John and Bailey

Allie and Chelsea

Jill and Carrie

Kelsey

Jon-Caleb

Katie

Jake

Liberty

Kaleigh

Matt

Alex

Coy

Heather

Jared

Kelsey

Evan

Hillary

Michael and Cale

Michael and Chelsea

Katherine

Dylan

Jeffrey Carter

Damon

Tommie

Maurah

Chelsea and Elizabeth

Chelsea

Lucas and Gabs

So Blessed By 2010

Today I sit and wonder why I have been so blessed

To have been your teacher

To have been part of your life

To have you as a student

And to have you as such a big part of mine.

Some of you wanted to be in my class this year

even though we both know you could have gotten away

with much Less!

In someone else’s class.

You chose to be in here and I am humbled and honored by that.

Some of you prayed you wouldn’t have me

(either again or for the first time)

But you stuck it out and have hopefully grown from it.

I know I have grown

from getting to know you.

Maybe I have been able to help just a little bit

To write more eloquently or to Read more in depth.

Or maybe I’ve been able to help just a little bit

Through some trial in your life -

Maybe something I didn’t even know about

(Maybe something I did).

You have helped me through so much, too!

So much that you don’t know

(And some of it you do).

You loved Philosophy Fridays?

Well, so did I! They were such a highlight!

And blogging and class discussions

And random talks and free-writing.

I loved it all – I hope you loved some of it, too.

And I loved it all because I love you all.

You have made my last years so special

And I know I am a better person for having known you.

You have blessed me so much and

I am grateful to have had such a beautiful opportunity

The opportunity to have been your teacher and your friend.

I love you and I will miss you!

Class of 2010!

DC, here we come!

Let's home the city is ready for this group we're bringing from Owensboro, Kentucky! I have spent more time making sure I have all the music I want on my iPod than I have packing clothes. In fact, I think I have my toothbrush and deodorant... Yep, got it! Rainboots - check. A novel - check (Invisible Monsters, actually - finally, right Nathan!?). Pajamas - check. But most importantly has been the music. A little KT Tunstall; a little Ingrid Michaelson; a whole lot of Sarah Bareilles and John Mayer.

I find that pre-blogging (that is, before anything just happens) just makes me sound spastic and anxious - I'm really not nervous; I'm just ready to get on the road already. I usually start my roadtrips before the sun is up, so waiting until this evening is driving me crazy! I expect to have lots to write about this week and many pictures to include. So, here we come! Me, chaperoning 8 rooms for 17 and 18 year old girls and Gary Edmonson and Chip Carpenter chaperoning 5 rooms of boys...that math seems a bit screwy to me...But, here we come!

Seeping Panic

Oh, so stressed I am as I sit in the faculty lounge at WKU today just before my oral exam. I haven't slept this week. My stomach is in knots. My bones ache. I try to tell myself that I know this and I know that I do. I try to tell myself that it's just like an interview of sorts - and, I do well at interviews usually. I try to tell myself that these professors are on my side - they like me and I respect them. I try to tell myself all of this and I suppose I know all of this. Yet, here I sit about to vomit on my lap and leave this building as panic is seeping through my every vein. I know that this too shall pass and that this will all be over and I know that too many before me have sat through this. I know! I know! Still, ahhhhhhh! I just want to pass with distinction. I don't want them to ask me anything that I don't know well and about which I can't give deep insight. So, here I go! I'm sure I'll blog how it all goes!

Blog About It

I think I'll write a book much like Ralph Fletcher's A Writer's Notebook about the benefits of blogging. I know that many of you don't like it or you feel that it's a "girly" thing to do, but the more I read your blogs the more I see you growing and maturing in your writing. I'm so excited to see those changes and I think it's because you're writing about topics that are your thoughts and things you genuinely care about. I know that sometimes you feel you're writing about the same things or that you don't know where to start, but I find that once you do start you typically have good things to say. About the 10 Blogs Per Month: I know that's a lot. But, once again, I find that if you write at least ten times in a month, you'll find good things to say and you'll get past the surface to a deeper level of self-exploration. I'm glad you're all blogging :) And when you have problems, exciting moments, scary days, heartbreaks, annoying situations - I'll continue saying those words you love to hear, "You should BLOG ABOUT IT!"

Tiny Marshmellows?

Even the food that two children from the same parents will eat is completely opposite - like most everything about them: so completely different than the other. One likes reading and writing, the other building and constructing. One is fairly passive and docile, the other needs to always be in the middle of the action. One of my favorite things to watch though is how they address each other's differences and try to make sense of it.

But, back to food - yesterday, while eating at Moonlight (an Owensboro claim to fame, but oh, so expensive - we won't do that again for a while!) Jackson wanted some cottage cheese - a food Brock wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole because of the temperature and consistencey. He brought it back and Brock asked where Jackson had gotten those tiny marshmellows. I was tempted to let him steal a spoonful just to watch his reaction, but I think he really would have thrown up.

Some people say that you should force your children to try everything on the table or that they should have to finish their food. Really? I believe they have to right to say "I don't like cottage cheese." Heaven knows I don't like it, either. Or to say, "I'm finished but I'd still like ice cream" (to a certain degree, I know). Aren't there days we all want a cookie instead of our helping of veggies? I think these differences and these choices and these liberties are just part of the fun of living. They're healthy - they make good decisions (cottage cheese or marshmellows) so while they do I'll keep letting them make their own way with little nudges of guidance from me. This is the only way I can think of so far to not have them rebel horribly when they're older.

