It's been 3 days past an entire year since I last blogged on here. Once again, school is out. I will head back to my home town for the short summer break of 2 momths. I will return to teach high school special ed for another year. I've made it through 2 years of this and it's still my passion and pride. I still get homesick for my own children and mom and siblings and grandchildren. I have some major changes to reflect on and to share and process through. I gained weight and I stopped swimming and bicycling. I will start those back up again and I will lose the 50 pounds I gained. My best friend moved to Texas. A man that I thought would be in my life forever is not who I need to be with anymore. It's been something that has needed to happen but that I just havent had the heart to follow through on. One entire year! So many changes! Growth, pain, sadness, tears and yet lots of joy and laughter. We lost our dear, dear Sage-dog of 14 yrs 8 months. Some things just have a way of needing to end even if we arent quite ready for it. Passages... yes... my life's passages.... I will write this summer and share it all on here. Please come back! I cant wait to read on you too.

Namaste~

It has been 6 months since I posted on here. THAT is a long time. I have still been writing only elsewhere, on a computer word document, in emails but not on here. That makes me sad and yet, I have had to spend so much time doing so many other things that writing has become lost to me. And I have felt its void in my life. I have wondered about so many of you and hoped all was well and wondered if it was and still... I didnt take the web-walk into xanga land to find out. Okay. So I discovered facebook and all that goes on there. It was easy to keep in touch with my family and my friends... still.. I didnt write from my soul on there. I didnt write what I felt or saw or heard or needed or touched or ached to have or not have. So much of my year has been lost without words. So much in my life has happened and I have not taken the time to preserve it anywhere but in my mind and so often sketched on my heart.

I am a teacher. I teach self-contained high school special ed students. I have grown a lot as a teacher and as a person and as a child of God. I have lost friendships and created new ones and lost one and then got it back. I have measured my worth in how well I have done in endless paperwork. I have procrastinated to the point that I have no time left now to procrastinate. It is DUE!

I have graduated my darling and awesome and only daughter, my Bug, this May 30th. I have left my youngest (at 15 now) at home with his dad and stepmom and watched him flail and fail at some important things in life. I have not been the mom that I have always loved being and yet I have moved to where I feel God wants me to be. I struggle with missing my 2 youngest and not being there to help my oldest one raise his/their first born, my first grandson. I miss my own mom who is getting older and closer to not being here and then what... ? I ask? Then what??? My heart aches for what I want and what I gave up and what I need to do. My soul aches for what I need to do but what I am not sure of to do. And I miss some dear, dear friends. Those that I have lost to death, to friendships changing, to new relationships I dont fit into anymore, and to those that choose not to be my friend. And yet... I miss my writing the very most at times because that is who I am the most, you know, I am a writer. The who of who I am is contained in the words within my soul that I pen out on here and in other secret places only I know about. 

In a few days I will have copied and pasted some writings I did this past year and will post them. On other days I will catch up on the things that I have done or gone through this year and OH MY MIGHTY! Have there been some Whoppers of happenings that will be unbelievable. What scandalous things others will do when their world is challenged to change and they refuse to do the changing. It makes my heart ache to realize that people can be so utterly ruthless  and when I try to make sense of it all and do my best to just do my job they undermine it all the way and create havoc and mayhem for those that are truly the innocent ones in this devious event. Awwww.... geez!

I miss my 15 yr old, Logan. I miss my Katie-Bug! I miss my granddaughter who is 2 and 1/2 now and my grandson who is just over 1 yr old. I ache to hear my Tucker play his songs and I want to grab ahold of my Toby and wrap him up in my strength and heal all that I can and give him the opportunity to know life without such struggle and pain and emptiness. He is such a good daddy! And yet... others try to steal the best of him every single day!

My school year is ending in 2 days and I will go home... "home"... oh yes, Home! I will get to be a mom and a grammy and a daughter and a sister and a friend. I will get to be just me and I will get to make trips to see my Toby and my Zoey and my Tucker now too. This growing up business is for those that are stronger. I would just as soon crawl back into my corner of the world when my children were 3, 6, 8, 14, and 16. If I knew then what I know now I could make it different with one simple task. And would all be better and happier and easier? I dont know... but I do know that I'd be a mom and be in my element and be joyous and contented with the ending of the school year. But, alas, it isnt that way and so I must accept that I am right where I am at and that the school is about to end and I must prepare to relax and rejuvenate and make myself prepared for the coming school year. In time... all will be revealed... until then. I will continue to write and to be and to love and to care and to teach and to nurture and to pray and to be a mom and grammy and sister and daughter and friend.  It is what I do best and it is what sustains me and makes me whole even when the hole in my heart is all-consuming at times. Namaste~

A new journey of ME has begun!

Yesterday I was given a paperwork day. Now, please understand what that means... It means I am to spend an entire class day stuck inside a little office with no human contact and work on forms and files and all that important paperwork that comes with being a special ed teacher. Ummm.... yea, it drove me totally BONKERS! I had to keep coming out to get air, to interact with other "real" people. So I started getting creative. I called one of my parapros over and had them "help" me with some information. HA! I chatted about how things were going in the classroom. I casually sauntered around the school during lunch time and OMG, I ran into some students who BEGGED me to come back to class. I called 2 students over and chatted with them about their absences the past week and I did a homevisit with a parent of a student who is struggling. BUT... I did get an incredible amount of paperwork done. I got so much completed that the special ed director told me to schedule another paperwork day next week. Now... you see, it takes me about 4 hrs to plan and prepare for a substitute to come in and teach for 6 hours. REALLY! I mean, if I was so meticulous in planning for myself, well, I'd be flying high with incredible organization but I'd be beat by the time the day started. Still, it was insightful to spend a day in the main school office and listen to all the gentle banter that goes on amongst the office people. I had asked them to put me in a secluded spot where I wouldnt be distracted by others and they did such a good job of doing that. I went in and chatted with the principal and we traded some cooking ideas and I bargained with him to let me do my parent/teacher conferences in a more general open house kind of way. Yea... it was all good and productive stuff. I came home without the pressure to complete unfinished, past the deadline, paperwork. I spent all weekend getting caught up on grading papers so now comes the tedious and frustrating part of entering the grades. I just dont like spending precious time trying to maneuver through a database system that means nothing to me.
I have students making reports and powerpoints and posters and drawings that share information about the things that they've learned.  It's fascinating to watch their creativity fly as they create and produce amazing things.
At parent/teacher conferences we will have our gigantic solar system up and our viking boat pop-up books with writings about where they'd want to go if they were to explore someplace. As a class we will make cookies for two days and then open up our classroom for parents and family and friends to come in and visit. As for a one on one official conference??? Well, I'll do them if that is what the parent wants... but my agenda is giving my students the opportunity to show off what they've been doing, and what they've been learning and how they are being successful. And I think enticing them with cookies and juice that their own children have made will be a cool thing. These students that I work with might have learning challenges but for the most part... they are living proof that every life has a unique gift to offer. Yea... even my naughty boys! Don't you wish you had a job like mine????