Simplify

Today marks the end of my holiday vacation. I am currently laying on my bed under a multicolored fleece blanket my mother made for me with my cat, Cleo, nestled into the crook of my knee. On New Year's Day I acquired my daughters' cold...no not H1N1, just a regular cold with a cough. Several days before I had already decided the theme of 2010 needed to be SIMPLIFY. I made this resolution after spending a typical two week holiday racing around like a lunatic wrapping, baking, cleaning, and cooking.

The actual moment of clarity came as I sat on the couch next to my 17 year-old daughter Elysse who was frantically knitting a scarf for her boyfriend that she began on Thursday and needed done by Saturday, although she has done very little knitting in her life. This project was my idea and thus, my fault. She had been trying for weeks to come up with an idea for a special gift and finally resorted to asking her mother for ideas. There was no time for shopping and my other ideas she proclaimed as too lame. As I sat next to her on Christmas day watching her try to knit faster, I was visited by the ghosts of my Christmas projects past: baking a yule-log cake for eight hours that tasted terrible, sewing a comforter cover for the guest bed the night before the in-laws arrived, hand beading fringe for velvet scarves for my daughters (then ages 9 and 6). Like Scrooge, I had an epiphany. This is not what I want to teach my daughters, to do more, making Christmas, all other holidays and most of the other months of the year something to get through instead of something to enjoy.

So this is my vow to myself this year. Each day I will find one way to do something more simply or just to do less. I hope this will create more opportunity to appreciate the good parts of life and find time to create the things I enjoy making.

Today my one thing is to lay in bed. It was actually my mother-in-law's idea. I was standing in the kitchen prepared to bake multiple loaves of banana bread before we had to throw out bananas when Lavonne suggested I go lay down. She thought this was the best path to improved health. I went immediately upstairs. I may or may not make banana bread in the future, but not today with a cold.

I think I will follow the lead of my cat and curl up for a nap. Less is truly more.

Teen Thanksgiving

It is our first day back from Thanksgiving Break. I took three days off and spent one day on homework (mine for my Procert Portfolio) and grading. I still am carrying a Santa Claus-sized bag which doesn't include 60 journals because I collected them again last week but heft that much "work load" at a time. I don't know why I have to play hooky to get to write this blog, but it seems to be only way.

Today I thought I would spend five minutes or so polling my classes about how they spent four days off. This gave them an extra few minutes of vacation before Seniors read the final pages of Beowulf and Juniors read a cheery story about a town that stones one person a year because of tradition called "The Lottery". My juniors are convinced that short stories are always focused on the weird, dark or twisted. Well, not always.

So here are the three questions I asked:

1. Were you injured over the four days off? If so, how?
   
2. Did anything unusual for a holiday weekend occur?
3. What was the best thing you ate all weekend?

The first question is a sure-fire teen conversation starter. It can be difficult to get them to stop talking about injuries. One boy was injured multiple times while doing unusual things. The first on his list was the multiple injuries that occurred from riding his long board (not skateboard he explained to me previously) down a set of stairs. A student asked: "Why would you do that?" His reply: "It seemed like fun."

There were, however, holiday-related injuries. One girl peeled her finger while she peeled potatoes. I remarked that she must have been peeling for awhile and gotten tired, but she shook her head and said it was on the first one. A boy in the same class suffered from a small peanut oil burn on his face as he helped his dad cook the turkey which I am assuming they were deep frying. Another boy spilled liquified sugar for a dessert on his finger which resulted in a painful burn, but he added, tasted delicious (the dessert, not the finger).

The most unusual and touching event that happened was one boy "had a baby." This is how he put it, but what he meant was his family is now the foster family for his cousin's 15 month-old son, and they hope to adopt him in the months to come. The little boy proclaimed, "Mmmmm, mmmm" in a very satisfied way whenever he ate something he thought was delicious.

High School students have diverse taste buds. Many votes for most delicious foods went to turkey, mashed potato, and stuffing. There were two votes for green been casserole from different classes and two for ham. One girl's favorite was an herbed turkey with cherries jule' (but she might have meant jubilee). A senior boy loved the flan. Some votes for sweet potato and one for sweet potato pie. Two votes for brownies with marshmallow. Fast food got two endorsements. One boy said the best thing he ate was Taco Bell. A boy two tables over said McDonald's. I don't know if this is an indictment of their taste buds or family cooking. Generally favorites weren't desserts which surprised me, maybe because I never met a sweet I didn't like.

Certainly not hard research to do any sort of study with, but sometimes it's just nice to ask a question and sit back and listen. What I hear often surprises me.

A Teacher's Lesson

Today started out pretty well but did not finish nearly as strong. By the time school was over I'd spilled tea all over my desk and the newly updated October dates on my desk calendar were blurry and damp and ruined. I tripped over something or other and misplaced the pages I needed for periods 4 and 5 to complete the agree-disagree statements we had left to debate. The late afternoon and evening proceeded about the same with a trip to Fed-ex to retrieve my daughter's Ipod that was not fixed in the least. The diagnosis fee if I send it back is $100. I had to deliver the bad news which made her very sad. I slopped enchilada sauce all over the counter, twice, and now I am supposed to be grading, but the efficiency tank is bone dry.