Where the Wild Things Are

Max tires quickly of being king of where the wild things are. If only more people were like this - oh, the trouble they could spare themselves. To want to return home after feeling lonely in this world of parties and "wild rumpus's" - to return where someone loves best of all.

I was talking to my mother yesterday about certain school issues and she reminded me of my 7th grade best friend, Kendra, who started visiting her own land of wild things. She would walk, everyday, to the little fast food joint beside the middle school. I was supposed to walk to the YMCA for our swim team practice, but one day I had time to kill, so I walked with her. I was shocked at what I found and in my too naive 13-year-old innocence, I just couldn't believe my eyes! My friend and her "new," much wilder, friends, gathered in that parking lot to smoke cigarettes. I was astonished and so sad. We had spent holiays together; my mother loved her like one of her own; she was like a sister I had never had. And here she was...smoking! I told her how I felt - "Kendra, I think you're hanging out with the wrong kinds of people. The new friends are not good for you; they're leading you down a wrong path." I chose to not stop there with her again and our friendship was torn apart. But, now I wonder why. Why did I have enough sense that this was not something for me. My brothers would have stayed - probably would have found a way to provide for their bad habits. I wish I knew what makes one person say "Okay, why now?" and another say "No way!" so that I could better protect and prepare my own children to not linger too long in the land where the Wild Things Are.

January Thanksgiving

A picture from the morning of Thanksgiving gazes back at me with three beautiful faces of my three precious boys. My husband, to whom I've been married for a long time. My brilliant writer and precious caring little ones. If only we could remember to have a little Thanksgiving everyday - even this day in January. To just think and list and reflect on all for which we have to be thankful. I am thankful for my boys today.

Little Footprints

Footprints in the Florida sand swept away even before we graced the path again. But the warmth of this moment in time fades not like sand through the hour-glass for I hold it forever in my heart - even long after my boys will surely grow and begin their own lives.

Our jackets wrapped around us because it was actually too chilly to be at the beach; the sand was cold under our feet and our toes were almost numb after the time there upon it. How, then, can gazing upon this memory leave my heart and soul so warm?

I relish this day when the sun shone bright on the emerald sea and my boys believe their right at the edge of the world. And, they are, I suppose. Their young lives have adventure in their future. May they always embrace the chilly temperature to play under the sun in the sand - and may they always leave their footprints upon the sand of their worlds.

Snow Days!

Even after a two-week break, there's still nothing better than going to bed anticipating that maybe, just maybe the meteorologists did (for once) sort of know what they're talking about - that maybe, just maybe, the snow they predicted would fall at midnight as they said it would. Just maybe. When Jackson woke up to potty around 11:40 in the night, though, I started to have doubts. There was no snow. Don't misunderstand: I love school. I'm glad to have the opportunity to teach - to do what I love. But... a snow day!? What is more magical than that. I went back to bed a little bummed out that my hopes had been raised only to be dashed. I woke back up to that beautiful sound of my husband saying my favorite Winter-words: "School's out!" No, I didn't jump out of bed, shouting praises. I tucked the blankets up around my neck and shoulders, rolled over to my other side, and drifted ever so peacefully back into bliss. This was no dream. We get our first snow-day of the year. And what a restful day it has been!

The Perfect Wind of the Valley

Rolling hills and snow-coverend mountains - huge evergreen trees and those which have lost their leaves, months ago. None of this landscape could be well captured in a photograph and as much as I try to capture it in a space of my memory, life has taught me that I will hold even that accurate picture only a little while. So, as we drive along through the Appalacian Mountains this Christmas season of 2009, I try to hold in words this picture before me.

The trees bend under the weight of the snow. Trees that have been there, growing through each of the changing seasons through hundreds of years and a few inches of white snow causes them to give way to nature. They bed and bow as if in submission to wahtever may come, in total reverance. They bring me to quiet tears and take my breath away.

Just over another mountain sits a long-ago abandoned barn at the edge of a recently frozen lake and I am reminded of young and old; of things forgotten and those fresh in my memory; my own long-ago abandoned ideas and those which have recently taken hold; things past and those yet to come.

Each of these thoughts circle my mind when Josh Grobin comes on the radio singing the Christmas Carol, "Oh hear the angels sing; Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men" as we drive through the pass - a valley of the mountain range. I feel that God is certainly with us here. The spiritual presence of Mother Nature circles around us in the calm, peace-giving wind. Around my very heart and soul. Around my own body and womb that will someday soon hold in safety my precious child. She is already held in that perfect wind of the valley.

Just before we crossed into North Carolina from Virginia, the horizon in front of us changed and a pink sky emerged atop the mountains before us. We hadn't realized it before, but we had been going up, up, up all along and were now seeminly at the top of the world. The snowdusted landscape lay before us and we could see hundreds of miles in every direction. Could it be symbolic that we don't know we're at the top of the world until we're heading down? We couldn't stop and cherich it any longer; we had to keep moving and were accelerating down. But, oh, to stay in that moment looking off into the distance as far as we could see, to the highest mountain miles and miles away which bridged the space between the snowy valley and pink afternoon sky - oh, to capture forever that beautiful sight! Carpe Diem! yes, Longfellow, "Act that each tomorrow might find us further than today" - but, we must also remember to just stop and relish today. This spot. This moment in the clouds.