Anniversary

     Today is the anniversary of my dad’s birthday. If he were alive today, he would be turning 100 years old! He died on June 22, 2014.

     My dad was an optimist, a jovial fellow who always had a joke to garner laughter. My dad was a Lutheran pastor who tended to his flock, visiting those members who were in the hospital or in their homes and unable to attend the weekly Sunday services. He made his congregation members feel like a part of the family. His sermons were always worth listening to because he incorporated stories and humor into them. My dad was a writer and a poet. Every Christmas season, he wrote and mailed out the family Christmas poem to various family members, friends, and congregation members.

     My dad was an avid reader. He enjoyed reading the newspaper, magazines, and books. My dad knew the Bible forward and backward. He could recite any verse if he was given the reference. My dad was well-versed in Greek and Hebrew as those were languages he studied in the seminary. My dad was a teacher. He used to teach all grades in the proverbial (and actual) one-room schoolhouse. When he became a pastor, he taught confirmation classes. Like all of my siblings, I was one of my dad’s students, and I still remember the day of my confirmation.

     My dad was a man of many talents. He was the builder of my mom’s ideas. She would think of ways to modify various items: a trailer’s interior, a piece of furniture, or a decoration add-on, and she would draw a “blueprint” of sorts, detailing her thoughts. My dad would build whatever modification she requested. My dad was a tennis player, beating those younger than him, but never boasting of his victories. My dad was a fisherman, casting his lines in domestic and foreign waters. My dad was a lover of entertainment. While he was pastor, he and my mom would host various faculty/staff parties in their home. My favorites were the Christmas parties, where everyone enjoyed the festivities.

     Most importantly, my dad was a loving father who shared in the responsibilities of raising his six children. He was the parent who woke me up in the morning and prodded me to get to school. He was the one who picked me up from work when I didn’t have alternate transportation. He was the one who fielded my questions about life, spirituality, and God. He was the one who told me to go back to college to become a teacher. I remember the words he said on that day. It was the greatest epiphany for me. It was as if the heavens opened up and the rays of God shone down on us. I knew, at that very moment, that my dad was right, and I did go back to college and earn a teaching degree. During my weekly calls to my parents, my dad would always tell me how proud he was of me, how proud he was that I was a teacher.

     I love you, Dad! Happy Birthday!

Slip-up

    On Monday, I taught a lesson on Author’s Purpose & Tone to my afternoon reading class. I used the poem Richard Cory and gave the students a handout that contained the poem, the lyrics from the Paul Simon song, and various questions. As I went through the handout with the students, I realized there were several mistakes. The mistakes were strictly cosmetic, but if not corrected, they could have been a great distraction to my students. As I found each mistake, I made the corrections and directed my students to do the same, showing them where those errors were via the document camera and data projector.

    Ideally, that handout should’ve been perfect, but it wasn’t. I was guilty of the rule I stress to my students to follow before submitting or printing an assignment: Proofread!

    This lesson would’ve been a disaster if it would’ve been used for my upcoming teacher-observation and evaluation. That is already an anxiety-filled 50 minutes, and even a minute mistake like a few errors on a handout could’ve ruined my whole day (or at least the class period).

    I tell my students that if they can’t learn from their own mistakes, they can learn from the ones I make. The best kinds of mistakes are those I make and that I can learn from because I am improving the way I think, read, write, speak, and act. The second-best kinds of mistakes are those other people make because I can learn from those, as well. Mistakes are a part of life. No one is immune to making mistakes.

Sticky

    For the past few years, I have set aside Saturdays as DiY Saturdays, or Duct-Tape-it-Yourself Saturdays. My most recent endeavors were decorating binder clips and covering a small box with a Duck Brand floral-print duct tape. Last year, just to see if I could do it, I covered a plastic Whataburger bag with various colors of duct tape (yellow, pink, & orange). The result (as you can see in the picture-collage below) was amazing! The duct-taped tote bag has been holding up quite well. 

