Category Archives: Family

Dec 30 2012
18 Comments
Dogs, Family, Health, Home, Life, Teaching, Travel, Writing

Good-Bye 2012, It’s Been Real.

So, it’s about that time.

All the cool kids are doing it.

Must post something about 2013. You know, resolutions or something.

To be fair, I DO love resolutions. One of my life goals is to spend every New Year’s Day at the ocean, reflecting. I decided awhile back that it’s a much better way to spend the new year than hung over on the couch.

Not sure I’ll make the ocean part happen this year, we’ll see.

But, before I can look forward, I have to look back.

2012.

Struggle and happiness, chaos and peace. Immense gratitude. I learned, a lot. I wrote, a lot. So much stuffed into 12 months. Do I have it all figured out? Not hardly. But, I feel better balanced than ever before. Happy, even. In the spirit of Thankfulness Thursdays, I leave you with my 2012 Gratitude List (and pictures dug out of this year’s blog).

Work:

I feel so fortunate to have a teaching job as a new-ish teacher in our current economy. This year was hard, but I became a better teacher one day at a time, and each day I feel a step closer to making this my lifelong work, instead of something I lovingly survive for the time being. So much gratitude.

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2012’s valentines to my students, proof my heart is in the right place!

MacBook ad? More distractions from revisions...

And, can’t complain about my night job. It may not pay the bills (yet) but writing makes me happy.

Reading:

I was definitely an ADHD reader this year. Still have ten or so titles half finished on my dresser… The book I was most grateful to finish, hands down, Dear Sugar.

Sugar says...

Cheryl Strayed speaks to every human emotion in this book. So real, so touching. She writes with an unabashed openness I strive to emulate…

Music:

I’m thankful for the Lumineers’ soulful lyrics set to summer in the backyard with family, our car cruising down the coast, a sea of people at Golden Gate Park…

Places:

So much gratitude to live on such a beautiful planet and to have the means to see it even in a year that did not always feel easy.

Union Square at sunrise was not something I ever saw as a child.

San Francisco at sunrise

More gorgeous coast before snorkeling.

Magical Kauai

Goodbye sun.

Oregon Coast sunset

Mom’s Mt. Shasta

People:

More than anything else, I am grateful for the people in my life, friends, family, near and far… Oh yeah, and my dog too, he counts, right?

No greater gratitude than for the people in my life.

No greater gratitude than for the people in my life.

Health:

And, not to be forgotten, this was the year I discovered my own power in healing. So thankful.

Inspiration

Yoga, meditation… healing.

Other bloggers:

Even though I started blogging in 2011, my move to WordPress cemented my commitment to putting my words out there and becoming part of a greater community. I am truly grateful for all the connections I have made this year– words of wisdom from every corner of the globe, thank YOU!

So, your turn, what tops your 2012 Gratitude List?

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Dec 27 2012
6 Comments
Dogs, Family, Home, Life, Travel

Time Goes by in a Blink

I have been waiting for some sort of moment to blog about for the last couple days, but instead I have struggled to keep up with time. Even in doing less, time escapes me. I do not understand why time spent with family and friends is the time that moves most quickly. It does not seem fair.

This weekend, my family went on our annual San Francisco Christmas trip, the one I looked forward to back in November when we stayed in Union Square for our friends’ wedding. It was a blur. Shopping, dinner, brunch, movie, done. As we walked back to our hotel from dinner on Saturday night, I had to remind myself to put my arm through my father’s as not to lose some part of the tradition.

A bit of deja vu from a month ago and every year for the past 25 years...

Seems so familiar… 25 years of the same view.

To add to the sense of time folding over on itself, here is our annual family Christmas pic in San Francisco five years ago.

To add to the sense of time folding over on itself, here is our annual family Christmas picture in San Francisco six years ago.

This year.

2012. Amazing how six years changes things– my sister all the way to the right has a four-year-old son, my sister all the way to the left used to be the little one in the middle, my brother apparently now smiles, my sister two from the left brought her boyfriend this year, and I am married. What will the next six years bring?

Sunday night we raced home to attend a Christmas party with friends. Standing around talking about babies and weddings to many of the same people I have known since elementary school, there was no clearer expression of time passed. Weren’t we just the little ones making gingerbread houses and driving our teacher crazy the day before winter break? Now I am that teacher…

Monday I scrambled to clean the house and wrap the last presents in time for Alex’s family to come over for dinner. Then I blinked and it was Christmas morning. I staggered the opening of each present as not to let the experience pass by too quickly. My dad sat to my right and refused to open any until the rest of us had finished. We were on the same page, yet somehow it all managed to become part of the blur as well.

