Being partly unemployed doesn’t suit me well. When I was busy I always wanted to have nothing to do, and now it’s just the opposite. I think it’s got a lot to do with the fact that when I was “finished” at work, there was always still a list of things that needed to be… Continue reading Finding my bliss
I really don’t like the “everyone gets a ribbon” mentality that has begun to permeate our dealings with children. There’s a whole culture around this idea that showing up is the equivalent of winning and it really drives me nuts. There are kids who win and kids who lose, just as there are adults who… Continue reading My hypocrisy
Everyone on this planet has flaws and I am certainly no exception. Recently I have discovered that an ability I took years to hone has, through lack of use, faded in certain instances. I’ll explain. I’m a highly emotional person. This is both a fantastic and horrible quality about me. It’s fantastic because I love… Continue reading Mama bear
Let me start off by saying that we don’t have a home phone. Husband and I each have cell phones and Daughter has the ability to text on her touch device. At age nine she does not have her own phone, but it isn’t necessarily because we don’t think she should. You see, nine years… Continue reading Grown up peer pressure
I don’t read paper anymore. I’ve been having a rough week and I couldn’t muster the energy to write. I decided that as an avid reader I had so many great passages to choose from that I would look at my underlined and annotated portions of some of my favorite books. I grabbed East of… Continue reading Paper and ink
At some point in my life I know that I’d like to leave some pieces of advice, little nuggets of what I have to pass for wisdom, for my daughter. I’d like to think I’ve got lots of time for that. Even so, I’ve started thinking about what I want to tell her. Here’s what… Continue reading Advice for Daughter
Last night I was sitting in my living room with the animals, silently crying about a lot of things. I’m not good with uncertainty and there is so much around me now that my anxiety and brain in general are getting the better of me. Daughter wasn’t feeling well and woke me up at 3:00… Continue reading Out of nowhere
Lately I’ve spent a whole lot of time thinking about all of the things I’m losing when it comes to my mom. When I lost my dad I was very young and, in my childhood perspective and my little memory, I lost him all at once; he was here and then he was gone. My… Continue reading What I can keep
The photo above is a post it note on my desk. On the note is a tiny little shard of bamboo. While doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen the other day, I was washing our bamboo cutting board. As I moved it from one place to another I got that remarkably small sliver of… Continue reading Small things
In the teaching profession, if you’re lucky you get to be part of some absolutely wonderful professional development. Some of the best I can remember was around cultural diversity. The content was not delivered in a new and exciting way, nor was it particularly revolutionary in its content. Still, I learned so very much from… Continue reading What my daughter taught me about race
Elephants in the Room 