 

    The only drawback is that when the duct tape is exposed to hot and humid weather (the norm where I live), it tends to become very sticky (and not the good kind of sticky, either). The remedy was to wrap the handle with a luggage-handle-cover that closes via Velcro. I got that handle cover at a conference several years ago; I had no idea how handy it would become. Now, that bag sits in my office and is filled with containers of markers, colored pencils, Crayons, and other activity-related supplies, including large 11” x 17” blank paper.

    A couple of months ago, I covered another Whataburger “tote” bag with duct tape (this time using purple, green, and paw-print duct tape), but instead of wrapping the entire handle parts with duct tape, I’m going to attach fabric to the handle so that I don’t have to deal with the stickiness of a hot and humid duct-taped handle. Once covered, these tote bags become very sturdy (and a tad heavier) and are able to hold a few jam-packed plastic folders (for my courses). It’s perfect for when I don’t want to lug my rolling backpack from home to work to home to work every day.

    I’ve also dabbled in Washi-tape-crafting, but that is a very thin kind of tape that tears easily, too easily, so I’ve been using that tape for more decorative purposes, such as trim on notebooks, binder clips (the perfect fit for the 2” clips, actually), and other small items.

    Like my mother, I tend to collect various sizes of boxes. I particularly like the boxes that have unique closures, like little flaps that tuck into the box sides. I also get a hankerin’ to cover them with duct tape. I think my first duct-tape-covering project was a Fancy Feast cat food box. I covered it, inside and out, with a solid teal tape and the teal peacock print tape. It looks really good! Another box I covered was a snack box that I cut and turned into a recipe holder. That one sits on the counter beside my microwave oven. When I’m not covering boxes, I’m turning ordinary cardboard toilet paper rolls into useful items: to hold earbuds. I’ve also covered plastic Crystal Light containers and turned them into pencil holders and coin banks. 

 

 

 

 

    I don’t know why duct tape fascinates me so much; perhaps, it’s because they now come in myriad colors and designs, and they practically scream at me to cover something with them. Until another kind of cool tape comes along, I will continue to duct-tape cover whatever floats my boat.

 

Rocks and Gems

     My favorite color is purple. My birthstone is amethyst, which is a purple stone or quartz. The amethyst is my favorite stone or crystal or geode or whatever people say amethyst is, and it’s my favorite because it is purple. The fact that it’s my birthstone is simply a happy coincidence.

     According to Minerals.Net (http://www.minerals.net/mineral/amethyst.aspx) and other various places on the Internet (most of which sell gems, crystals, and jewelry), the amethyst is a mineral and a gemstone of the quartz family. Its color ranges from lilac to a deep purple hue. “Its name derives from the Greek "amethystos", which means "not drunken", as Amethyst in antiquity was thought to ward off drunkenness.” (Minerals.Net) Wow! Could I have used that during my early college years!

     The amethyst is also known for having healing effects, such as calming, relaxing, and energizing (these seem contradictory to me). From what I’ve read of amethysts, I feel as if it is very much like lavender. I use lavender because of its calming and soothing effects. Amethysts, according to several online sites, have a positive energy that can destroy any negative energy. Since I cannot find any verifiable information – legitimate research, I’m wary to believe the information that many of these sites proclaim about amethyst. Oddly enough, I do not have any amethysts in my home, but that may change soon as I would like to see these positive qualities for myself. If nothing comes of it, at least the stone will be pretty to behold.

Hiding Spaces

     When I was a child, my favorite hiding place in the whole house was under the basement stairs. That little space had a door so that I could have privacy if I needed it. All my toys resided in there. That was the place to squirrel away my thoughts and play with my toys. When I wasn’t hanging out with a friend or two, the place under the stairs was my go-to spot to play with my imaginary friend (hey, I grew up with five brothers, so an imaginary friend was essential to the only girl in the family).

     As I grew older, my hiding places changed. While I was in college, my favorite get-away-from-it-all place was on the banks of a babbling creek in the nearby neighborhood. Now, my hiding place is right here at home. Home is where I can go to get away from it all , , , no matter what IT is.