Sometimes you just have to pull over and take time and breathe.
“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.” Helen Keller (1880-1968); Author, Lecturer, Activist
I was up north for the weekend. I drove north Friday night and came home, reluctantly, Sunday evening. Saturday was busy. It was full of chores and full of pulling in air, something I desperately needed. Saturday afternoon, I slow-cooked a pork butt on the grill and made my famous cucumber and red onion salad, at least it’s famous to me. It tastes like summer. I sliced off some pork slathering it with BBQ sauce Continue reading Roadside beach→
There is always room. Whether it’s a home, shelter, or an eave. There is room.
“After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.” ― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
I am Up North for a couple of days. Jobs that needed to be done. I wanted to come up in May and couldn’t. Last weekend, fell through with much to do and too little time. Next weekend is filled, and the weekend after that… well, you get the picture. Room has more than one meaning.
Today’s post is in response to the prompt at the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge at Word Press. ‘This week’s prompt is “Room.” From the four walls that currently surround you to the infinite potential of space, this week we’d like you to show us your take on room, rooms, or a room.’
I have four walls; but others like the dear spider use two walls and imagines the other two. We are all constrained by nature and defined by it as well. There’s always room. I think Charlotte said it best….”what’s a life anyway…” It’s what is in between those two events that is important. It’s the way we leave our mark. It’s our service to our family, friends, and community. It’s how we leave our room.
I came up to work, not blog and I have a list a mile long, maybe even longer. School finished for my students yesterday and I could hear Alice Cooper wailing away in the background. I don’t have papers to grade, but I have chores to do and I have room on my schedule. Making the Days Count, one day at a time.
Sometimes, the difference between winning and losing is a split-second.
Saturday morning softball. The batter hits the ball hard to the shortstop, she scoops the ball into her glove, and fires to the first baseman. Out. Yet, it’s not that simple. There are some many opportunities for a bobble, a misstep, an error, a mistake. All split-seconds.
all it takes is a split second, the difference between out or safe. .. a split second
Today is the first day of June. It’s a new month, a new season, and it’s full of possibilities.Summer vacation begins Friday for my students. They are so excited, I can hardly keep a lid on them; four of them have already left early for their summer vacation, and the rest are busy learning and working. I aim to keep it that way through Wednesday afternoon, mainly for my own sanity and mental well-being. Thursday, then Friday will be here before I know it and I’ll be signing yearbooks and asking my students what they plan to do with their 79 days of summer vacation.
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.” Winston Churchill
It’s a new month, a new season, and it’s full of possibilities. Nevertheless, before I begin to think about what summer will be like, I need to go back and think about the year. The year was a challenge – full of triumphs and pitfalls in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, I had a new ELA curricula, based on the Common Core standards. I cringe when I say Common Core because it is sort of vilified these days. Folks in and out of education have turned Common Core into education’s current piñata – people just love beating on it. Unfortunately, it has not yet yielded any candy. It will be several years before educators know for sure if it is effective. But, I can tell you with absolute certainty there is a difference between my student’s learning from last year and my current students. This year’s students have developed into readers with a purpose, deeper thinkers, and stronger writers who can support their ideas with evidence from the text and their learning. However, they did not start that way. It was rough at the beginning of the year, but they have adapted and grown academically. They’ve also grown as people, too. They are ready for the next step, eighth grade.
Every year we attend the Memorial Day parade as a family. Sometimes we go to the parade at home, and other times we go to the one in Versailles – our home away from home. We usually ride our bikes to the cemetery and find a spot to watch the parade as it winds to an end and the participants file into the cemetery for the official Memorial Day ceremony. This year I walked, the kids and B rode their bikes.
There are veterans, politicians, firemen, police, bands, scouts, and other community organizations that march in the parade. There are the old, middle-aged, and young. They are dressed in red, white, and blue. They carry flags, wave at the crowd, and smile. One year I marched with the cub scouts. Sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s cool, sometimes it’s just right, but Monday it was between too hot and just right; depending if you were in the shade or not. The parade route is a lot longer than you think, but it is nothing compared to the sacrifice our veterans have made for their country.
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
It’s that time of the year, again. There are two weeks left before summer vacation. Nine school days. Summer vacation would’ve been sooner, but we had the brutal winter with sub-zero temperatures and excruciating wind chills. Four school days closed twice for two days and days were moved from June to January to make up. There is nothing like summer vacation days in January. My students are working hard and last week it was clear they knew exactly how many days remained; some even knew down to the hour and minute.