Here is one of the presents I took my time opening... And, yes, I was that excited to get a vacuum cleaner.

Here is one of the presents I took my time opening… And, yes, I was that excited to get a vacuum cleaner… Further proof life has changed.

Yesterday and today were filled with visits with friends. Brunches and lunches and afternoons spent drinking tea and laughing. This evening I am certain that the fastest way to pass the time is in the company of those you love. Seems a bit ironic, doesn’t it? The moments we most want to savor are also the moments that pass most quickly.

I hope you are having a lovely end of the year in the company of those you love. If you are anything like me, I also hope you take a moment or two to yourself to help slow it all down. I leave you with a couple of my favorite pictures from the last few days in an effort to hold onto the good moments a little tighter.

And, of course, it's not Christmas without Simon in a santa hat.

Of course, it’s not Christmas without Simon in a santa hat.

My youngest sister and my nephew, this picture is pure love.

My youngest sister and my nephew, this picture is pure love.

Five years from now, she'll be 21 and in college... A very strange thought!

Six years from now, she’ll be 22 and almost done with college and I’ll be 35… Here’s to enjoying all the good moments from now until then!

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Dec 24 2012
6 Comments
Family, Home, Life, Travel

Happy Holidays!

So many words to share but little time. A house to clean, still two gifts to buy, fourteen people visiting our home this evening. The holidays are a blur of faces, everyone from childhood friends to coworkers to close relatives squeezed into gathering after gathering. Engagements, babies, hugs, laughter. Maybe a couple tears, mostly good ones though. Shopping in the City, drinks and dinner with family, a fancy party dress that makes me feel like a little girl, twirling through the hotel lobby.

Wishing you holiday cheer no matter what or how you celebrate!

San Francisco

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Dec 19 2012
11 Comments
Family, Home, Life

Wedding Dresses Don’t Belong in Boxes.

I said I wanted to sell my dress.

I said I was not sentimental.

No one bought it.

I lowered the price.

Not a single bite.

Minus some weirdo who wanted to wire money from another country…

So, I gave in.

Three years later.

I bought a preservation box,

Wrapped the lace in acid-free paper,

Put a lid over my beautiful dress,

Said good-bye for decades.

Now, I open my closet to see a sad white box that won’t fit under my bed as promised.

Before a stunning gown draped over the door frame,

A happy reminder.

Feels like I put away a chapter of my life,

A year spent planning,

A day I will never forget,

I guess the honeymoon is over.

I am no longer the bride.

The dress is tucked away.

I am the wife.

Need a wedding dress by chance?

I still say wedding dresses don’t belong in boxes.

Dress.

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Dec 14 2012
8 Comments
Family, Life, Teaching

Week 18: Keeping School Safe

This afternoon, I sat at the back table of my classroom and checked my email while my students finished a test. I knew nothing about what happened in Connecticut, always late to know, most of my day disconnected from the internet. Another teacher wrote an email suggesting we might do something to reach out to Sandy Hook Elementary School…

I had no idea what he was talking about.

Reading the CNN updates as my students concentrated on parts of speech, my eyes filled with tears. The world is filled with so many horrors, but nothing is quite as horrific as violence toward children. I don’t know if it is because I am a teacher or because I was in a room full of kids, but this story shook me more than any other in my life.

It breaks my heart to think there is one more thing for my students to fear. Life outside of school is already scary enough. I will never forget my residency year when a student told the class about how his grandfather was gunned down in his front yard. Half the room had something similar to share. I was shocked.

Anxiety rooted in real life trauma is common for many of the children I serve. I am often thankful that at least my kids can feel safe at school. I tell them that everything else stays outside. “You are safe,” I say. Those are the only words I have to offer and I mean them.

Now I fear many of my students will hear this story and be afraid at school, too. Threats of violence are not uncommon. We go through the motions of threat assessments, psychological evaluations, and lockdown drills, but I downplay the likelihood of violence occurring. It’s all I can do to keep my sanity.

This story hit too close.

I grieve for the families and students robbed of life. I grieve for our country. I grieve for fear.

School should be a sacred space, the place that everything else in our world is kept at bay, where kids feel safe. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep it this way, even if it means not saying anything to my students because I don’t want to give them something new to fear. I now get why parents sometimes choose to shelter their children, the world is a hard place and kids deserve a space to feel safe.

