It’s Thursday morning and I am the only soul awake. Even Ivy sleeps. She woke when I did, went outside, and came back to the screen door and I let her inside. She is curled up in a ball on the footstool, grandma’s footstool. It’s Ivy’s perch, so to speak. The footstool comes with grandma’s chair, it’s grandma’s morning perch when she is here, too. There’s a marked depression where she lays and it’s now part of the cottage. Last summer, when grandma was up north, Ivy came over to the footstool, put her head on grandma’s leg and looked up, pleading. Grandma held her ground and Ivy retreated to her pad by the door. This morning Ivy jumped up on the stool without asking, though sometimes she does ask but this morning she didn’t. I did not protest, as I often do, or almost always, she warmed my legs while I sipped my coffee and gazed out across the lake as early morning slipped into day and the lake slowly returned to light.
Ivy and the footstool
Yesterday was windy and it wasn’t a good day for boating, Tuesday was windy, as well, and taking the kayak out was a struggle, but I did it anyway. Today looks like it will windy and the lake will be choppy for another day. Nevertheless, I have other tasks to do; there is always something to do, to keep busy, some important task that needs to be accomplished. Continue reading Today is the day→
Like most people, music has always been an important part of my life. I tried out for chorus in third grade and didn’t make it, I couldn’t carry a tune, I still can’t but it doesn’t stop me from singing. I played trombone in middle school and gave it up, like scouting and sports and so many other activities I quit in that awkward middle adolescent period between 13 to 16. Music was an important part of growing up – listening to the radio and learning the popular rock and roll songs of the 70’s. I worked in a music store in high school. In 1979, a music store sold records and tapes, the kind of music that was on vinyl.
Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” was released in November 1979 – my senior year in high school
I started blogging five years ago, it had been an awful school year and I had been out of my comfort zone the entire year. The previous summer I had lost my dad, in fact today is the sixth anniversary of his passing. That summer, the summer of ’10, lay ahead as an open wound with questions about my past, present, and future. Towards the end of the school year, I had experienced a few successes and school ended on a high point for me as an educator and human being.
That school year ended on a Friday – May 28, 2010 – and I came home from school to an empty house. B and the kids had left for the weekend to visit her mom and dad in Ohio. I had stayed home because I had a cough and we didn’t want to get my in-laws sick. I had a lot of time on my hands and thoughts running through my head. The combination is never good and the blog happened somewhere between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I bought the url – MakingtheDaysCount.com, and dot org, dot net, and dot info. I had wanted MaketheDaysCount.com, but it was taken, already in use. I bought a hosting package and jumped in the blogging water.
It was good to talk with you this past Sunday and great to hear your voice. I am glad you got the letter I wrote in Michigan.
I gonna sit right down and right myself a letter….
I write a lot about growing up on my blog. I reflect and write how growing up made me who I am, why I do what I do, and why I think the way I think. I have never taken an accounting of the balance on my blog posts between you and dad. If I had to guess at a ratio, it would be mostly dad, about 70 – 30. Abraham Lincoln said it best, or maybe wrote it:
“The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future.”
The complete quote is, “There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.” From the Lincoln Nobody Knows by Richard M. Current (1958).
But, it really should be 50-50, after all I am a product of the two of you.
Every once in a while I’ll call to thank you for something or to apologize for all of the headaches and heartaches I put you through growing up, especially that period between 13 to 25. I don’t know how you did it considering since that period of time was magnified three-fold and lasted until we all grew up.
Growing up is a process and I continue to grow and mature, even at my age. When I stop learning and growing, it’ll be time.
Thank you for all that you shared with me that shaped me into who I am.
