Holding On

Though I am enjoying the mild days and cooler nights, I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to long days of sunlight.  Most of my summer flowerpots are finished with their blooms and last weekend I moved them to the back deck to finish out the season.  But this pot of cheerful impatiens is still going strong.  So it stays on the front porch to keep me company when I find a few minutes to sit in the rocking chair and soak up the light.

Fall Finery

Last weekend, I cleared off the front porch and then scrubbed it clean.  Then I hung up a fall wreath on the front door.

I took most of my flower pots to the back deck, where they can still get some sun during the day.  Out front, I set out a fall tablecloth with plants that can still be outdoors.

This weekend, I will get some mums and pumpkins for the front porch.  The days are growing markedly shorter and nights have been cool, in the 40s and 50s.  Fall looks to arrive early this year.  But there is still enough light to enjoy sitting outside when I get home in the late afternoon and the front porch is a welcoming place for drinking in the last of the warm days.  That's happy.

What's the Back Story Here?

T and I are fans of the Restore Store and there is a huge one north of us in Morris County.  We went noodling about there a few weeks ago, just looking around when we come upon this giant bed.

Surely this garish display came to Restore with one hell of a story.   T and I agreed that it ended up at Restore after some kind of explosive divorce, perhaps one featuring a crime of passion.  We can't rule out a stabbing in a bed like this.  For that reason, among many others, we didn't purchase the monstrosity.  

Your Weekly Bouquet

This week, there was a mess of flowers to sort into bouquets.

I found this red flower particularly charming.

Happy!

Pardon My Proud Mama Moment

It's no secret that I love my son.  I suspect many parents feel that way about their kids.  I'm not exactly a Mama Blogger but I am a Mama and this is my blog and so I do write about my boy with some regularity.

I try not to proclaim him awesome all the time because that is tiresome.  But I am about to indulge myself in a spot of bragging and those of you who don't enjoy this sort of thing are hereby advised to stop reading.  

Why are you still here?

JT's Middle School has a cross country team and last year he ran for the team.  To his surprise, he enjoyed the running far more than he expected.  In preparation for this fall's team, over the summer he made some half-assed efforts to prepare.  He especially likes to run short-distance sprints and although cross country is not at all about sprinting, that preparation is what he enjoyed.  He also rode his bike all over the place, often sprinting on the bike.  Knowing that one way or another, he'd have to make it through a two-mile run, I let him do what he wanted to do.  We're not exactly training for the Olympics here; the goal is to have fun.

The first race was last week and he lined up for the contest and last-minute instructions from the sainted Coach L with a somewhat nervous demeanor.  Before the race, he told me he would consider it a victory if he didn't hurl when the race was complete.  That is the sort of goal-oriented thinking that can be adapted to many a life experience.

The run was about 2 miles and there were more than 50 kids making the journey.  At the halfway point, JT was toward the front of the pack, looking like he would finish in the top 20.  As to the question of hurling…….the jury was still out on that matter.  The final 100 yards of the race feature an uphill run, which I would characterize as adding insult to injury.  JT approached that hill at full tilt.  He's the third kid back in this photo.

He passed both of the boys in front of him coming up that hill.  Cross country fans are the best kind of fans; they cheer for all the runners (even for the kid who walked the whole way.).  My boy was impressive coming up that hill and the crowd of fans knew it.  He placed 10th overall and was the third finisher on his team.  I was clapping and yelling so loudly that there was no time for a picture as he came up the hill and crossed the line, but here he is with his friends in a post-race confab, as they cheered on other finishers.

The best part of the race is that JT was so proud of himself and excited by his finish.  As for me, I just wanted to shout to the world, "that's MY boy!"

On Grade 6

In addition to the administrative duties involved in my job as Assistant Principal, I am teaching 6th grade history.  All of our administrators teach and I love being in the classroom.  So when I first took the position, I wasn't the least bit fazed at this part of the job.   In fact, I would be hard-pressed to give up classroom time with  students, so it was essential to the switch.

