Tag Archives: hard work

Priorities

adventure, Family, food, geography, growing up, history, jobs, Life in General, Reading, sports, teaching, Weather, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I missed writing last weekend. Truly. We went away for the weekend – we went north to the cottage. I had a lot to say, or so I thought. Somehow, time got away from me and I didn’t write. In fact, I didn’t even open my laptop. I existed solely on my iPad and phone; and did precious little on them. It was time to restore – a time to rest and relax.

It was our last long weekend of winter and we wanted to head up north for one last snowy weekend. The kids could ski, snowboard, and play in the snow. I know we had a lot of snow here, but it is different up north. B and I could relax and just breathe. We did all that, but the kids didn’t ski or snowboard: they did play in the snow and had fun outside, even Ivy got into the mix playing in the snow. We had a fire Saturday night and I cooked. Just as dinner was ready, we sat down to play cards. Then, some of our lake friends joined us; and we played a very spirited card game. The rules are somewhat confusing, but it is a favorite of our friends and we’ve enjoyed playing it at their cottage. I am not sure what it is called, it probably has several names, but it is a lot of fun. The card game involves a separate deck for each player but there is a place to play on everyone’s hand. Each player plays on their hand but the goal is to get rid of your cards and play them in the middle on the group’s cards. You get points for playing in the middle and the winner is declared when they have cleared their own cards. The game moves quickly and players have to be paying attention. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and when it was over, and we had a winner, we sat down to dinner and the Winter Olympics.

Sunday night's sunset - it was warm enough to sit on the deck in the sunshine, but we had to be wrapped up!
Sunday night’s sunset – it was warm enough to sit on the deck in the sunshine, but we had to be wrapped up!

I have enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics. I have always enjoyed the Olympics. Continue reading Priorities →

Things Have Changed

adventure, Family, Life in General, Reading, teaching, Tuesday's Tune, Weather, Writing, , , , , , ,

It’s Saturday morning again, it happens every week. I look forward to the day and the day following, but they disappear before I know it. It’s eleven degrees and snowing. It’s still winter, we had snow Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, bitter cold followed. But, we were at school; Thursday and Friday morning were cold, but sunny, which make a world of difference. I had outdoor bus duty, greeting the buses as they pulled into the parking lot and unloading. I did my best to brighten the student’s day with a hearty, ‘Goooooood Morning, welcome to a new day at in middle school…’ a la Robin Williams from “Good Morning Vietnam.” I don’t know if it makes a difference to them, but it gives me a boost and keeps me warm.

this morning's window on the world
this morning’s window on the world

Continue reading Things Have Changed →

Plat du Jour

adventure, Cooking, Family, food, growing up, Life in General, Reading, teaching, Teaching and Learning, travel, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

It is Monday morning. Saturday has passed, Sunday, too. It’s Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday weekend and there is no school. On a normal Monday morning, I’d be up to my eyebrows in teaching ELA, but today and last Monday, and the Monday before last – school has been out. I enjoy the three- day weekends, but I get lazy and don’t accomplish what I should. However, last weekend was a three-day weekend for my students, it was not for me, the teachers had a workday and I got a lot done. Full Disclosure, though it felt like a three-day weekend.

Saturday morning's sunrise....
Saturday morning’s sunrise….

The weather has been typical Midwest January – cold. Continue reading Plat du Jour →

Thank you Ion

adventure, Family, Life in General, pets, Reading, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Weather, Writing, , , , , , , , ,
Monday's weather
Monday’s weather

I came home Saturday night. The kids and B left the cottage Friday afternoon, leaving Ivy and I to our own devices. I wanted to stay for one more day, to enjoy the peacefulness of the cottage and do a bit of grading a prep work for the coming week. In reality, I never want to leave the cottage. It is an incredibly relaxing place to be, I’ve always felt that way and I can understand how Grandma Weaver feels when she is there. There is nothing like waking up and sipping coffee looking out onto the lake and just thinking. However, there is a time and place for everything, as I was reminded by my own ‘A season for everything’ post from 2013. Indeed, there is a time and place for everything and Winter Break does come to an end, eventually. Continue reading Thank you Ion →

New Year’s Eve 2013

adventure, Cooking, Family, Life in General, teaching, Weather, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,

newyearseveIt’s New Year’s Eve. 2013. It’s over, well almost. I have a few more hours in 2013 to log a few accomplishments, to make up for things I didn’t do, should’ve done, could’ve done, or made excuses because I simply did not do them. Or, I could dwell on the things I did, the things I did well. Instead, I will move forward, trying to remember what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German writer and philosopher, wrote long ago:

“Every man has only enough strength to complete those assignments that he is fully convinced are important.”