I love to cook because you love to cook. You taught me that it was okay to fail, as long as I learned from it and moved on. Your maxim of no comments until after dinner is good advice for a cook. You taught me to be open to new foods and even though we were young, we all remember Julia Child’s kidney recipe as well as Boeuf Bourguignon, Coq au Vin, S.O.S. – dad’s recipe from the Marine Corps – and so many other foods and dishes. Continue reading Dear Mom,→
Yesterday afternoon, I went for my annual eye exam. I was six months late, so it was actually an eighteen month checkup. As I suspected, my eyesight had gotten worse since my last exam in December 2013 and I needed a new prescription. This spring, I began to notice when I wore my sunglasses that the horizon was a bit out of focus, not significant, but enough to be annoying.
a pale yellow lily yearns for the sun
I started wearing eyeglasses in seventh grade. My vision was off just enough to warrant a visit to the eye doctor and I learned my eyes needed help – just a little. I’ve been wearing glasses since. When I passed forty several years ago, I began to notice that I needed reading glasses for reading (and see) up close. It’s the rule of forty, when you reach forty years of age, there needs to be at least forty inches between your eyes, and what you are trying to read or see up close. Gradually, I came to grips with the ideas that my arms were not long enough and my eyes needed more help. I made the transition to progressive lenses and I haven’t regretted it, in fact, considering the amount of reading I do, as a teacher, blogger, reader, and writer AND how much time I spend looking at a screen – phone and computer, my eyes needed the extra boost. Continue reading What I CAN see→
“If you don’t like the weather wait a day and it will change” anonymous
I’ve heard that said about the weather almost everywhere I’ve lived and visited. I heard it in Houston, Chicago, San Francisco and when I visited – London, Paris, and northern Michigan. And, yes, it is true to a certain extent. Weather does change and it should because that is what weather is – change.
The weather yesterday and day before was cloudy, blustery, and downright chilly, especially when you consider it was the last day of June and the first day of July. This morning, it’s chilly but clear and looks to be a million and six times better than yesterday.
yesterday morning
this morning
I taught geography for fourteen years and most of my 7th graders always mixed up the two terms – weather and climate. Weather is the day to day change in the atmospheric conditions in an area and the climate is the long term pattern of weather in an area or region. I wanted my students to understand that climate influenced where people settled, where cities grew and civilization developed.
Weather changes, climate should not, but it appears that our climate has been changing since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and is the change is accelerating
Two weeks ago, Pope Francis issued his encyclical on Climate Change and it was the hubbub of the news for a few days, and then it disappeared. The subject will reappear after the next large weather event and folks will be concerned for a moment and then all will be forgotten. It’s an awful cycle – for a moment, a fleeting moment, we are concerned, then we return to the behavior that got us here.
It was 48F here when I began writing and 83F in Paris yesterday it was 103F. Yikes, that’s hot. It’s too cool here and far too warm there. Not normal.
My brain hurts AND that is a good thing; it’s a very good thing.
School has been out for sixteen days and today is the Day 17. When I first started blogging in 2010, I numbered all of the posts – Day 1, Day 2 and so on. In 2010, Day 17 was in France and the first full day of my trip to Paris and take my dad back home. Looking back to 2010, Day 17 was June 14th and this year it falls on June 26th – the days do not line up because every summer is different. Some summers begin early and others start late, some summers are influenced by the weather and others are not. This summer is no different, we had bitter cold this winter and it cost us three days; it really cost five days when the last day of school was moved from a Thursday to Tuesday and enveloped a weekend –swallowing two additional days of summer break. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it’s too cold to go to school, too snowy, or too wet, or even too hot – we’ve had bad weather days almost every year I’ve been a teacher. It happens. This summer is no different, we’ve been on the rainy end of a wet and stormy weather pattern for almost two weeks and the area has had over 6 inches of rain in June – well over the average of 4.5 inches for the month.
The Pope issued an encyclical on climate change last week, it got a lot of coverage in the press, and then it disappeared off the radar. But, is shouldn’t have, the issue of climate and climate change should be on all of our radars. That’s one reason my brain hurts, I am thinking and wondering, but there are other reasons.
I was in class last week – material science class. It was amazing and I walked away with many ideas of how to incorporate what I learned in science class this coming year. I melted metals, bent glass, made pottery, played with polymers, and all sorts of materials. My brain hurt all week trying to soak up new ideas and meld them with old ideas to form a composite.