So I was ruminating on this no good, very bad day. For all that went wrong, two things I almost forgot went right.

First, last Friday I collected daily writing journals from my high school juniors. Now I am hefting bags of 57 journals with 20 entries each. Don't bother to argue that they don't need to be read. I create serious connections with my students in these journals as I ask them light questions like, how old is your little brother ? or more serious do you need help? Anyway, it takes some students a good while to warm up to writing every day. So today, their first day without journals for a week, two students said they already were missing writing in them. My teacher-heart grew a size.

Second, after school today the boy who previously has walked out in a disgusted huff, frustrated that the class doesn't always work the way he wants it to, hung around. He wanted to share a poem he'd written about waking up on a cold, dewy morning. Sharing anything you write is a risk. Sharing your poetry riskier still. Sharing your poetry with your teacher, an act of bravery. Still there was the poem written on lined paper with loopy f's I couldn't read, powerful words and artful imagery. Once he'd shared the one, he read me another. A boy with the brave heart of a poet, shared a bit of himself with me. That's a moment to savor. Tomorrow he says he will bring in a novella he's been working on. We talked about the process of writing, writer blocks and characters that don't know what to do next. I hope he will share more in the future.

I may have been physically clumsy today, but as a teacher, for at least a couple of shining moments, I had the grace of a dancer. Because in the best moments of a teacher's day, your students teach you as much, if not more, than you are teaching them. It isn't really about the stack of papers at the end of the day.

Score One For Free Time

The school year is in full swing. Free time is precious and in short supply. Each day I greet 115 sixteen to eighteen year-olds and try to capture their attention long enough to fill them full of literary, communication and writing knowledge. They bring their stories of when they went to bed (often in the wee hours of the morning), how they spent their days and weekends (texting, movies, hanging out, activities and the occasional bout of homework), and what's bugging them.

I like them. I like their stories. I like the teaching. I fear the grading.

The grading is what eats away free time. The other thing chewing away at the edges of free time is a class I need (one of two) to get recertified to teach. In Washington we call this the ProCert (Professional Certification). I must make a portfolio. Former students will smile with satisfaction after completing one so that they could graduate.

So I work during the days at school. Then I come home in the evenings and do homework and grade things. My own daughters require some attention mostly in the form of things they need to shop for (homecoming dresses, gifts, jeans that fit, etc.) or places they need to be driven. Occasionally they need a piece of advice.

Today is Saturday. I woke up ready to get to my homework and grading (a full recyclable grocery bag full), but first had a variety of household tasks to complete:

• Clean the shower
• Fold some laundry
• Meet the dryer repair guy
• Clean up the dryer area
• Make dinner in the crockpot...Sloppy Joes
• Sew straps on Mckenna's homecoming dress
• Sew purse for Mckenna's homecoming dress (this I added on and shouldn't have)
• Take Mckenna to friend's house
• Help move kayak

So it's 5pm and my homework is done until tomorrow and the bag of grading is no smaller. I seized some writing time though, so score one for FREE TIME. Wait, I hear my bag of grading calling. Better go unpack it.

Goodbye To Summer

A moody northwest summer day with gray skies and chill in the air blows a kiss goodbye to vacation. School begins one week from tomorrow, and as a teacher, I have already been back getting my new classroom together. August was a blur of travel: San Diego, "Fail Camping", and Umatilla, OR to visit my Dad. Today I am trying to get a hold of the many appointments and schedules to keep in mind as I slide into fall. Looking forward to the busy blur of the school year and backward wondering what happened to the not-very lazy days of this summer.

I did create things: This blog, a mostly finished quilt top, a turtle wall-hanging for my husband's birthday, assorted travel memories, peach cakes and several memorable dinners, a travel journal, and the beginnings of a young-adult novel with a distinctive narrator.

The most unique travel experience of the summer was "Fail Camping" (the title my teens gave the endeavor) or "Faux Camping". This is what we did when our one scheduled camping trip was rained out. I voted to drive the extra hour to Leavenworth and sunny days, but my other family members opted for the camp out in our backyard. Rain poured on day one as we set up the tent and rain fly 30 feet or so from our back door. My dog Juno looked on curiously as we dug a fire pit and prepared "camp". We ate lunch inside when the rain began to fall even harder, then we finished our preparations outside and successfully made a fire in the drizzle. We ate hot dogs cooked over the fire and s'mores while we got damper and damper. The wacky spirit that allowed my 14 year-old, 17 year-old, dog and husband to prevail with silly songs and shared story-telling, which my husband always tries to make science fiction, made me proud. Our first night in the rain was rocky. The rain fly was not a success. The side of the tent where I slept was quite wet, the top plopped thick drops on my husband's forehead, my oldest daughter was sick in the night (thankfully the bathroom and shower were easy access). We spent four days in our backyard camp out, napping more and hiking less since we were unwashed and unkempt in our own neighborhood. We played games and laughed.

