On Summer

The past few weeks we've been busy enjoying summer.  August brought the beginning of summer for Allie Ann as her neck brace came off.



We spent every spare minute at the pool enjoying the freedom of being young and healthy.  We even got Allison's bike fixed up only to realize that she is too tall for her small bike.

 I saw that my youngest daughter has grown up.  When I looked to my oldest, I realized that she is a hair to be being half way to twenty.

I'm reminded of the Robert Frost poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay. 

As summer turns to fall, I see the girls age a year.  The growth always astounds me in the Fall, when nature is the most golden.

 

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19977#sthash.XiFHu3wv.dpuf

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19977#sthash.XiFHu3wv.dpuf

Uff Da - Mud Run?

Tina talked me and our friend Caron to do a Mud Run next month.

We've been running.  We've been walking.  We've been cutting wood.



We've been hanging from monkey bars wondering if... perhaps we could swing from one bar to the next.  So far, for me, the answer has been no.

I'm not sure why I agreed to do this.  Maybe it's because I'm going through a mid-life crisis?  I'll be forty in 10 months you see.

But yes.  I decided to do something that scares me.


View UFF DA mud run (public) in a larger map


Maybe I realized life is to short to sit on a couch?  Maybe life is too short to be scared? Maybe I need an adventure.  It looks like I got an adventure.

Hiroshima

This spring, I requisitioned 30 copies of Hiroshima by John Hersey. Personally, I had never heard of the book until five years ago when I assigned a journal asking students what book they would recommend for me to read.  At the end of class, one of my students went to my book shelf and came back with the classroom copy.

Japan has always pulled at my heartstrings.  There were a few exchange students from Japan in my high school, and I was always drawn to be their friend.  I even took a year of Japanese in high school.

 I read the book within a few weeks of the recommendation.

I decided we would read Hiroshima this Spring. As I researched the book, I learned the the book was originally published within The New Yorker published a year after the bombing of Hiroshima.  What fascinates me is the cover.

Never would a reader suspect what the story enfolded within the magazine. The irony of the cover floors me.  I wonder if I could make this bigger and make it a book cover to give students the effect that readers had had 67 years ago.  They would get the book thinking it was entitled The New Yorker with a picture of Americans in Central Park having the time of their lives, but when they read, they would realize what the Japanese were encountering at the same time.

We'll see what happens here - I'd like to have students look at many opinions and try to grasp an opinion of their own.  Personally, it's awesome when an junior high student picks it up and places it in his teacher's hand.  Then, that teacher takes that book and passes it out five years later to a Senior High English class. 

Macbeth

I'm here to tell you I have never read Macbeth.

And bam!  Here it is in next year's book for my eleventh and twelfth graders.

I'm liking it.  I've never taught Shakespeare.

In five years of teaching, I've never had a Shakespeare play put in my curriculum.

In five years of teaching, I've had to renew my license without ever teaching Shakespeare....

So, my palms are a little sweaty.  I'm looking down at the dirt and tilting one foot.  I'm a little shy on the idea.

So, I take out my text and read.  I find resources online and consider which resources are useful to the kids and which resources sound like a thirty-nine year old chubby lady trying to make Shakespeare cool and hip. Maybe I'll go for the meaningful.

And I take out my text and read again.

And I remember my Shakespeare 314 and Brit Lit 200.  This is why I became an English teacher.  I remember sitting across from Tina Mar and Kurt in our tiny classroom and trying to figure it out while Dr. Drake asked just the right questions.  

And even so, this is the first time I've ever read Macbeth.  But alas, it will be the second time I read Macbeth when I read it with my senior high this fall!

Vision

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
Helen Keller

 My mom's dad died when she was thirteen.  Her favorite memories of her dad is when they traveled.  My dad's dad died when dad was fifteen.  And so, mom and dad decided when Missi and I were young that we would travel.  We would make memories to last a lifetime.

Mom and dad took Missi and I to Disney World, Michigan, Washington D.C., Hawaii, South Dakota, and the Wisconsin Dells.  Eventually, Nathan joined us on our travels.  We made memories.

Mom and dad wanted to make a impression.  They wanted us to realize that the world was bigger than Red Lake Falls.  There was more to the world than our seventh grade classes.  There were more people in the world to embrace.  

The truth of the situation is that Missi got to see these things before losing her sight.  Missi will forever remember seeing the mountains.  She will  forever remember seeing the ocean.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day ended up being an incredible day of celebration.  Allie could walk.  Allie would be able to swim again.  Allie would be able to skip, dance, and run.  Allie can do all of these things.  

In twelve weeks.

Saturday the 11th, My mom and I took the my girls and their cousin Mariah to Grand Forks to open gym.  We went to the food court, and afterwards, mom took Natalie to shop, and I took Allie and Mariah to tumble.

I told them to have fun, and I went upstairs to watch. I remember looking at the weather on my phone and looking up to see Allison crying and heading to the door.

The rest is history.  Saturday afternoon was spent in the E.R. waiting for tests and decisions.  Allie had an M.R.I., and we waited some more.  Eventually, it was decided that Allie would take Life Flight to Children's Hospital of Minnesota, Minneapolis for consultation.  Allie had fractured her neck.

I would like to say that I was an excellent mother that day.  I'd like to say that I didn't panic and cry.  I'd like to say that I had faith all along that she'd be okay.  I'd like to say that I calmed her down instead of reaching for my mom.  

But that wouldn't be the case.

The Life Flight crew did that for me.  By the time Allie was in the ambulance, ready to be moved to the airport, they had her calm and giggling.  I will forever be grateful for that.

After what seemed to be a long transport and transfer to the hospital.  I'll never forget how fast the neurosurgeon was in his diagnosis and prognosis.  Allie would be fine.  She wouldn't need surgery.  She would need to wear her brace for twelve weeks.  She would spend the night in I.C.U. for observation, and she would be sent home the next day -

On Mother's Day.  

Mother's Day ended up being an incredible day of celebration.  Allie could walk.  Allie would be able to swim again.  Allie would be able to skip, dance, and run.  Allie can do all of these things.  

G is Grandma

Grandma taught me many things.  She taught me how to sew, crochet, and stand up for myself.  Grandma tried to teach me to knit, but for some reason, I still haven't gotten the hang of it.

I loved to listen to my grandma's stories.  She had so many bits of wisdom.  She wasn't the flowery kind, and she swore like a sailor.  That was part of her charm.

I was with grandma when she died.  We were lucky enough to remember all of her stories and songs.  I sang "Yellow Bird" to her like she sang to me.  Two months before grandma passed, my daughter was born and was baptized.  My pastor put the sign of the cross on Allison's head and said "Allison Ann, child of God, welcome to "Family of God"  When grandma died, her pastor made the sign of the cross on her head and said, "Shirley June, Child of God, welcome to the "Kingdom of God".  That always brings me peace.