Dec 13 2012
4 Comments
Family, Home, Life

It Won’t Be Long Before Another Day…

I remember being three or four years old. My mom would turn on my little cassette of lullabies and lie down next to me until I fell asleep each afternoon, the curtains drawn, darkness tricking me into a nap. Snuggled up to my mom, I felt loved, safe. The feeling is so real, even twenty-five years later, I can still see the light hitting the back of those curtains, feel the warmth of her arms holding onto me, hear her voice gently singing me to sleep.

Time is a funny thing. I can reach back and touch that memory even though thousands of others have slipped by unnoticed. Makes me wonder what I will hold onto from now.

Tonight, I share a little piece of me from twenty-five years ago, a song I caught myself singing while I made dinner tonight. As a kid, I swore it was written for me and my mom. Now, it means even more. A time capsule from the past. 

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Nov 29 2012
7 Comments
Family, Health, Home, Life, Teaching, Writing

Becoming vs. Being

This evening after work, I sat on my kitchen counter and ate cranberry bread. It’s one of my bad habits. The counter, not the bread. While I ate my snack like a small child, two things caught my attention.

First, this note on my fridge. I wrote it a month or so ago in one of my more frustrated moments. Today, it made me realize that I am always trying to become something else. First I was a college kid wanting to become an adult, then an analyst hoping to become a teacher, and now a teacher wishing to become a novelist. It hit me, when I am I ever just going to be?

That’s when my eyes were drawn to my bookshelf that is messily filled with too many things. All those eclectic books and pictures are my life. Each title and each smiling face a different part of me. Another metaphor staring me in the face. A life that is already enough if I stop to pay attention.

Maybe bookshelves are the real windows to the soul…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to stop working toward that goal on the fridge, but I also need to recognize that even if I already were a full-time novelist, there would always be something else to become. If we don’t stop to be, life will pass us by…

Lately I have slowed things down, which means a more gradual approach to this becoming business. In some ways, this is hard because it feels like I am accomplishing a lot less. In others, it is allowing me to be the more balanced person I have already worked so hard to become.

Are you good at being? Tonight I am collecting secrets.

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Nov 23 2012
4 Comments
Family, Health, Home, Life

GMOs are everywhere, do you care?

In some ways, I’m sure my blog screams hippie. However, there are a lot of influences on me and I, like you, am a lot of things. I begin this way because I want you to give what I am saying a chance, no matter what your background.

Recently, I watched the film Genetic Roulette about the possible effects of GMOs on our bodies. Like any good skeptic, I am not willing to attribute every health problem we face to the increased GMOs in our diet, even if both rise side-by-side on a graph. Likewise, I have seen plenty of indie documentaries that have not convinced me of anything. However, there are points in this film that intuitively ring true, such as the idea that we should not be eating plants engineered to kill bugs, whose seeds cannot be handled without gloves, or that cause serious health issues in animals.

If you have the opportunity to watch the film or research GMOs on your own, I encourage you to do so. I was admittedly resistant to learning about GMOs because I figured I ate well enough already, but I have changed my tune. I share because I care.

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Nov 22 2012
4 Comments
Dogs, Family, Home, Life

Thankfulness Thursday: Thanksgiving

On this, the final Thankfulness Thursday, I decided to share my gratitude for the very day of Thanksgiving itself. While my mother’s family honors our Native American heritage, we do not boycott the day. Instead, we make it our own, embracing the positive aspects of giving thanks and coming together as a family to enjoy a meal and honor abundance. We celebrated on Tuesday, sharing a feast of GMO-free, organic food in Mt. Shasta, toasting Bodhichitta and watching the rain fall all day on a blanket of orange leaves.

Today I am grateful for two Thanksgivings, one in Mt. Shasta, one in Sacramento. Two families that are really one because they are both mine. Food, laughter, love. I am grateful. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

A happy, rainy Thanksgiving.

Full of many reminders for love and peace…

As well as the obligatory post-Turkey hangover.

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Nov 17 2012
12 Comments
Family, Life, Teaching, Writing

Patience is a difficult lesson

I remember hearing once that we are presented with the same lesson over and over until we really get it. If this is true, my current lesson is definitely related to patience and progress. Maybe that’s what I get for questioning the old saying, patience is a virtue. I still stand by the idea that sometimes it’s good not to be patient. However, this season of my life seems to be all about patience. Patience with my writing, patience with my teaching, patience with myself.

My love for writing has not waned, but my belief in myself wavers all the time. The description of my book is an eternal work in progress. I tweak a little here, a little there, a little better throughout time, but still not what it needs to be. Expecting Happiness also deserves a revisit with what I have learned in the past couple months. Naga (my NaNoWriMo project) was off to a good start but now I’m questioning whether my foray into fantasy was just that, a temporary adventure. I get that every word is progress, it just feels unbearably slow sometimes.

