Move In Day {SOL 7-08-14}

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for hosting this weekly Slice of Life.

Move In Day

The air inside the cabin was stale and heavy, yet cool as compared to the humid July day outside.  Surely, the light of day hadn't found its way inside since last summer when the final troop of boys left.  We opened the side door to let a cross breeze in and fresh air slowly pushed the old musty air out. 

The nine bunk beds lined up like soldiers along the side walls, their plastic mattresses yellowing and cracking from age. Soon they would be covered with air mattresses and sleeping bags and (hopefully) fitted sheets to protect the sleeping boys from their grimy surfaces.

This was move in day.

On Sunday, I dropped my son, Ryan, off at camp and unloaded his worldly belongings into the cabin where he will be spending the next four weeks working as a camp counselor for the Boy Scouts. He will share this space with five other boys.  I am sure that over the next five weeks they will become good friends, if not out of shared interests, then out of necessity.

To a mom (who doesn't like camping), this was no Holiday Inn.  The spider webs in the dusty corners confirmed this.

But to the six boys, this was heaven.

 They quickly set up their beds, plugged in the radio, and made this space into their shared home. Perhaps that is what holds the magic for the boys -- this is not home.  These boys are experiencing their first extended time away from the comforts of home, practicing for their life in the real world.

For this mom, this time will come too soon.

I kissed Ryan goodbye and headed out to my car. Alone. As I drove away, I couldn't help but remember what life was like to be 16.  So many possibilities, so much adventure.

Luckily, he'll be home for a visit this weekend and this mom will have her baby back, if only for a few days.

Celebrating Everyday Life {7-05-14}

Thank you, Ruth, for hosting this wonderful celebration of moments. 

 I love reading everyone's post and look forward to this party every week!

This week, I have been looking for celebrations in everyday life. Nothing major -- just things that I are helping me be more mindful of the wonderful life I have.

1.  I celebrate being together with my mom and Ryan at the Antioch 4th of July parade yesterday.  This has been our tradition for three years now.  

2. I celebrate going to that parade to watch my daughter, Kara, who was there with the horse facility where she rides and works.  This year, she got to ride a horse in the parade.  Usually, she just walks along, handing out flyers.  She was very excited to be able to ride this year and has been looking forward to this day for two years.  That is something to celebrate!

3. I celebrate participating in my first Twitter chat on Monday night, #talkmath, with Franki Sibberson and Colby Sharp.  Seriously, what fun!  I came away with some awesome ideas for teaching math workshop and found some new educators to add to my PLN.

4. I guess that means that I also celebrate Twitter.  I was a Twitter holdout until this summer.  I figured I didn't need it and found the whole thing kind of crazy. Boy, was I wrong!  (Celebrating the gift of reflection here!) Just from following other educators, I have learned amazing things that I never would have encountered on my own.  There is so much to be learned beyond my classroom door.  If you haven't given Twitter a try, I encourage you to do so.  You can follow me at @laffinteach if you'd like!

5. I celebrate the gift of time.  I just completed all of the "formal" PD I had scheduled for myself this summer (i.e. sitting in a classroom PD) and can now spend my time doing the PD I like best -- reading and connecting with others online.

Wishing you many celebrations this week!

~Jennifer

The Beauty of Summer {SOL 7-01-14}

I'm excited to be sharing my Slice of Life with Two Writing Teachers again this week.  Thank you to these lovely ladies for hosting this celebration of every day writing!

We are just coming off a very long, cold winter.  Out here in the country where I live, the white blanket of snow stretched out for miles on end.  When the wind blew, the snow came to life. It whirled and twirled and tried to find a new place to rest.  (This place usually turned out to be the street where I had to drive over it.)

(Here is Rosie looking out the window this past winter. No signs of life to be found!)

There are two things I miss in the winter.

One is the light.  The shorter days of sunshine really get to me.

The other is color, especially the color of my flowers.

Behind my house, I have grown a perennial garden where I can enjoy it from my kitchen window.  After the snow thaws in the spring, tulips and daffodils push through the earth to announce that the season of hibernation has ended.  

