30 Days of Celebration: Day 8, A Quiet Sanctuary

I worked in my classroom for a few hours today.  What?!?  You worked in your classroom on the second week of summer vacation???  Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND ?!?

Quite the opposite, in fact.  I was very much in my mind, alone with my thoughts in my classroom.  During the school year, I'm never alone in my classroom.  In addition to the 30 little ones, there are my wonderful parent volunteers.  Before and after school my colleagues are always popping in and then there are, of course, my former students, my little angels who drop by after school to see if they can help.  Hear me out, I love my little ones and my parent volunteers and my colleagues and my former students, but every once in a while it's great to be in my classroom ALL BY MYSELF.

Wanna know how many people I saw at my school today?  2.  And of that pair, wanna know how many of them came into my classroom?  0.  I spent a precious three hours in my room organizing my files, digging into the new language arts program and preparing my lessons for the first couple of weeks of school.

Which brings me to the grand finale of my party for one.  I had the workroom all to myself.  Can we have a moment of silence for such a rarity?  I ran both copiers AT THE SAME TIME.  And while my copies were running, I used the cutting board and then the laminator.  Then I put on my brave face and had a serious battle with the scanner.  The scanner put up a good fight, attempting to eat several of my papers, but in the end I outsmarted it, surely a first.

I had every machine at my disposal.  I was a copying, cutting, collating dynamo!  I didn't have to wait in line even once.  When I ran out of paper, there was a white gleaming tower of it right next to the copier.  The tower of paper almost reached the ceiling.  Oh, beautiful stack of clean crisp paper, how I love thee.

So today I'm celebrating blissful quiet time to think, to prepare, to organize my thoughts and take a moment to breathe.  I hope you find a quiet sanctuary somewhere in your day, too.

30 Days of Celebration: Day 7, Word Rocks

Last night Terry and I went downtown with a couple of friends.  Our mission: to eat great pizza and try out the new frozen yogurt shop.  To my surprise and delight Art Hop was in full swing.  After dinner we walked around a bit and landed in Leatherby's, the ice cream parlor my third grade teacher took a small group of kids to, a reward for getting 100% on our spelling tests that year.  Spelling has always come fairly easily to me.  I see words in my mind and putting them on paper is a natural extension of the word soup that sloshes around in my brain.

Inside the ice cream parlor the pieces by local artist, Debi Hammond, were on display.  Debi used to work in the same district as I do.  Although I'd never met her in person, I'd seen her name in e-mails and talked to her on the phone a handful of times.

Last year Debi gave up her job at the district office to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time artist.  I congratulated her on such a bold move, marveling at her bravado.  She admitted it was scary, but worth it.  Now she spends her time painting, drawing, and teaching art classes.

Vibrant watercolor paintings hung all over the walls, but it was a bucket of rocks spilling out onto a table that caught my eye.  There were hundreds of rocks, each one with a word written on it.  I'm a collector of words.  I collect quotes and scribble down word combinations that strike me as funny or compelling.  It's no surprise then that I found myself pawing through her collection of stones.  I picked out a handful of rocks, choosing each word carefully, turning the rocks over in my hand as if the words would somehow come true by touching them.

As I sifted through the rocks, Debi told me she'd collected them from Agate Beach, another place I'd been as a child.  I asked her how come there weren't any agates in the lot.  She smiled and told me she kept them for herself.  I remembered the summer I stuffed agates from the beach into my pockets until my shorts were so heavy I had to grip the waistband with one hand to keep them in place.

Debi held out a small jar and told my friend and I to choose a word from it.  Another opportunity to collect a word?  You bet!  I reached in and pulled out the word "confident".  I laughed because most days I have confidence in spades, but when I picked up the word, my mind flashed back to a conversation I'd had with a writer friend just that morning.

This writer friend had given me the name of someone to contact at our local newspaper.  She'd given me the name months ago and I'd not done a single thing with it, a fact I confessed to my friend yesterday morning.  I told her I'd been too chicken, had lost my nerve.

As I stood in the ice cream parlor last night, with the word confident in my hand, I decided it was time to put an end to my chicken ways.  It was time to stop filling my pockets with stories only to keep them all to myself.  Last night I pulled out some stuff I've been working on and started fine tuning it for submission.  I even sent my writer friend a message asking her for that name again so I could query our local newspaper.  Who knows what will come of it, but I'm confident it's worth a shot.  And that's enough for now.

