The Sunrise Story

This is my first Five Minute Friday . The word is LEAVE.  "LEAVE it," I bellow in a deep voice to my dog Bella. It's one of the commands I'm learning in her training.  Leave it .  Simple. She gets it. Bella needs a reminder or two, but she moves onto something else...wagging her tail all the way. Ahh, to be as wise as my dog!  Leave it.  Leave the pain.  Leave the harsh words  the nasty comments and the unfairness of life. Leave it.  I struggle with these words  more than my sweet dog.  I hold on and  wring these words for every last  morsel of annoyance and  frustration and anger.  Leave it.  I don't.  I hold it.  I nurture it.  And it hugs me so  tight it won't let go.  Leave it. Leave it. It's ok.  Leave the pain.  Leave the hurtful words.  There's love to fill that space.  There's faith to fill my heart. Leave it.  Lea...

Thank you to Holly for this link up and opportunity to share my spiritual journey. I'm grateful. Today we are sharing ideas and thoughts about community. Join us! Community...  I long for community A place to belong Where someone smiles when they see me. Sunday morning Hugs and grins Kind words and thoughts from so many Community. Room C10 Good morning! Good morning! Laughing and learning We're in it together Community. I'm grateful for community A place to belong Fellowship Welcoming and warm Community.

Here's a list JUST for my mom!!! I'm grateful for... 1. My mom 2. Daily phone calls 3. Sharing book recommendations 4. Talking about teaching 5. How cute she is 6. What a great grandmother she is 7. Shopping together 8. Trips 9. Swimming in the ocean 10. How much she loves her family!

My blogging friend, Terje, wrote a blog post about Capturing Gratitude . I decided to take the challenge. So in NO particular order, here are 100 things for which I'm grateful... 1. My smart nephew Jack 2. My wonderful niece Jillian 3. My mom & dad who gave me a wonderful childhood 4.  Laughing & talking with my sister 5. My aunts who add so much to my life 6. My uncles who love me 7. My cousins near and far 8. Friends who add so much to my life 9. My faith   10. Books 11. HGTV 12. My students 13. Laughing so hard until I cry 14. Quiet walks outside 15. Bella  16. Memories of Leo 17. Notebooks, so many notebooks 18. Writing and the peace it brings me 19. PLN 20. Learning new things 21. Making new friends 22. My church family 23. Yummy peppermint coffee 24. Curled up in a comfy bed 25. Warm sweats on a cool autumn morning 26. Sounds of the ocean 27. Living the examined life 28. Finding exactly what I need at the store...and it's on sa...

Love writing slices every Tuesday and reading so many over at Two Writing Teachers . Join us! Did the title grab you? Repulse you? Either way, I'm glad you're here. I woke up so refreshed on a sunny Saturday morning. It was one of those sleeps that was deep and good. I slept until 8:00AM. As I hook Bella up to go out for a walk, I'm feeling joy-filled...until I see the bright red notice from the gas company. Sigh..not again, I think. There's another gas leak in my outside line. The second leak in less than six months...ah, the joys of home ownership. I call the plumber to make an appointment to fix it. Sunday's appointment brings a LARGE price, but it's fixed. And it's fixed good! Monday I called the gas company. Let me preface the rest of this with...I don't have a great track record with the gas company. I called at 8:09 in the morning. I had fifteen minutes until the students started to arrive. The woman tried to tell me that I have to make...

This has been a whirlwind of a week! There's so much to celebrate. Thank you Ruth for providing inspiration to celebrate weekly! Monday was the National Day on Writing! We wrote like crazy in school this week! I wore my special writing shoes for inspiration... On Tuesday, for no special reason one of my students gave me this. An origami Bella.... These thoughtful & creative gifts from students always warm my heart and make me smile! Wednesday was the one year anniversary of my blog. It was a long day in school and when I arrived home, I was exhausted! I opened the front door and look what arrived... I ordered this a long time ago from Erin Condren (or so it felt) and it arrived on the perfect day. LOOK what's inside! A new notebook and some other goodies...I think I'll use this for my NCTE notebook! Thursday, I just needed comfort food. Look what I made for lunch. Who knew that a bologna & cheese sandwich could make me so happ...

A sincere thank you to everyone who writes at  Two Writing Teachers! You inspire me everyday!  Join us here with your slice of life! One year ago, on October 22, 2013,  I began this blog.  http://fluenthistorian.com/2014/02/09/happy-blogiversary-to-me/ I started blogging for myself as a reflective process...and I don't think it's an overstatement to say it's changed my life.  I'd been blogging on and off since 2007 without much success. After a couple of false starts, I decided blog with my students. I enjoyed it and stuck with it. Why did it work this time?  There was a reason for writing and a built-in audience...my students.   I have discovered that while an audience is not necessary, having readers and getting feedback, via comments, motivates me. My students and I still blog together at Crayons and Pencils . They now have their own blogs. I've become a better teacher of bloggers because I'm a blogger myself.  It...