I wait for these days.

After the tulips, the purple stalks of the Delphinium reach skyward.  They are visited through out the day by honeybees and hummingbirds who drink from their sweet bellybuttons.

Next come the sweet pink coneflowers, their brown pincushion centers and soft pink petals providing food for the yellow finches that flit around them all day long. These beauties arrive around the 4th of July and withstand the heat of summer without complaint.

Finally, around the end of July, the Black Eyed Susans bloom.  These blossoms last almost until fall, when my garden goes back to sleep for another season.

Today was one of those days when I had a few minutes to sit and take in my garden.  It is beautiful!

May you find a few moments to take in the beauty of life today!

~Jennifer

Celebrating a Missing Camera

Thank you, Ruth, for hosting this celebration of our week!

Last June, my sister and her family relocated to Dallas.  I have missed them terribly.  This past week, they came into town for a visit.  It was great to catch up and to spend time with them, especially my niece and nephew.

Yesterday, we celebrated Jack's and Grace's birthdays since all the rest of the family lives here and were unable to celebrate with them on their actual birthdays.

So what happens when your six year old nephew "borrows" your camera?  Lots of fun selfies for me to remember them by after they return to Dallas.

Gotta love that boy!

What are you celebrating this week?  Be sure to check out Ruth's blog for more celebrations and to add your own!

(P.S. -- I'm new to this celebration linky, but I have noticed that when readers leave comments on my posts, most of you are coming up as a "no reply blogger," which means I can't respond to your comments via email.  If you are using the Blogger platform for your posts and would like to fix this, there is a great tutorial here.  The fix is super simple and will make commenting correspondence so much easier!  It is worth the minute to see if this is affecting your blog.)

Jennifer

Missed

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for hosting this weekly celebration of everyday writing.  I'm new around here and am excited to participate.

You could say I'm a "dog person." I have had a dog in my home and life for as long as I can remember. While I don't believe in dressing dogs up and carrying them around in my purse, I have been known to carry on a (one-sided) conversation with my pooches when no one else was around. My dogs "get" me.  They know when I've had a bad day and need a snuggle and they know when to leave me alone. (I should be so lucky to have my family do the same.)

I'm not a traveler, never have been.  Even as a child, we didn't take very many vacations away from home and I kind of grew used to that. Truth be told, I really don't like leaving my dogs for very long.  They miss me.  I'm sure they do. Last week, I was out of town for three days to attend a conference.  My family had their own things going on so I went alone and they stayed home with the dogs.

Three years ago, we adopted a rescue dog (a Puggle) and named her "Rosie."  Rosie was MY dog, if you know what I mean.  Our other dog, Toby, loved me, but really preferred my husband because he would throw the tennis ball without end. Rosie snuggles with me every night on the sofa as we fall asleep watching TV and she cuddles in my lap as I sit and read.  She won't do this with anyone else in the family...just me.

When I returned from my trip last Friday, Rosie made it perfectly clear to me that she was not happy that I had gone.  I know that dogs can't talk, but she made it known through her body language that she was mad.

As I unloaded the car, she just sat and pretended not to watch.

She wasn't interested in playing ball in the yard.  She stayed on the porch and watched.

And snuggle time during nightly TV...not happening.

It took until Saturday morning for Rosie to finally warm up to me being back.  Maybe it has something to do with her being a rescue dog.  Maybe she thought I had abandoned her. Maybe she was worried that I wasn't coming back.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. 

Anyway, it's nice to know that I was missed while I was gone.

Celebrate this Week {6-21-14}

I just returned from the All Write 14 conference in Warsaw, IN.  It was an amazing two days of learning and making new friends.  While there, I met Ruth Ayres and other friends who took me under their wing as I was travelling alone and this was my first time attending this conference. (I blogged about it here at my teaching blog, Mrs. Laffin's Laughings.)

