sudden shift

As of today, this blog is formally retired. Farewell.

I'm combining my parenting/family/learning to live and learning to love stories with my children's books and teaching entries into one, great big blog conglomerate. That blog will inherit this one's title, or a variation on it, but will be located at my book blog address, cuz the tags and history and previous work over there are more important to me to keep in circulation.

Anywho: thanks for playing. I hope to see you at: Amy's Breakfast Platter.

Much Love! A

A Burst of Blogging

I dunno if I'll be tethered to the digital world, at all, for the next 14 days, so I'm having a sudden burst of blogging energy. An interesting meme traveled the kidlit world a couple weeks ago. I've never been "tagged" for a meme, but my understanding of the biological metaphor (DNA, heredity, and genes) leads me to question the practice of tagging. A meme either catches, and gets passed along, cuz it has some kinda "cool-to-blog-on-fitness", or it becomes extinct. Maybe that's just sour grapes cuz I've never been tagged. Nah, I really believe in the organic nature of idea sharing on the web.

Anyhow: Here's the meme. First, write four things that were new to you in the past four years, and then write four things that will be new parts of your life in the upcoming four years.

New things in the last four years:

• I became a mother when we adopted three lovely children.
  
• We bought our first house (and still like it so much it that I can't imagine moving).
• I finished my formal schooling with a Master's of Education degree.
• I've become happily certain that teaching is my life's work.

New things in the next four years:

• We'll have one baby (this is NOT an announcement), just a hope and a plan, for now.
  
• I'll become a better writer and a much better writing teacher.
• My relationships with my daughters will continue to deepen; and I'll find a way to break through Aninga's concrete shell.
  
• I'll find several new, delicious meals to cook regularly.

Coming up with a fourth new thing that will happen in the next four years was hard. I don't like being overly ambitious. I prefer to be realistic. Teaching sixth grade will be new, but not that different from what I've been doing for several years.

Clue #1

I adjusted my glasses and looked carefully at Easter, who was sitting at the kitchen table eating scrambled eggs. She was brand new to America and had only lived in our house two days. How well can she communicate in English, I wondered? What sort of a little person is she? Will she like me? Meanwhile, Duncan, our enormous Bernese Mountain Dog, was eating his breakfast. After Duncan finished his dog food I firmly commanded him, "Duncan, outside." Instead of obeying, he ran away from me, hustling to get away from the outside door. I stood up and walked toward him and repeated, louder, "Duncan, outside." He hurried around to the other side of the kitchen table, where I couldn't grab his collar. He looked at me with playful defiance. Suddenly Easter burst into a loud, mischievous giggle. "He refuses," she said.