This is one of my favorite posts of the week! It gives me the chance to look back on the week and celebrate all of the good! Thank you to Ruth for this opportunity. Please join us at her blog ! Monday: I celebrate a day off. It was relaxing and quiet. I enjoyed a yummy cup of coffee while I watched one of my all time favorite movies, Annie!  Tuesday: I celebrate student bloggers. Students started blogging today! This is one of my favorite days of the year! I love watching them figure out the blog's dashboard and how to maneuver around. I love reading their posts and comments. It's such a fun and exciting time in our class! (They will soon be ready for the world to read!)  Wednesday: I celebrate my church family. Wednesday nights I attend a class at church. Life is so busy, I almost didn't sign up, but this hour is one of the best of the week. The leader of the class was celebrating his 81st birthday...so I brought cookies & brownies. We all indulged...

The last few days and weeks I've been struggling personally with my place in the world. Alone. A friend once told me that it's hard being single in a world built for couples...and that's how it's felt...until recently.  Yesterday, I had a light bulb moment... inspired by words of a very close friend. I began to look at my life differently....from a new perspective. This poem is a very rough first draft of my feelings about my place in the world... I didn't know that this, alone, could be the gift. I thought life was  supposed to be  about family and marriage about mothering  about togetherness. So  I thought I'd failed. Messed up. I wondered why me? What's wrong with me? Have I failed? I'm alone... Friends and family promised that He would come Children would come I'd be a wife  and a mom. But they didn't.  They haven't. I tried. Have I failed? I'm alone. I prayed and prayed. My church fa...

Thank you to Holly for hosting this link up about our spiritual journeys.  Today we're sharing our thoughts on peace.  I'm going to be a rebel and write about peace tangentially. As I live my life, I search for answers to the questions in my life, of my life...Why did this happen? Why didn't this happen? I'm looking for reasons. I'm looking for peace of mind.  In my search, I want to know my part in the direction of my life...am I solely responsible for my choices? Is this God's plan? It is both? Am I getting in the way of God's plan or helping it? What can I do differently? What should I continue to do? These questions swirl around in my head! I'll give you an example...I'm single. I appreciate the blessings in my life, but this isn't where I thought I'd be. In college, everyone thought I'd be the first one of us to marry and have kids...lots of kids. The reality...today I'm 42, never married and without childre...

I haven't updated you on my OLW since July. RISK is my word for 2014.  The plan for RISK was to get my focus off of fear. I'd fallen into a bad habit of making decisions out of fear and that was limiting me a lot!  RISK has done it's job! I feel braver...well, not braver...how can I explain this? I have more faith. More decisions are made out of faith instead of fear. It's a change I can see and feel in my everyday life. I'm so grateful!  It's October and 2015 is approaching quickly! I am looking for my new OLW. I have some contenders... GRACE or BE or CHOOSE. Others... SURRENDER or BEGIN or STORY. Picking my word is personal and so important to me! I'd love to hear what words you've used before and how they worked for you. I'd also love suggestions! What do you think? 

Thank you to the Two Writing Teachers for an  amazing blogging community! On October 18th, I will be celebrating a year of gratitude! A year ago, I began a new practice of gratitude. It was inspired by a blog post written by  Kate Roberts .  Each morning begins with an email listing things for which I'm grateful. I send the email to a small group of friends. I send a separate email to a few family members. This practice has changed me. Throughout my day, I find myself thinking...oh, I should include that in my email tomorrow. Others like to end their day with the email. I like to begin my day with it...I feel like it steers me in the right direction.  This simple email can be a hard thing to send...you know, on those days when you just don't care...or those days where everything seems to be terrible?!?! So many days, I just wanted to give up on gratitude and say forget it. From my experience, sending the email on those days is when it matters the most! ...

Thank you Ruth for starting this community of celebration! It's one I treasure and I'm so grateful to be part of it.  Please join us at Ruth's Blog . Today I am filled with gratitude and I'm ready to celebrate! Connections: I celebrate connections. In preparing my students for their blogs, I reached out to my PLN and asked for student blogs. Margaret Simon , Julieanne Harmatz , and Erin Varley graciously agreed and shared blogs from their students. My students read and commented. It was a rousing success. My students can't wait to get their own blogs. We had such fun commenting and we got to see what good blog writing looks like. We did this on Tuesday and I noticed that some students kept returning to the blogs to read and comment some more throughout the week. (By the way, our blogs are coming very soon!) Friendship: Being needed in times of struggle can make a friendship stronger. One of my very best friends and colleague, found herself sick...

Thank you to Holly for providing this place to reflect on our Spiritual Journey every Thursday. Please join us.  I've struggled with this particular link up for the past few weeks...looking for ways to just skip it...feeling like I have nothing worth saying. Nothing to add to the conversation. I have written, but my posts have been half-hearted and lacking. I came so close to closing my computer and saying, "I'm too busy for this. I have nothing to say. I'm tired. This will be bad." And then I remembered that my students have homework due today. Any of those excuses wouldn't work. Show up. Write. Spend some time thinking and the words will come. It's 4:30 AM and here I am... Hope. This is our theme this week. I looked up the word, for a Biblical definition and I found this:   hope is the confident expectation, the sure certainty that what God has promised in the Word is true, has occurred, and or will in accordance with God’s sure Word. ...