Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sweet Moments

I love Swiss chocolate, but Dove will do.  Its metallic blue foil wrappers have messages on the inside that I read with the same eager curiosity that I read fortunes tucked into fortune cookies.  It is not that I believe … Continue reading

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From Alacrity to Zest: Keeping it Real

I love words.  If I put my favorite words in alphabetical order, alacrity would lead the list and zest would be the final flourish.  I carry my words with me the way a chef might travel with her knives–I know … Continue reading

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Celebrate It!

A celebration slows down time just long enough to live it and love it and remember it.  Celebrations give us time to catch our breath and then take our breath away.  A good celebration mixes it up: past with future; … Continue reading

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You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

I love baseball. I love the pageantry, the suspense, the sense that we are living the game as we watch it.  I love the sound of the organ revving up the crowd, the feel of the breeze,  and the reflection … Continue reading

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Once Upon a Sidewalk

You need a good dog song when you teach third grade in the city.  It helps. When you run into strange dogs and their owners on the way in from recess, it helps to have a song that acts as  … Continue reading

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Inner Work at the Outer Banks

It is early morning.  I am at the beach and on the screened porch that I love.  I came in from my walk, poured my coffee, and sat down at this familiar weathered picnic table to write.  The porch is … Continue reading

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From My Summer Perch

People have been asking me why I haven’t been blogging over the summer.   I’ve been away a lot.  I spent part of this summer in place in the mountains where there was no TV.  No air conditioning.  No cell phone.  … Continue reading

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Without Words

My directions are the same for each birthday:  “The birthday child takes the first bite.  But not until they taste our words.”  The birthday child stands with me and hears our words, offered child by child.   And then we end … Continue reading

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Seeing the Essential in June

June is joy.  The air seems to sparkle with celebration, and yet … there is a wistfulness. June is the bittersweet beauty of finishing something good and letting it go.  June is the last page of a favorite book that … Continue reading

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Kickin it Old School

For years, the only technology in my classroom was a record player.  People used to ask why I didn’t use “technology-in-the-classroom” (said as one word and with reverence) and I just laughed, “Give me a library card and a piece … Continue reading

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