Goethe, wrote a lot, significantly more than I have, especially in the past year. Like Goethe, I have time for what is important, what is necessary, and what I need to do. Continue reading New Year’s Eve 2013 →

Scarcity

Family, geography, Hobbies and Fun, Life in General, Reading, sports, teaching, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,
the last one, shiver me timbers - it was 15 degrees outside!
the last one, shiver me timbers – it was 15 degrees outside!

This week or rather the last week has been a whirlwind. The time since Thanksgiving whisked by and disappeared. Last weekend we had guests join us from out of town for the weekend and it was time well spent. They came for a youth hockey tournament and we had dinner together Friday and Saturday nights. It was good to connect with them. We see them at the cottage where our children are friends and they play together in the lake and on the slopes, depending on the season. Ironically, Paul was our pilot when we returned from Spring Break 2013 and we spent the night at their home celebrating a Swedish Easter Eve, before driving home on Easter Sunday. While we ate dinner and talked the kids played games in the family room. It really was time well spent.

Nevertheless, as usual, I digress. The lateness of this year’s Thanksgiving holiday means there are fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year there were twenty days, but this year there are fifteen. And, the kids know it, the teachers do too. There is always a frenzy in school, as we get ready for Winter Break and then end of the quarter, which comes the week after winter break. Just like the print on the passenger side mirror, OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.

IMG_2095
Sunday morning’s sunrise welcomes me to the morning..

At school we’ve been reading, writing, thinking, and learning. ELA, or English Language Arts, has me bogged down. We’ve been doing a lot of writing and I am overloaded in grading. I am looking forward to the break in hopes that I might get some down time to grade and plan. In geography we’ve been studying human geography and we were finishing the unit last week. We’d come to a concept that students consistently struggle with – issues related to population growth, specifically, scarcity and carrying capacity.   Continue reading Scarcity →

Sunday morning, quiet time

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washingtonstrong_teeshirtThis is the best part of the day. It is the time when everyone is still asleep, the sun is rising and the day is just beginning; it is the time when I can catch up on writing and reading. Being a blogger causes me guilt – the guilt of wanting to write more often than I am able and I taking time to enjoy reading what other bloggers are writing. However, for right now, this moment I can really only write weekly. There was a time when I wrote daily. It was that first summer when I wrote a daily post about what happened during the day and the ways the day counted. There was the trip to take my dad’s cremains to France and there were the three summer camps I wrote reporting the day’s events to anxious scout parents back home. I had time, I made time, but other things didn’t get done at my blogging’s expense.

Yesterday, I was a lazy day. I needed a lazy day or I thought I needed one. Continue reading Sunday morning, quiet time →

Beware, the ides of November

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my MO, it's growing in
my MO, it’s growing in – go ahead click me!

It does not exactly have the same ring as the classic line from William Shakespeare’s play, “The Life and Death of Julius Caesar” warning Julius Caesar of his impending doom; “Beware the ides of March.” I don’t have a soothsayer to remind me, I don’t need one, because I know the Ides of November – the middle of November – is a tough part of the calendar for me, it always has been.