In the spring, working with the other Middle School history teachers, I selected a textbook for the class.  Over the summer, I read the textbook and I thought about the topics I would teach and the skills the students need to develop.  I felt confident about the venture.  Come August, I sat down to make actual  daily lessons.  And then I panicked.  One day, as I sat in my newly-arranged office I actually thought "well, I'll just ask to go back to my usual teaching responsibilities with 11th and 12th  graders."  As if that was something that could just immediately occur at T minus one month until school began.

Instead, I took a deep breath and thought about approaching my planning on a day-by-day basis.  Lectures, discussions, and assignments of the sort you have with 16 and 17 year olds were out.  But I had a few ideas for daily lessons in mind; the book and my fellow middle school teachers had others.  I began to pull together day-by-day activities.  By the time school started, I had a plan for my first unit on the Romans……seven weeks of instruction in the bag.  A plan at least, but one bathed in uncertainty: would this work?

Within the first few days of class, it was clear that my plans were good.  What I hadn't expected was the enormous enthusiasm 10 and 11 year olds bring to the table.  In high school, you have to work pretty hard in the first few weeks to establish a rapport and get the students to take the risks to discuss big ideas.  The social context has to be overcome first; they have to trust the teacher and their classmates to really explore complicated ideas, some of which are completely new to them (looking at you, federalism).  There are periods when discussion is just a painful trudge.  Eventually, the class takes on a personality and then the learning really gets going.  Hanging over it all is the reality of material that must be covered to have the students ready for the SAT, the ACT, AP tests, and college beyond.  These are ever-looming events and the students must be prepared for them.  

But in the 6th grade, it's all out in the open.  Ask a question and every hand comes up.  They can hardly wait to share their ideas and to be heard (even on the occasionally off-topic idea).  And some of their ideas are just spot-on wise.  I hadn't quite expected such brilliance from the mouths of kids whose pencil is perpetually lost and whose binder is to large for them to get their arms around.  But it is thrilling.  It can be breath-taking to watch them think and wrestle with new ideas.  Time is immaterial; we can take as long as it takes to really understand something.  It feels luxurious, this kind of time.

Classes pass in the blink of an eye.  They laugh.  I laugh.  My mind whirls with other things we can do together.  We explore some fascinating notions and we move forward at a pace that suits all the learners in the room.  It's freedom.  And it is fun, so much fun.

Welcome Fall

A storm blew through around midnight last night, bringing rain and cooler temperatures.  In honor of the arrival of fall, I said goodbye to my cheerful summer flag.

And set out the busy fall squirrel.

That's happy!

Last Call

For me, Labor Day is the traditional signal that summer is ending.  School starts afterward and leisurely mornings are traded in for the routines of bedtimes, alarm clock mornings, and homework.  Of course, the calendar has another notion and the first weeks of school often feature lingering weeks of warmth and sunshine.  Those lovely days can make it awfully hard to stay inside, as has largely been the case this year.  

My calendar reports that summer's real last day is today and glorious as it has been, it deserves a proper send off.  So I grilled some hot dogs, made some potato salad, and sliced some tomatoes from my garden.

Fall starts tomorrow.  Around here, we've already had some cool evenings.  Mother Nature seems ready to load up some beautiful fall leaves.  Cardigan sweaters and scarves are making their appearance.  These things will be embraced in due time.  But today, I held on to the summer.

Mornings

During the work week, I awaken early, right around 5:30.  I enjoy the quiet stillness of early morning and the early hours ensures me some extra time to get started on my day's to do list.  My coffee maker has a setting that allows me to program the coffee pot to automatically start each day and that feature is a big motivating factor in my mornings.  I hear the coffee pot click on as I step in the shower and by the time I come downstairs, the pot has finished brewing and the house smells like coffee.  When I set up the coffee pot in the evening, I always set out a mug and a creamer from my collection to use the next morning.

It's a small thing, this habit, but it brings me happiness and even on the busiest mornings reminds me to stop and appreciate the many blessings in my world, not the least of which is my morning cup of joe.

Your Weekly Bouquet

The weather has taken a turn for the cool this week and we've had a few nighttime lows in the 40s.  All over town, the leaves are beginning to turn.  That means that the clock is ticking on my weekly zinnia bouquets.  But there were still plenty of fresh flowers this week and that's happy.