It is Mother’s Day and Spring is in full bloom. The trees have begun to leaf out and the flowering trees are beautiful. The daffodils are gone finished, but they’ll be back next season.
But, flowers are available year round. You just have to know where to look. Yesterday was a busy day – they all are. Lacrosse drop off at 8, game at 9 and 11. Softball at 11. Some days it’s seemingly never ending. But, someday it will end, the kids will grow up and head off to college and we’ll have memories and time. And, then it will be their turn.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2
I know where to find flowers for Mother’s Day and I’ve been finding them ever since W is was a baby. T Continue reading Mother’s Day→
It is here. Spring has arrived, after what seems like an incredibly long winter.
Every year, we visit the Daffodil Glade at the Morton Arboretum for a family photo shoot. It started innocently enough in 2004. Ten years ago, after church, we decided to take in a drive through the Morton Arboretum. It was Easter Sunday, we had our camera and we decided to stop at the Daffodil Glade and shoot some photos. B with the kids among the daffodils, the kids by themselves, or together, regardless it was a beautiful morning. We took some incredible photos that morning. We came back the next year and had similar results. Wonderful photos, memories of children growing, and blossoming like the daffodils. Since that morning, it’s become one of our family traditions, one of our milestones. It’s our sign that spring is here. We’ve missed a couple of years but we have photos and memories going back to 2004.
looking closely you can read it – OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR
I looked at my calendar last week and was stupefied that May was so close. It felt like the wording on the passenger-side side-view mirror: OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. I suppose it is a lesson, which I need to heed more often. I have a habit of letting things creep up on me; it is along the same lines as not reading the fine print or asking for directions. I asked myself how it happened, but I already knew the answer. Ferris Beuller said it best, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop look around once in a while you could miss it.” Life does move fast and sometimes the only thing you can do is look around.
I’ve been looking around a lot lately. My seventh grade ELA students finished their Mask and Identity unit and we are now on The Road to Perseverance unit to finish the year. There are four units – one for each quarter. The bad weather days in January messed up the schedule and we finished the third unit in the fourth quarter and started the final unit a few days late, hence my ‘closer than they appear’ observation. It has been a good year. The students have been great and I will miss them, but I won’t miss all of them because I found out after Easter that I’ll be moving with them to eighth grade. After fourteen years in seventh grade, I finally was promoted!
I am a little late on this week’s photo challenge, by now it’s last week’s photo challenge. I’ve been overwhelmed with many things since my last post, but mostly family, for the past week, or rather the past couple of months.
School and my students have kept me hopping, too. The kids have been wonderful. There is another story in this, it’s just waiting to be written or for time to sit down and write, actually there are several stories.
It’s been a tough time in our home. My sister-in-law last week passed away last week. I think her passing was hardest on my wife, she is, after all the little sister. It was hard on all of us, but I think B took it especially hard. She’s been helping and has been there for her sister since she became ill in mid-February. In a way, I’ve been there, too even though I’ve been here, and there and seemingly everywhere.
It seems that as a family we gather only now for big occasions – we are scattered across the land. There are the holidays, but they seem so rushed and then there are funerals. So far there have been two in B’s family – separated by over a decade. We gather somberly almost on cue. The kids and I drove home last Saturday afternoon and evening. The wake was last Sunday and the funeral and burial followed on Monday. We had a gathering afterwards, it was lovely and a perfect ending for a sad day. The two days could not have been more different – Sunday was clear bright and sunny and Monday the exact opposite – sad, gloomy, grey with overcast and rain.
It was good to see the family, even on such a gloomy occasion. it was best for the cousins – there are my two, B’s other sister’s two boys and her brother’s children – two boys and a girl. All of the cousins are out of college and working, except one who is in college. But they all visited, W trying to be older and O, being O. I think B’s sister would have been glad we gathered, shared, and laughed. It was good for all of us to remember, and perhaps forget – even for a moment – some of the pressing issues weighing on us all.
Afterwards, W and I packed the car, loaded Ivy, and drove home. We both had school the following day. O stayed behind with mom and her aunt and grandma. W and I stopped at the cemetery on our way out of town. I took in all of the markers, the monuments to lives gone before me.
Greenlawn Cemetery – Versailles, Ohio
It’s Friday morning, four full days have passed since we laid my sister-in-law to rest. It’s Good Friday, a perfect day to reflect on those who have passed before us. There is no school today. W and I will be loading the car and driving back to Ohio this morning. It’s gonna be a great day, but I can’t sit and wait for it to happen. Making the day Count, one day at a time, thinking and remembering.