Last Sunday was my birthday, I rolled over one more year, and I feel great. My birthday was a great time. W treated me to the Bears vs. Lions at Soldier Field. We had a great time. We took the train – the ‘8:15 into the city’ (“Takin’ Care of Business” – Bachman-Turner-Overdrive). Actually, it was the 8:53 and we arrived without fanfare just before ten. W read his book for English class and I read a book, too. Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick was just beginning to get good when we pulled into the train station. We caught the express bus to the stadium and we were inside watching the teams warm up before eleven. It was W’s first professional game. Even though he’s seen countless high school football games and a couple of Division III College games, the NFL experience is something to experience. It was my first time at Soldier Field for anything. I was impressed. I grew up on games inside in the Astrodome in Houston. They don’t play pro games there anymore, and I have heard they are thinking of tearing it down. Sad. The stadium is right along the Lake Michigan shoreline, America’s great inland sea. It was an absolutely beautiful day – clear skies, cool and sunny. The temperatures stayed in the forties and we were comfortable the entire day. It was Veterans Day weekend and the game was one of the games the NFL selected to be “Salute to Service” games where the league recognizes America’s soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. American military and national pride was prominently on display. Continue reading Beware, the ides of November →

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and the gun goes off

Family, growing up, Life in General, sports, teaching, Teaching and Learning, Weather, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,
'77' is for Red Grange a Wheaton alum and NFL Hall of Famer
’77’ is for Red Grange a Wheaton alum and NFL Hall of Famer

The Tigers lost their playoff game Friday night and their season is over. I am sad. My son played his last game a couple of weeks ago when the regular season ended and is now waiting for wrestling season to begin this coming Monday. It will keep him busy and fully exercised during those lean months of little sunshine and bitter cold. It’ll give me and B something to do on Friday evening and Saturday. He wrestled last year and had a good freshman season.

If you have been following MtDC over the past several years or high school football seasons or however you want to count it, you know I am a passionate high school football fan – especially the Wheaton Warrenville South Tigers. Even before W got into high school, we were there on Friday nights. It was our Friday evening entertainment. B grew up in a small town in southwestern Ohio where her Tigers were legendary in the small school section of Ohio high school football in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s. She played in the marching band in high school and marched Friday night in the late seventies before graduating and going off to college. Her dad played for the high school team in the forties and later at Miami University after his navy service at the end of WWII. When W was a little kid we went to watch my nephew play for the Ohio State Football Championship in Paul Brown Stadium in Massillon, Ohio. They won 26-0 and it was a good game, and it was worth every minute of the four-hour drive there and the four-hour dive home.

I guess that’s why I am so agitated this morning and was even more agitated last night. The Tigers began the season rated in the top twenty and knocked off the defending 7A state champion in the first game. In the second game, they defeated another state power. In the third game, the Tigers were up against the crosstown rival Wheaton North. In a hard fought game, the Tigers dominated the Falcons in every way. The Tigers had a bump in the road mid-season and lost a game to a team they should have defeated and were soundly defeated in the second to the last game of the year to last year’s 8A state championship runner up and possibly this year’s 8A state champion. Who knows? Regardless the Tigers finished 7-2 and qualified for the playoffs. They won last weekend and moved on to the second round.

The Tigers have been successful, very successful in the nineties and ever since. Continue reading It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and the gun goes off →

Sunshine Report – Equinox Edition

Family, growing up, history, Reading, sports, teaching, travel, Weather, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Night and Day 2002 - courtesy of sunthingspecial.com
Night and Day 2002 – courtesy of sunthingspecial.com

This morning the sun rose at 6:40 AM, it’ll set this evening at 6:49 PM. It’s a cycle that has been repeated for as long as earth has existed and will continue long after I’m gone, my kids are gone, and their kids, too. It’s a cycle that continues without any help from man (or woman); it just happens and it will always happen. But, that doesn‘t keep me from thinking about it or forcing my students to think about it. I am the king of things kids don’t think about. That’s my job, and I love every minute of it.

Last week was gone in an instant and the week before it, too. Next week looms ahead full of opportunity and challenge. Time waits for no one. The sun rises, the sun sets, no matter what. It’s a cycle. Last year, I challenged my geography students to observe the world around them and a couple reminded me in the hall last week about the Sunshine Report. Last year’s geography students began each Wednesday morning looking at the sun’s angle, recording the sunrise and sunset, and we’ll do it again this year, but differently. Just as my students learn in my classroom, I too, learn from them: from good lessons that could be better, lessons that were awful, and lessons that should never be tried again. I learned from those students and this year’s group will teach me something different, something new. I can hardly wait. Continue reading Sunshine Report – Equinox Edition →