This week, I am in class again. This week’s topic has been water. Clean water, storm water, sewage water, stream water, ground water – all kinds of water. The class began with a trip to the Jardine Water Filtration Plant in Chicago where the water I use to drink, cook, clean, and flush begins its journey to my house. The plant processes about 400 million gallons of water a day and provides water for Chicago and several suburbs with a population of almost 4 million people served.
the quarry – not even close to being full
We visiting a large storm water facility that is an old quarry and it can hold a lot of water – something like 2.7 billion gallons of water. Which if you do the math is like letting faucet run from the Jardine plant straight to the quarry for a little less than a week. That is a lot of water and part of why my brain hurts.
This week I am taking a professional development class at a local college. It’s a week-long seminar and I am blessed to be a part of it. The class, or camp, is sponsored by the American Society of Metals and the organization promotes awareness of the use of materials and careers in material science. I vaguely remember taking Material Science at Texas A&M, but yesterday I had a flashback to thermal expansion problems and coefficients of thermal expansion. That’s about as ‘sciencey’ as I’ll get this morning. But, one of the more interesting activities we did was to melt tin, cast a tin bar, and do splatter tests for tin. It was very fun and I am looking for ways to do it with my own students in the coming year – they would have a blast. Watch as a tin pellet melts before your eyes.
Also, summer is in full bloom and I can read and write more than I am able during the school year. Woohoo. I was asked by Eli over at Coach Daddy blog to write a guest post, so I did. Our paths like many bloggers he found me and I found him and despite a distance of 500 miles we follow each other and live parallel lives. Eli is a blogger and has kids about my kid’s age. We are both football fans and enjoy sport and the life lessons sport teaches us about hard work, toughness, perseverance, and teamwork. I am proud to call him one of my friends. Take a look at the Coach Daddy blog – read today’s post about how Learning Never Ends and poke around a bit while you are there.
my view – US Cellular Field – 6/7/2015 – Tigers 6, White Sox 4 FINAL
I love sports. Football is my favorite sport, followed closely by baseball and auto racing, though auto racing does not get my interest as much it once did. The truth is that I enjoy just about any kind of competition.
Last week, I was invited to go to the White Sox game and tailgate with a group of men. I knew one of the men, Mark a teacher at my school; the other two were teachers in my district from other schools I didn’t know. The four men go to a White Sox game at least once a year and tailgate; they even travel to see an NFL game together. I joined because, Kip, one of the men, was sick, he has ALS and couldn’t attend. We had a good time, but for the entire trip, I was Kip. The trip was a ritual of sorts – getting ready, driving downtown, the seats in the van – I sat in Kip’s seat, parking in the same spot, setting up, cooking, eating, picking up, even to playing a game of beanbag toss. I had a good time, but the Sox lost.
it started as dreary rainy morning and ended a bright sunny day
On the way out of the ballpark one of the guys remarked,
“You know, every time we come, they lose. Maybe we shouldn’t come as a group!”
“Nah, that’s not it, the Sox suck. The pitcher gave it away today.”
the poppy is a brilliant, vivid orange and yes, that is my foot
It’s Saturday morning and I am finishing a few school tasks before heading out to do some yard work. There is one more day, really two – but only one with kids. It’s been a good year and I had my end of year meeting with my principal Wednesday afternoon, sort of an exit interview – but I’m not leaving. He was new this year and his approach is different from previous administrators. He asked the questions you want to hear, but do not want to answer – but I did anyway. He asked what was good, bad, and ugly. I have many vivid memories of all of them – the whole gamut. In the coming weeks, I’ll be reminded that the good outweighs the bad and the ugly. It was a tough year full of learning and growing for me, and my students. I am not certain who learned more; regardless it’s always a fair trade.
Last week, I posted photos of the peonies along the fence in our backyard. We had rain last weekend and the peonies that had bloomed are beginning to fade and shred. They continue to bloom and provide glimpses of vivid brilliant color from the kitchen window and almost everywhere in the backyard. Earlier this week, the poppies began to bloom. The poppies bright orange bloom is in sharp contrast to the pink and white peony blooms. Continue reading Vivid: memories, colors, and flowers→