So today I'm celebrating little words of encouragement and the unexpected places I find them.  I hope you find some today, too.

30 Days of Celebration: Day 6, Kickball

Today I'm celebrating playing.  Playing???  Yeah, you know, running and jumping and being outside with your friends just because it's fun?  Well, last weekend I went on a grown-up field trip and did a LOT of playing.  Thanks to my pals Conor, Andrew and Karin, I've got the footage to prove it.

The tetherball was a temptation I could not resist.  Flashbacks of dominating the tetherball court ran rampant that weekend.  Remember when I said being tall isn't really a talent?  Well, in tetherball it definitely IS.

And because I never miss an opportunity to show off my graceful side:

[caption id="attachment_4230" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="Brings to mind images of delicate ballerinas, no?"][/caption]

In between tetherball games, I dug around in the pond looking for dragonfly nymphs and other pond dwellers.

There was a night hike and there were s'mores and a day hike to an old gold mine.  I even had a good quiet read by the creek.  I played ALL weekend and loved every second of it, but my hands down favorite thing was kickball.  It was so much fun.  Even though I was a teensy bit afraid of being hit by the ball.  Okay, I was petrified of being hit by the ball, but it was still an unholy amount of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY6yRd1TxHY&feature=share

So grab a little kid, or a big kid for that matter, and go play!  Hey, you're still reading.  Go play.  No seriously, I'll be here when you get back.  Go play and then come back and tell me all about it.

30 Days of Celebration: Day 5, Gracefulness Or Lack Thereof

[caption id="attachment_4201" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="It's appropriate that my number ended in 57 because I was Heinz 57 slow."][/caption]

Yesterday was my 100 Miles of Nowhere ride, which is exactly what it sounds like.  I rode 100 miles without really going anywhere.  Specifically I rode a 3 mile section of the river trail out and back and out and back and out and back and out and back some more until my odometer showed 100 miles.

[caption id="attachment_4203" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="A teensy snack to tide me over."][/caption]

The night before the ride I packed a small snack for the ride.  1 full-sized Clif bar, 4 mini Clif bars, 2 PB&J half sandwiches, 1 baggie of almonds, 1 pack of Shot Bloks, 1 banana and 1 baggie of Mike & Ike's and Sour Patch Kids.  Along the ride I ate everything except the full-sized Clif bar and the almonds.  Although I didn't eat the candy until I was finished, sort of like my little trophy for completing surviving the ride.

At the river trail, I met up with That Laura and our other friend, Mike.  Laura and Mike weren't registered for the 100 MoN, they just came out to ride with me because they're cool like that.  Mike gets extra cool points because he brought a chest full of ice for our water bottles and later his mom showed up with cold watermelon.

Most of my conversations with Laura prior to the ride went something like this:

Me: "This may just be the worst idea we've ever had."

Laura: "Yep.  So do you want to start at 6 or 6:30?"

Me: "Seriously, this might just be the dumbest thing we've ever done."

Laura: "Probably.  I'll meet you at the trail at 6."

Me: "To the pain."

[caption id="attachment_4205" align="alignright" width="271" caption="To the pain!"][/caption]

Laura and I rolled out about 6:05 with Mike following shortly thereafter.  The trail was beautiful and mostly empty in the cool of the morning.  We rode the first few laps together and then separated as we settled into our own rhythms.  On one of the early out and backs, Laura and I saw two bucks bounce across the trail.  Later on I also saw 2 king snakes stretched out across the trail, soaking up the sun.  I was less excited about the snakes and each time I rode by one I looked them in the eye and in a voice that wasn't wavering at all, I'm sure, I pleaded "Don't bite me, don't bite me, don't bite me."

I'd wisely purchased a book to listen to and a handful of laps in I started Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees.  Don't tell me how it ends because I'm not finished yet.  So there I was happily pedaling along, listening to my book and stopping for snacks every now and then.  Before I knew it, I'd already ridden 50 miles.

At around mile 55 the wind started to pick up and didn't quit until mile 80.  This meant that heading out was into the wind, but heading back was followed by a blessed tailwind.

