Pinky Promises

The never-ending school year is done--Hallelujah!--and we have six weeks of house projects, mini-vacations, gardening, college orientations, Bible study, and all the unexpected that will no doubt blow the plan to smithereens before July 30.
Six weeks will go by faster than a greased gnat, so I am making myself a goal list.
This summer I want to
1) get back into an exercise habit after a long-standing routine crashed and burned;
2) lose the creeping pounds (see #1)
3) paint interior doors, dining room chairs, DD#2's bedroom--heck, I might paint Big Red if he stands still long enough
4) NOT think about school at all for at least 5 weeks. (No, you cannot see my fingers crossed behind my back; it's your imagination, I promise.  Really.)(Pinning school things doesn't count.) (My list, my rules.)
and oh, yeah,
5) write a Bible study--at least the rough outline of one.

I need some order, some self-discipline, and a ton of prayer.
Following,
Ginger

Graduation Parties for the Overwhelmed

Last Saturday was party time around here!

It followed the last week of school with kids, and weeks of concerts, banquets, awards nights, and other party-preparation-time-sapping events.

Enter my Top Ten Ways to Throw a Last-Minute Party

1) Have a friend convince your introverted child that others love her enough to attend a graduation bash in her honor.  Save your most convincing spiel for two weeks before.   That way you can't  shouldn't second-guess your decisions.

2)Scour Michael's for milk bottles and yellow chevron straws.  These will delight the graduate and spark her enthusiasm.

3) Hit the dollar store for masses of tissue paper to make these poufs.  Instant (and cheap) pizzazz.

4) Be tempted to kiss the feet of the friend who offers to make potato salad for 50.

5) Spray paint mason jars in your theme color.  Fill them with daisies and Monte Casino.  Be happy. 

6) Bless the friend who shows up at your house while you are at one of those many banquets and makes your graduation hat candies out of Lindor squares and mini-Reeses cups.  Add a tassel of embroidery thread. 

7) Enlist someone else to create an ombre cake.  Top it with pinwheels created on the Silhouette.  Prove to your husband again that you are still thankful he splurged and bought you one for Christmas. 

8) Add "perfect weather for an outdoor party" to your list of 1000 gifts.

9) Eat leftover buffalo chicken and coleslaw for days.

10). Celebrate the end of an era.  Be grateful for the past. Embrace the future.  

Following,

Ginger

Deep Breathing

Hi.

I almost feel I should introduce myself again.

Does anyone else struggle with consistency in their little corner of cyber-space?

We have survived graduation...and graduation parties!!

And it was a fun day.

And that was good, a gift.

And I am recovering today with lots of reading and leftover-eating (and will be for a while...since we had a super-abundance of food). 

I promise to return (pinky-promise) and share graduation party survival tips.

Following,

Ginger

May-hem

I had planned a thoughtful, maybe deep post that might appear yet, but I must pause to ponder the merry, merry month of May(hem).

Maybe June is your month when all kinds of crazy collide, 

but ours is now, especially with a graduate in the house.

A graduate who just agreed to a graduation party this week.

("What's the big deal about graduating anyway? Everybody does it!") 

(Her cake-of-choice if someone besides Mom can make it..)

There are two weeks before graduation.

(These are cute and doable!)

(source)

Did I mention her parents teach?

(Another cheesy idea for graduation food.  (I'm tired; can you tell?)

And they have finals for their students--as well as all the usual last-week-of-school chaos--

  the day before graduation?

Adorable, but I might lose my mind!

(source)

(She also detests the phrase, "Congrats, Grad", so that eliminates many options.)

(Though this is super-cute to me!)

(source)

Thank You, Lord, for Pinterest.

I know you can laugh and cry at once, but can one laugh-happy and cry-sad all at the same time, too?

Excuse me while I go put out another fire/call another guest/plan a menu/ roll my eyes at the honoree/grab a tissue.

Following,

Ginger

The Day a Writing Prompt Called Me Out as a Liar

Today, when looking over some potential lessons for next school year, I ran across the old advice, "Write when your students write, and share your writer's notebook with them".
Right up there with "sleep when your baby sleeps," this is probably wise but practically difficult.
So I tried a test run of sorts.
I decided to write a "mentor text" of a personal essay prompt to inspire next year's budding writers.
It was standard stuff, an introductory essay to tell them a bit about my family, my preferences, my goals.

And y'all, it was hard.

Hard for lots of reasons.
Hard because writer's block shows up every spring with the same regularity as allergies.
Hard because I could hear myself rambling.
Hard because I can't share anything meaningful about myself without sharing Jesus, and that must be carefully navigated in public school.

As a teacher, I believe this practice will help me in the long run.
It will probably make me more empathetic--which is important to remember when the powers-that-be seem to think all children-of-the-square-peg variety can be jammed through the same round hole-of-testing if only
their teacher is differentiating/summarizing/reteaching/tap-dancing enough.

As just me, I think this practice will help me, too.

A few months ago, I confessed to a friend that I felt God might be leading me to write down what He was teaching me in John.
She laughed, and said, "Of course."
A few days ago, I confessed to this same friend that I was feeling ill with insecurity--that I didn't know how to begin.
She said, "Good!  I'm praying you stay insecure so that you always know He is your source."

She's a very good friend, and a very good pray-er.

To paraphrase one of those Pinterest-y inspirational signs, here I go confidently in the direction of my insecurity.
(Or insecurely in the direction of my confidence?  That might be a better way to say it.)
Maybe in the meantime, I'll share my writer's notebook with you.
Following,
Ginger

Multitude Monday: In All Things Edition

It was a terrible week, and it was a beautiful week.
There was hope, and there was happiness.
Peace alongside pain.
Anxiety and acceptance.

It was a week to remind me why I need a Savior...and a week to praise God that I have One!
A week to examine my heart, and a week to realize that He redeemed my heart and made it new.

Counting gifts through storms and sunshine:

A husband who prayed and helped when my back went out this week
Students who have been surprisingly kind to their turtle-paced teacher
A breathtaking sunrise Easter morning
DD#1 taking over the grocery shopping when I couldn't drive, much less push a loaded buggy through the store
Salted caramel candles
Tiny chartreuse leaves of baby lettuce
Pink dogwood
Pain killers ;0
Praying with a young missionary to be and seeing her excitement to follow Christ
Three books worth reading: Love Idol, Jesus>Religion, and The Utter Relief of Holiness--much to chew on
For better or worse, testing will be over soon
At the start, He was there.
In the end, He'll be there.
The tomb was EMPTY.

Following,
Ginger

On Writing

Writing is both solitary and social.
Solitary, because sooner or later it is just writer and blank page with no mediator.
It's the heart or the brain on paper, as public as a blog post or as private as a prayer journal.

Yet writing is also social, because every author seeks an audience on some level or another.

This question of audience puzzles me.
It makes me realize that establishing a legitimate audience for my classroom of I-wish-they-were-writers is an important component of my teaching that I've neglected.

Then my question becomes, " Who is my audience?", and I struggle to answer that.

I'm in the midst of my annual spring blogging slump, and every year I ask my Audience of One if I still have a purpose here.
He hasn't really answered yet, except to give me this post--which I suppose means I have today's answer!

I do know this. 
About two months ago,  He whispered to my heart that there are words waiting for me from the book of John, and while fear and self-doubt assail,  He's been faithful to encourage.  

So I wait for the solitary and the social to find their meeting place.

Following,
Ginger