Today is music Tuesday in my classroom. Can you hear my students cheering? Music Tuesday is enjoyable, because it means doing work that feels more like taking a break. In front of them, students have a page where they slowly, over several weeks, fill in the lyrics to a worship song. Every week I give…
My boy got his first job, at a terrific burger joint downtown. It’s an old fashioned soda counter and candy shop. He said yesterday a man came in from down south who was on a road trip to the north country, and he told Caleb this Kalispell landmark was one of the places on his…
There’s this feature on my website that gives me either a red, yellow, or green light, to indicate if Google likes me and is going to send people to my site. If I get a red light, the application gives me a list of what I could improve. Sometimes it politely tells me I’ve used…
Should I tell you that I use a calculator when I grade student papers? 30 total points minus 2.5. Ummmm. Do it in your head, dad would say. This was usually at the kitchen table, with a box of Kleenex and a math book sitting in front of him. Bless him. No dad tried harder…
I just spent the last five months waking up every day and saying, I cannot do this. As a brand new Spanish teacher, I entered a school where I knew NOTHING. I had to ask what I should wear, how to make double-sided copies, and what time I should be at work. I knew the…
A friend made herself comfortable in my living room a few evenings ago, delighted to discover the loveseat she chose to sit in was actually a rocker. (I was a little worried she might still be there come morning.) The other girls filled mugs with decaf coffee, and soon we were all cozied up in…
A friend at church asked when my daughter is getting married. I said, May 25, and her eyes got big. She said, Oh, that’s really soon. Like I should be scared. So I was scared. I had one of those talks with God where he sits calmly in the chair and I pace all around…
I make sure anytime something difficult comes my way I always worry about it first. How will I fix this? How will I get through this? How will I survive this? I, I, I. After a good stomach-churning moment or hour or few days, I remember I have help. Then I make sure to have…
For 13 years now I have awakened around 3:00 in the morning with insomnia. Wide awake, I have to get up and move around for an hour or two before I can relax enough to go back to sleep. Lately I’ve had a new problem develop of not being able to go to sleep if…
I wrote this blog post about how I had terrible insomnia the night before chaperoning a high school retreat and how I trusted God was going to be the power to help me rise successful. Yeah. That sentiment lasted, um, five minutes. I posted those words of wisdom and then promptly went upstairs and bit off my husband’s head….
I was already a bit nervous about going to the high school retreat for school. It’s a two-day, overnight adventure, and I’m a bit more for book reading than adventure. But it’s such a great way to get to know students and play with them instead of being the teacher. So I went to bed…
She might have been slightly beyond exhaustion on Saturday morning, after her first two weeks of going back to work and first two days of teaching, when she cracked open the bedroom door and fell weeping into his arms. Can’t sob do sob all sob of this. Head buried in his strong, warm shoulder. He…
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