I should take a minute to say that at one end of the trail, there's a spacious parking lot in which to turn around.  At the other end, I had to make a tight turn around on the trail itself.  I'm laughably bad at turns and so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to practice, since I'd be encountering that turn 17 times.  And this is how at mile 61 I wound up sprawled out on the trail.  I entered the turn and started to topple over, only getting my inside foot unclipped after it was too late.  I landed hard and bruised my...bruised my, well, let's just say I bruised my ego pretty badly.  I scrambled up and looked around.  Much to my delight nobody else was around to see my display of gracefulness.

At mile 80, my friend Abby showed up to ride a handful of miles.  Mike and Laura had peeled off to ride other portions of the trail and I was getting tired of my book, so I was really glad to see Abby.  We rode out and back, chatting and just having a good time.  Abby's timing was impeccable because when she hopped off her bike to run the trail a little bit, I only had 14 miles to go.  14 miles is nothing!  My legs were tired, but I could feel the finish coming.  I started up my book again and pedaled the last few miles.

[caption id="attachment_4206" align="alignleft" width="216" caption="All done!"][/caption]

At the end I was pretty tired, but pretty happy to have completed 100 miles.  I even finished about an hour sooner than I'd anticipated.  That never happens.

Laura and Abby cheered me on at the finish line.  As we sat in the back of her car, eating candy and waiting for Mike to finish, I couldn't help but think it had been a great day to ride for a great cause.

So I'm celebrating two things today, the first being that I'm able to walk today with only a slight pain from making an asphalt angel yesterday.  Secondly, I'm celebrating my amazing friends who do some really nutty things with me.  This graffiti I saw on the river trail best sums up my feelings about my friends:

Thankful Thursday #28

This week I'm thankful for...

• turning my alarm clock off for the summer


• a sweet last day of school with my little ones and some of my awesome parent volunteers


• making cookies with a friend


• vases of fresh flowers given to me on the last day of school


• homemade strawberry blackberry jam made by a friend


• ice-cold watermelon


• warmer weather

30 Days of Celebration: Day 4

Today I'm celebrating doing crazy things for worthy causes.  I'm not a scientist who can research a cure for cancer or a doctor who can help cancer patients navigate through treatment.  What I can do is ride my bike and raise money for cancer research and treatment in a creative, if not a little bit insane way.

Right this very second I'm riding a 3 mile stretch of the river trail over and over again until my odometer hits 100 miles.  That's right it's the 100 Miles of Nowhere!  100% of my registration fee went to LiveStrong and I'm still collecting donations for my LiveStrong ride in Davis.  Maybe you're not a scientist or a doctor or a cyclist, but you can be a part of fighting cancer, too, by donating to my LiveStrong page.

Or maybe you have some other talent and some other cause.  Maybe you're a marathoner and want to Race for the Cure.  Maybe you thought you were a marathoner, but it turns out you just don't get that whole "runner's high" thing.  Frankly, I'm with you.  Why not take those slightly worn shoes and give them to Soles for Souls?  Shoot, maybe your only talent is that your hair grows really fast.  Go on, grow your hair for Locks of Love.

Me?  I'm going to keep riding because every time I do something for someone else, it makes the world feel a little bit smaller.  And that makes riding 100 miles worth every pedal stroke.  I leave you with these words of encouragement from a fellow cyclist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaIvk1cSyG8

Now, get out there, get creative and get involved!  I promise it will make you feel happy of yourself.

30 Days of Celebration: Day 3, Paybacks

I have limited talents.  I can ride my bike pretty far.  Sometimes I can put a decent sentence together.  And I'm really tall.  (I know, being tall isn't a talent, but I felt better putting three things down and I couldn't think of a third.)

I can't sew, cook, play an instrument or anything cool like that.  Luckily, I have friends who can do all of those things and more.

My friend, Danielle, is a crazy good at scrapbooking.  She makes frames and albums and notebooks that are works of art.  She helped me make these beautiful memory verse cards.  And by 'helped me make them' I mean she thought of the idea, got everything ready, and then showed my monkey brain how to put them together.  And then she fixed them when I messed them up.