Teaching. Is. Hard. I was telling Alex last night that I feel like a big part of my job is improv. Sure I plan my lessons, but when it comes down to it, no script is ever going to work. Real life is messy. Kids are messy. Their ingenious questions redirect my plans all the time. Yes I’m getting better, but teaching is not something you just work hard at and then are instantly great. In fact, it was the first thing in my life where the correlation between hard work and success wasn’t immediate. Then you add in a pilot teacher evaluation system where I am graded on rubric after rubric and I start to feel a little less than stellar. I know it will pay off, but the progress is much slower than I’d like.

Me. Patience with myself is harder to define here, open to the world. There are just certain aspects of my life that I expected to be different by 30. No, 30 isn’t here, but it feels like it’s knocking on my door.

The lesson in all of this, progress takes time, little by little, bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour… The important part is continuing to put in the work that will eventually get me wherever it is I am headed. But here’s the best part. Thanks to this blog, I don’t feel alone in this. From my heart, I appreciate each and every one of you that is accompanying me on this sometimes slow journey, from friends and family in real life to friends on the other side of a computer screen. Thank you.

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Nov 15 2012
15 Comments
Family, Health, Home, Life, Teaching, Travel, Writing

Thankfulness Thursday: Abundance

It’s pretty easy by Thursday evening to feel more than drained. A bit of gratitude goes a long way. This week, I’m grateful for abundance. Another blogger recently wrote about how we must acknowledge the abundance in our lives in order to create more… And, I have to admit, it is pretty humbling to stop and realize how much abundance most of us already have.

Tuesday, when I was home sick, I spent the better part of the morning digging through the past year of pictures to decide what to put on our holiday card, (yes, even when I’m sick I feel the need to cross something off my to-do list). As the last 12 months rolled by, I was struck by how even during years of fiscal conservatism my life is full of so many fortunate, happy moments.

Sure it would be nice to have that money to fly to Sweden to visit my cousin or to feel more economically secure or to… The list goes on, but really none of those things would change the fact that my life is already full. I worried that giving up a third of my income to become a teacher would create a life that felt less abundant, but that could not be further from the case. I now have more time to enjoy abundance as well as a completely different definition of the word.

Tonight I am grateful for the abundance in my life: my family, friends, dog, cat, house, job, coworkers, students, food, yoga, travel, writing, love… My life is incredibly full, especially when I take the time to stop and look. If you haven’t flipped through your 2012 pictures lately, you should. Talk about life compressed into a few captured moments. Abundance, abundance, abundance.

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite moments from this year. It was hard to pick.

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Nov 08 2012
4 Comments
Dogs, Family, Health, Home, Life, Pets, Teaching, Writing

Thankfulness Thursday: Three Posts Left…

Three weeks left, so three thankfulness moments:

Each morning this week I’ve awakened a half hour before I need to get out of bed, giving me time to appreciate my snuggling dog and husband. More often than not, I’ve been the middle spoon. Tuesday I lay awake and realized there was nowhere else on earth I would rather be. No where. Sharing one pillow with a dog and a spouse may not seem like heaven to many, but it is to me. Now if only the alarm didn’t have to go off at 6AM…

So grateful for these two guys!

A student in my class wrote me a letter today. She asked me to please talk to her in the same voice she used with me, calm and quiet. Unfortunately, she was caught in the crossfires of some stern words to another student. I did not yell, but I was short with her. Her little note humbled me. Instead of feeling bad I just felt like she was right. I apologized and kept the reminder with me all day. The same student is working on casting a kindness spell on our classroom. Maybe it already worked on me. As long as she keeps her spells positive, I am grateful…

Waiting on my doorstep this evening was a box full of herbal tinctures, vitamins, and teas. I’m on an experimental quest. I’ll spare you the gritty details. Most of us have one medical challenge or another (or maybe multiple). I feel fortunate mine is minor compared to many. However, doctors cannot fix it. Pain killers have been my only option. Recently, I discovered a different path. I’m seeing a woman who combines physical and mental healing with massage and home treatments. Might sound a bit hippie to some, but I feel empowered. Might just transform into a full-on hippie yet. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude…

Today was challenging but writing all that made me feel better. Maybe you should give Thankfulness Thursday a shot too. Only two weeks/three posts until Thanksgiving!

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Don’t forget! Thankfulness Thursday linkup at Domestic Fashionista. It’s funny, I almost wrote about watching some of my students battle writer’s block as we’ve started NaNoWriMo in my classroom. Turns out Ashley over at Domestic Fashionista already had this topic covered for the week! Great minds…

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