Ruth reminded us that it is important to celebrate, even in times when we don't really feel like it. Sometimes celebration is hard.  Sometimes it is difficult to find the bright spot in the gloomy day (or week). But sometimes, that celebration comes easily.  Such is the case this week, having returned from time away that nourished my soul and mind.

Here's what I'm celebrating this week:

Writing:  At All Write, I saw the power that writing has of bringing people together.  Writing, itself, is a solitary act.  It is just the writer and the pen (or keyboard). It is easy to become isolated.  However, writing can also connect us.  At All Write, I was witness to the friendships that blossomed as a result of people's writing.  Link ups like this one and Slice of Life have connected people in ways that takes the isolation out of writing. I am looking forward to becoming a part of this community.

Nature:  Sometimes, we need to step back from something in order to see the growth it makes.  It's that way with a lot of things.  I see my own children every day and don't notice the changes they go through.  But when others see them a few times a year,  they remark on how tall they've gotten or how much more mature they've become.  That was the case with my gardens.  I love gardening.  I love to sit on my patio and just look at nature around me.  A few years ago, my husband bought me an arch for the patio and I planted honeysuckle vines on both side.  This spring, the honeysuckle has been very slow to bloom. (It doesn't help that winter just ended a week ago... ) But, when I got back yesterday, this is what I saw...

When I saw these bright pink blooms, I couldn't help but smile!

How about you?  What are you celebrating this week?  I hope you will share your Celebrate This Week post with Ruth's link up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

Quilting as a Metaphor for Teaching

When Kara (now age 14) was born, I took up the hobby of quilting.

I did this for a few reasons...

1.  It was therapy for me.  I did some of my best thinking with fabric and needle in hand, the hum of the sewing machine drowning out screaming kids.  Or maybe it was that I COULDN'T think while quilting -- for fear that I would sew my finger to my fabric.  It's probably the second one -- quilting forced me to forget all things except the very moment at hand.

2.  It was a creative outlet.  Being a stay at home mom didn't allow for much creativity aside from which Thomas the Tank Engine layout Ryan would ask for assistance to create every day.  Let's see...do we put the bridge after Cranky the Crane or before him today?

3.  I felt productive.  I could see the small pieces of fabric come together into a beautiful whole.  It felt good.  It made me proud.

4.  It was challenging.  I never shied away from a difficult pattern.  I taught myself how to quilt and hand applique. I could look at a pattern in a magazine and figure out how to piece the block.   I'm happy to say that I think I was pretty good at it.

Now that I have been teaching for six years, I'm sad to say that I don't do much quilting anymore.  Most nights, I am asleep on the sofa around 8:30 or my Puggle wants to sit in my lap which doesn't make it easy to stitch.  I find myself needing more instant gratification.  Some of my best quilts have taken me over a year to create and quite honestly, I just don't have that kind of time these days.

There are times when I find myself really missing my quilting.

And then I got to thinking...

The same things that drew me to quilting, also drew me to teaching.

1.  It is therapeutic.  Sure, there are some rough days.  Really rough.  But there are also lots of days when I leave and can't wait to come back the next day.  Thankfully, the good out weigh the bad.  Nothing feels better than hearing a student say "Ohhh...." when they finally "get it" or to hear the "YES!!" when they do well on something.

2.  It nurtures my creative side.  Creating for my classroom -- whether it be a unit of study or a poster -- brings out my inner child about to begin a project with a new box of crayons (the 64 pack with the sharpener on the back, of course!)  Ask my teammates -- if they need something "cutsiefied," they call me.

3.  I feel productive.  Flipping pages in my lesson plan book from week to week is not enough for me.  I also am constantly challenging myself with professional reading and with staying in touch with other professionals through blogging.

4.  It is hands-down the most challenging thing I've ever done.  Each student in my class is an individual with unique needs.  My goal is to reach every learner and give them what they need to be successful in our classroom and beyond into life.  I guess you could say that they are the fabric squares that fit into my larger quilt.  Sure, some are not quite even, some may even be raveling, but it is my job to work with them until I make them fit together into a thing of beauty.

And that, my friends, is what it's all about.