Well, lately I've been playing around over at animoto.com making movies with my little ones and just having a good time turning photos into slide shows.  Danielle saw one of my little movies and asked if I'd help her make her own.  Playing with a cool website with my even cooler friend?  You betcha.

She came over today with a slew of photos of her grandfather who recently passed away.  In no time we were clicking away and putting together a movie of all of her great memories.  It was beautiful and I was so glad to help her make it all come together.

So today I'm celebrating my talented friends and the rare opportunity that I get to pay them back.

30 Days of Celebration: Day 2, Risky Business

Today I'm celebrating taking a risk.  Not the bungee jumping, skydiving kind, but a risk nonetheless.  A few weeks ago, the director of NCWP asked if I would co-direct a week-long writing and technology institute for teachers.  After laughing my face off and reminding him that I'm completely impaired when it comes to all things technological, I realized that he was serious.  I took a deep breath and said yes.

Gulp.

Today I met with the other two co-directors, both total tech geniuses, by the way.  It's exciting and intimidating to be in the presence of people who see writing instruction and technology as a natural marriage.  In that wedding, I definitely sit on the side of writing instruction.  My hope is that by working with the other two co-directors, their tech savvy brains will somehow osmote onto mine before we lead the institute in a couple of weeks.  I'm skeptical, very skeptical.

And because it takes one to know one, here are some gems from the Technologically Impaired Duck:

And because you deserve a little more levity in your day, and not at all because I'm craving cookies.  Ahem.

Just one more.

Last one.  Promise.

Oh, Technologically Impaired Duck, you quack so good, you quack so true.

30 Days of Celebration: Day 1, Summer Vacation

My dear friend, Emily, started a month of blogging about all she has to celebrate.  I like the idea of taking the 30 Days of Thanks challenge and kicking it up a notch.

For me the difference between celebration and thankfulness is that thankfulness is usually a condition of my heart, something I can choose to show or keep to myself.  Celebration implies action.  Have you ever seen someone celebrate while sitting still and quiet?  Neither have I.  'Celebrate' is a jubilant verb just itching to do something.

As Emily pointed out over in her neck of the woods, it's pretty easy to celebrate when life is going well, but not so easy to celebrate when life is delivering a clobbering.  That's true, but I also find that when life is good, I take a lot of things for granted.  So, I'm hoping this month will help me realize how much I have to celebrate, both on days that are easy and on days that present me with difficulty.

Today I celebrated the first official day of summer vacation.  I'm celebrating finishing up a year that was equally rewarding and difficult.  For the first time in my career, my skill as a teacher was called into question.  I often found myself defending what I know in my heart to be best for children, what I know deep in my bones to be right.  This constant self-defense left me worn out.  And sometimes when I laid awake at night, doubt would creep in.  Doubt about continuing to teach.  Doubt about whether I should have ever gone into teaching in the first place.  It's funny how the tiniest seed of doubt can grow into a terrible Venus Fly Trap, soul eating kind of thing.

A few days before school let out, three teachers from three different schools asked if I would help them plan for teaching first grade next year.  I was delighted they thought of me and today I met with two of those teachers.  It was a pleasure to share materials, books and ideas.  I talked with them about the nuts and bolts of my classroom and some big picture stuff, too.  As I shared with them, I could feel the roots of doubt being pulled out.

I am meant to teach.  This I know for sure.  Today I celebrate my peers who in asking for help, helped me remember my calling.

A Letter of Apology

I'm writing over here this week and loved this prompt about apologies.  If you write your own apology, be sure to leave a link to it in the comments section so we can all enjoy it, too.

Dear Terry,

I'm sorry that I never, ever remember to pick up my paycheck at the close of each month.  I'm sorry that I also fail to recall which day is trash day.  I'm sorry that my feet are always cold underneath the covers.  I'm sorry that I sing all the wrong words to songs.  I'm sorry that I'm terribly bad at math.

Thank you for telling me every month that I'm great at my job and reminding me that I actually get paid for it.  Thank you for just shaking your head and laughing at the overflowing trash cans on the side of our house.  Thanks for singing with me every morning in the bathroom and giggling at my artistic license with the lyrics.  Thank you for pressing your warm skin to my frigid toes.  Most of all, thank you for excelling in math, but never adding up all my flaws.

Love,

Alicia