So as the summer closes, creative time will be more precious, but memories like Fail Camping will have to sustain us through schedules and deadlines. The firepit remains in our backyard. Proof that sometimes you have to bring the fun home.

Crazy Peach Cakes

Where is the line between creative enthusiasm and obsession? I found the line this week. It is called peach cakes. I've crossed this line before. The ingredients for turning a great idea into an obsession are the following:
1 great idea
1 plan to make it reality
1-10 problems to overcome
1-10 reasons to continue beyond normal sanity
a pinch of blind pursuit of the creation

First take the great idea and make a plan, stir well. Then encounter several reasons that this plan may be impractical or unwise to pursue, yet press on where normal people would give up and try something saner. The result will either be complete failure where you kick yourself for wasting your time or something wonderful that may still require some post-creation kicking because the end didn't justify the means.

I am working on a new quilt project now that may just turn out to be this project, but it's too early to tell.

But the peach cakes my daughter and I made this week for my husband's work party 100% qualify. I found a recipe on stumbleupon.com that had what seemed to be a perfect summer cake that I foolishly thought would be easy to make.

With steps that included making your own colored sugar and cutting cinnamon sticks into peach stems, it's difficult now to see why I thought this would be a quick dessert. Other obstacles to this project included the need for special baking pans I didn't have, completion in four hours, and making them look good/real. I resorted to using disposable muffin pans and rounded out the bottoms with an alabaster egg which was round and hard enough to do the job, then I had to cut the cakes smaller because they were too tall to make rounds. After coating the kitchen in frosting and colored sugar granules, Mckenna and I did persevere. The project ran overtime thanks to a break in the project to pick up my other daughter and squeeze in a 15 minute practice drive.

When my husband arrived home to a train-wreck of a kitchen and a platter of half and whole peach cakes, his response: "Why did you go to so much trouble?"

I had no answer.

Mckenna had fled the kitchen by that time realizing that making the cakes look like peaches was stressful, and maybe fun the first time, but not by the 10th or 12th time.

The cakes impressed people at the party. They tasted good too, although that's thanks to the box mix and tub frosting, not my cooking expertise. Do I regret the project? Not really. Will I excite my friends with summertime peach cakes again. Probably not.

I know you may be looking at them thinking.....hmmm....I could make those. That's what I did on the night I found them on the internet. Go ahead and try them if you have four hours to kill. Here's the site: http://www.bigredkitchen.com/2009/07/little-peach-cakes.html. I used pineapple box mix not yellow cake and sour cream frosting not buttercream. I thought a fruit-looking cake should have a fruit taste. But be warned this project is not for the faint of heart, when you finish you'll have a mess, but also a pretty, tasty unique-looking cake. Let me know how it turns out. I'd better go obsess over my latest quilt.

Lesson In Day Dreaming

I spent four days in teacher school this week, otherwise known as a "conference". It's still school though. I know this because a) it took place in a school (not mine), b) we sat in uncomfortable desks for seven hours a day after minus-ing breaks and lunch, c) learning took place and there was homework, and d) my mind wandered.

That's what my mind did when I was in grades k-12. On several of my elementary report cards, under comments, my teachers would write: "daydreams too much." This would seem to indicate that there is an appropriate amount of day dreaming, and I too often exceeded it. Exceeding in school is often considered a mark of excellence, but in this case, it was the opposite. Possibly elementary school teachers are provided a range of frequency that dictates what is part of the norm for wandering minds and what is an objectionable or disruptive amount. I teach high school, so I am not privy to the inner workings of K-5 teachers. In high school if you can get the student to focus on learning (not ipods or texting for which teen attention spans are infinite), enough to turn in homework assignments, you feel successful. There is no report card comment code for day dreams too much. There is, however, a disciplinary form you can use for students who fall asleep behind sunglasses which should have been removed upon entering class.

So I learned this week many helpful things from a very smart teacher with great ideas. I also observed that a room full of teachers gathering knowledge has similar dynamics to a room of teens, except for the sleeping behind sunglasses part. Over four days, several cell phones rang during class. Certain individuals don't know when to unwrap food with crinkly paper. The front row participates quite a bit (where I sat). People on the edges can get by with less participation. There is always one know-it-all student who likes to hear the sound of his or her own voice. No matter how engaging the teacher, sometimes you will feel sleepy and be unable to demonstrate your highest quality work. No one, of any age, likes homework even when they fully understand the concept of practice to improve a skill. At first it's scary to give your answer aloud, but it does get easier the more often you do it. Presenting in front of others you perceive to be potentially more clever than you is nerve-wracking. Finally, the age group of the students does not preclude them from rudely talking while others are answering questions OR teaching. This last one is surprising because we English teachers are notorious for getting rankled over inattentiveness in our own classrooms.

I learned many valuable teaching techniques this week. As I reflect, I wonder if the most vital lesson won't come from my experience as a student. This taught me to remember the challenges that learners of all ages face and to leave plenty of time for minds to wander into the occasional day dream.