wrote a post. It’s not because I haven’t had ideas. I’ve had loads of ideas and I even started a post last Sunday morning, but I ran out of time. That post died on the vine, it’s no longer relevant.
Since my last post, O has been to her first middle school social. The social was the day after her birthday and she had a wonderful time and could not stop talking about on our way to W’s final regular season football game. We arrived with a minute left in the second quarter to watch the Tigers score a touchdown and take 14-9 lead to the locker room. They needed to win the game to make the playoffs. This is how they did it.
Since then, W’s football team has ripped off two more wins and next weekend play in the state playoff quarterfinals. The team’s first playoff win was in the blinding snow and howling winds on Halloween night with a last minute field goal to tie and a touchdown to win in overtime. The second win was yesterday afternoon – it was a beautiful fall afternoon, perfect for a high school football game. Continue reading The Can Crush