Notes to My Loves

In T minus 3 sleeps I will begin another year of teaching. This year marks number 17. I can't believe that it has been that long since I first stepped into a classroom of my own. I remember how nervous I was being hired on the night before school started. It seems like so long ago,  yet in many regards it is still so fresh and new. I still get those first day of school jitters. I haven't been able to sleep well in the last week and I am sure that it is due to my mind reeling with what I want this year to look like. What I want to accomplish. What I hope to inspire in my students. My room is ready. The physical needs have been met with a few days of prepping and help from my mom and dad who are expert movers when it comes to unpacking boxes. The bulletin boards are color coordinated and the books are neatly on the bookshelf, for now.  The walls are ready for the work of those who will inhabit this space with me. The walls are waiting to be covered in things far more colorf...

      M otherhood is filled with tasks. Tasks that we were told about long before we ever held our precious babies in our arms. Talks we were given to from those who were older, wiser, and had navigated the rapids of parenting small children. Then there were tasks that we just have to learn on our own. Our "on the job training" if you will. From swaddling newborns to nursing night time fevers, from making the mad dash to the closest bathroom during potty training to getting all the necessary supplies for that first day of school. There is no handbook for these tasks. And often they are overlooked by those that are older and wiser. They are the small tasks. The ones that go unspoken. I could go on and on regarding such tasks. They are never ending and we, those of us in the trenches, know all to well the table of contents of which I am referring to. But this post isn't about those tasks. For we all have them. Instead I want to talk about the balancing of one's life wh...

      S ometimes we all need to get away. We need to leave everything behind and take a breath, or two, or three. We need to readjust our perspective on those things  which are really important. This is not easy in the lives we lead. The lives filled with demands, responsibilities, and expectations. However, right now I am away. I was blessed to be given the gift of time. Time away from all that usually makes it hard for me to think. I am refueling my tank and taking time to process. I am breathing deeply and working on finding clarity.      While here I have visited with old friends. Friends who knew me long before I was a mother. Friends who I have no reason to try to impress. Friends who remember when life was far less complicated and demanding. Friends who listen and share in the same struggles of motherhood. It is a fold that I belong to. A fabric of who I am to have these friendships that have stood the test of time and distance. Picking up righ...

W hat are you drawn to? What pulls at the inner magnet of your heart? What calms your soul? Recently I have been finding myself drawn to things that I always have been, yet asking the question WHY? What is it about these things that soothe me? What inner mechanism makes me pulled to these images like a beacon of the soul? A magic magnet that was knit long that is rooted so deeply within that it is a constant pull of peace. For example, why is it that  when I look at pictures like this I feel at home?  I did not grow up living on the water. I did not go to the sea each summer and frolic in the sand as a girl. What is it that pulls my heart to pictures like this and makes my mind stop racing and my breathing slow. What is it about this image that calls to my inner soul and tells me that there is more than the repetitive living that I am experiencing today with the dreary skies and piles of laundry that are beckoning to be put away.       And what about t...

  R ecently, on one of my many Pinterest binges I came across a quote that stopped me in my tracks. It was simple, yet profound. Here it is.      This got me thinking about all the insecurities that we are challenged with. The ones that are loud and clanging in our ears like a brass gong, or perhaps they are the ones that gently whisper not so nice nothings. Either way they are simply annoying.      Here is Exhibit A: The insecurity that makes taking a compliment hard for us. The coworker who tells us that they like our new shirt, or shoes, or necklace, or whatever paraphernalia we were actually able to put together somewhat coherently while making the mad dash out of the house on our way to work while juggling three little love bugs and a dog. The dash that included using some choice words to the little loves who did not brush their teeth, or make their bed, or do what ever it was that you asked them fifty seven million times to do. ...

      We have a new dog. He is soft. He is cuddly. He doesn't shed. My children love him. They wanted him. They begged for him. I see the joy in their eyes. The love that flows, when they interact with him in their own individual ways, makes my heart smile. I know that it was God's plan to have him join our family. It was the right time and he was the right dog.  I love him! We all do. Even the hubby who tries to deny it has been heard uttering baby talk to him.  This dog is irresistible. Here he is. His name is Hardsun.      Here is the kicker. I also know that he will break our hearts one day. That little girl who is smiling so wide in the picture above, will grieve and her cheeks will be streaked with tears that I cannot stop. The joy that they have for him now, will lead to sadness. There is no way to avoid this. As my husband pointed out recently, "All relationships will end one day."      I guess there was one way w...

                                    " A nd though she be, but little, she is fierce,"                                                                                          ----William Shakespeare       Her eyes are that of marbles. The perfect mixture of green and blue. They gaze in wonder at the smallest things. A bug. A piece of lint. A black and white butterfly drinking nectar from a hot pink flower. She talks as if she has been a part of this world longer than her three years, and asks questions that make me laugh. She is both tender and tough. A combination of a princess who loves pink, and a jean loving, hair down and flowing type of girl. (Yup, ...