About 8 years ago, I met Stephanie Jankowski of When Crazy Meets Exhaustion through some sort of blogging something. Specific, right? I have no clue how I’ve made friends with several of my bloggy friends, but I distinctly remember connecting with Jankowski as we were both online English teachers married to math teachers. We both … Read more
This past fall, I started back to full time out of the house work for the first time in over 8 years. I’d quit face-to-face teaching to stay at home when we were having our second child. After he was born, we had two more in pretty quick succession and built our own personal army … Read more
This is my first full year teaching high school Spanish. The last time I taught Spanish, it was the fall semester. We did the celebrations for La Tomatina and Día de los Muertos. Because I’ve never taught Spanish in the spring, I’m learning new celebrations that we can add to our culture studies. This year, … Read more
Growing up, I always loved basketball. My dad loved it and always had it on the TV. He’d even do that typical dad thing and fall asleep but quickly wake up if we tried to change the channel. The first time I ever saw the Harlem Globetrotters on TV, I thought they were super cool. … Read more
Ah, winter. And better yet, the post-holidays winter funk. Right now in NC, we’re literally having spring. It’s weird, and it’s disconcerting, and it’s a bummer. Because we know that this “spring” is actually fake, and there will be a blast of arctic air coming very soon. My blogging friends and I have a poetry … Read more
My first semester teaching, I did a lot of awesome things. I also made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons. That was 20 years ago, so I’ve started a lot of semesters and classes both in person and online. This year is my first year back in the physical classroom, and … Read more
Last fall, the hurricanes in our area knocked down several trees. This caused us to really consider the rest of the trees in our yard and their ability to withstand wind and other weather problems. There were two cedars in the back that could potentially threaten the back portion of the house, so we had … Read more
Wednesday, November 13, is World Kindness Day. Something I try to instill in my children and the children I have in my classroom is that it doesn’t take too much to be nice to someone and to treat them with kindness. Problem is, not everyone treats everyone nicely, and not everyone follows the golden rule. … Read more
It’s not the first time I’ve said it: my family loves fall. Fall ushers in, for us, all of our favorite festivities, decor, and general feeling of happiness. As our kids are growing older, we’re establishing more and more traditions and finding we can actually do more as a family than we ever did (or … Read more
Well, y’all — looks like I’m turning in to a cat lady. Long story short: we lost both of our dogs this summer and have recently adopted a new kitten. We named her Luna, and after a very brief time of getting used to one another, she and the other cat we’ve had for about … Read more