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A Grove Giveaway – those incredible smells!
I feel like I JUST finished a fabulous Grove Collaborative giveaway and it’s already time for another one! (That’s the kind of time flying that feels acceptable to me – from one giveaway to another!) This is another really fantastic (and delicious smelling) giveaway. These soaps also make wonderful Christmas gifts or hostess gifts. It’s just nice to have great smelling soaps for the bazillion of hand washings you do when you are raising kids. And, sometimes, it feels like a simple little luxury to have terrific smelling soap at you kitchen sink. It’s basically like a mom’s perfume. (Well, okay – that’s probably not true for…
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Jump In: A Workbook for Reluctant & Eager Writers – A Timberdoodle Review
My favorite way to teach good writing to junior high students is through good reading. I love to incorporate narration from the novels the kids are reading and to have them grow accustomed to reading well written words, which, in turn, hopefully leads them to writing well written words of their own. But sometimes it’s also really helpful to have a little guide – a handbook, if you will. I was excited to add Jump In: A Workbook for Reluctant and Eager Writers from Timberdoodle into my curriculum this year because sometimes I can forget what expectations are appropriate to have for my junior high writers. This workbook is…
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Draw Your Own Conclusions: the hot water heater in my kitchen
There is an ugly hot water heater that sits in the corner of my kitchen. You can’t move it. It’s giant and I can’t rearrange it to find a spot in another corner or hidden from view. It has to be there. Five years – maybe six – we’ve lived here. In those years I have draped ten or more different colored coverings over it during various seasons — yellow checked, gingham, plaid. Whatever. The table cloths get dirty. They look gross. I try to clean them. But they always look weird. Like they are covering up something shameful and they seem out of place. Last week I took the…
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Lost and Found : one decade down
It always happens in the shower. That’s when I find myself revisiting memories and thinking about things I didn’t even know I was thinking about. Ten years ago. A decade. Ten years ago my life looked very different. For that matter, my shower looked different too! For one – we had two of them. (What a gift, people – TWO showers.) My marriage was in a good place. My mother was alive. The view out my front window was Virginia mountain and field and river’s edge. I didn’t know any children by the names of Otto Fox or Piper Finn. I wasn’t teaching school and I was tripping over…
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Five Finds Friday (stopping to smell the roses)
Well this week was a long one – eh? FUNNY I don’t know you guys. Lots of funny things happened this week at our house. Lots of non-funny things happened too. We laugh a lot here. We read poems to make us laugh – Shel Silverstein is still a favorite. We have a billion and two inside jokes that crack us up. Lately we’ve been going old-school with Mad Libs and those silly stories have us rolling. But I don’t have anything real or solid for you today. I’m tired this week. A lot of moving parts to this week’s schedule have me sleepy and in…
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divorce diaries. entry 5.
I’ve almost forgotten what the routine Used To Be. Almost forgotten what it was like to grocery shop with a partner. The Divide and The Conquer. I’ve kind of grown accustomed to being The Only One. Some days it almost feels as if there never was a Before. (Some days.) Some days I just groove and strut along and forget I was not always in charge of every meal and all the yays and all the nays. And then some days it feels as if I am living with a severed limb. The ghost pains. The crushing weight of No One With Whom To Confer. Should this be allowed?…
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Kid Coder: A Timberdoodle Review
KidCoder is a complete program sold by Timberdoodle that offers an online web design course. The target age for KidCoder is 4th grade and up and it comes as part of the 8th grade curriculum if you prefer to order your curriculum whole. This summer I had London, my eighth grader, begin the KidCoder course, knowing that this review would come due in the fall and I wanted to be able to have given it a good go before I commented on it. Just like Bloxels, I really handed this one over to London because the point for me was to have a web design program that…
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the post where I compare myself to a toad (kind of)
Outside of our dining room window sits a dilapidated old bird house. It’s kind of awesome and it’s kind of broken. (You guys, my whole house is a metaphor for my whole life – wouldn’t you know it?) Yesterday, while we were eating brunch (which we only officially do on Sundays and, by the way, I made sausage and gravy over homemade biscuits for the first time (I think) in my southern life) and we looked at the bird house and there was a frog toad peering over the high perch. Today, I kinda felt like that frog. If that frog could drive a giant bus of…
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kindness is contagious
I am not certain about all that many things in life. (It’s such a shifting world. Off balance and out of kilter by mid-morning most days.) But I do know this: We have a bounty of friends much kinder than we deserve to have. It’s a special kind of lovely to come home to an empty house after a trip and to see that Love visited while we were gone. Delicious cinnamon rolls awaiting on the counter. Apples on the table and orange juice in the fridge and a breakfast ready for the next morning – because everyone knows after a trip the cupboards are bare and your resourcefulness…
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Five Finds Friday (beach version – of course)
This week went by with a splash and a wave. (Get it?) FUNNY Why is it that asking a bunch of kids to pose for a photo feels like punishment to them? FASHIONABLE Beach towns love their outlet malls. We hopped on over to one for a few wild minutes and saw this cute dress hanging there. I think the print is sweet with a sort of old-fashioned feel to it. I think it looks like a version I’ve owned and loved in the past too – but with a few small changes – mainly in the length of the sleeves. Also…
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wednesday by the water
The fact that it is November is shocking to me. What is happening to the days? The years? All of it!! Also. My children went swimming today. In November. That feels crazy. We carry our Nature Notes with us on our adventures and today was so slam-packed full of nature happenings that our November 2 notecard is now full; we had to move to the back of the card! The list included: dolphins, a crow not two feet away making the most unusual noises – clicks and such – that I’ve never heard, sand dollar, one trillion hermit crabs, a starfish that was in the process of growing…
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two days. two stories.
Yesterday I dropped my phone. On a rock. Without a case. It’s my own fault. I like the phone case-less. I’ve been warned. One bazillion and three times by friends and family and strangers. “Get a case,” they said. “It’s too big of a risk,” they said. I’ve had a case handed to me actually. I put it on my phone in their presence to appease their concern. (Sorry Sarah and Brian.) And then I removed it. It’s been just fine for a good long run. A really good long run. But yesterday I was helping my son carry water out for the chickens. I was about to run…
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scout. a poem to her.
She wears gray Chuck Taylors and dull colored hoodies. She’s always buttoned down and smoothed over and tidy, but she’s never showy, and the shiniest thing she’s ever owned are the brand new sparkling diamond earrings she’s only recently acquired. She laughs easily but seldom loudly or exuberantly. When you catch a glimpse of silly or tear-producing laughter from her, you know you’ve been handed a gift and if you’re wise, you’ll join in and embrace the joke. She’s deep and her thoughts are logical and creative and she’s beautiful in a pure and pleasing way. I’m so glad to call her Daughter. ___________________…
