Letters

Dear SW Philly,
You are such a long time in the past, but every time I smell fresh asphalt in 100 degree weather, I am transported back to the summer of 1987, and living in that big ole building working for the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education. I completely understand when people say that smells trigger memories/emotions.
love,
the naive country girl who was way of out her element

Dear Masters Classes,
If you could just give me a couple weeks of ACTUAL summer break, that would be great.
Thanks,
the burnt out student

Dear Tie Dye,
If you could just create yourself and give me some rest that would be fabulous. Thanks.

Dear Carrie,
You are not as young as you once were. Please stop pushing yourself once you get tired.
thanks,
Your decrepit self

Dear school,
Stop peeking around the corning and sticking your tongue out at me.
Sincerely,
This teacher in summer

Thankful Thursday

When I look up the meaning of thankful and grateful, the definitions are extremely similar. Grateful, according to google's definition, is: "feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful." And Thankful, according the same google page, is: "expressing gratitude and relief." To me, gratitude is bigger. It is about an attitude. Maybe it is fair to say an attitude of thanksgiving. But when I think about practicing gratitude, I think about a lifestyle, attitude, practice. I picture thanksgiving as an act. When I think of being Thankful or giving thanks for something, I think of a singular act and my reaction to it. But for today's blog, Thankful Thursday is adequate for a title because I can't find a day of the week that starts with G. Grateful Gursday? Or Griday? You get the picture. I am choosing to be thankful TODAY and that is part of something bigger, a life filled with gratitude.

I am working with diligence to build a healthier lifestyle. Less refined sugar, no soda (and there's always exceptions to this, especially since I have a deep love for Coca~Cola), more movement, and fewer processed and heavy foods. So far I feel wildly successful. I will just need to figure out a way to keep it convenient when school starts and keep going. But with this journey comes the need for accountability. So I inquired on the infamous facebook about who want to help me with accountability. And the response was fantastic!! I realized that I could not have 6+ accountability partners! So I formed a group on fb. And we have been sharing our lives there. Sharing about foods we eat, water intake, exercise, when we eat in ways that are unhealthy, and so on. Within the group, we have formed some accountability partnerships. We started on a Wednesday. Which makes Wednesday accountability day. That is the day we make ourselves vulnerable to the few and share the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we share one good in the group. This group has fueled me. I can't wait to share SOMETHING with these ladies every day! And almost everyday I post asking my friends if someone wants to get in their daily movement with me. Walking mostly. That is my "thing". But last night we went to pool and walked the lazy river. An option from 7-8 pretty much every day. I do not know for sure how many times we walked it. And one of my friends said it's 11 laps to make a mile. So we maybe didn't even make a mile. But that is OKAY. Because it was work and fun at the same time.

Thankful Thursday. I am thankful that this group of ladies has entered my life in a new way. Some of them have been among my friends for a long time, some of them are new friends. Some live close and some live far away. But we are encouraging each other along our journeys today.

Today, on Thankful Thursday I am GRATEFUL for:

• My Health and Accountability Group
• The ability to learn and further my education
• My sobriety/clean time
• My checkered past
• My children
• My dogs
• My home
• A great "job" (being a teacher is not a job, it's an identity and a calling)
• Life
• Art:  crafting, tiedye!, painting, blogging (writing in any form), and.... (drumroll) gardening

The list goes on. A teacher in summer. I am getting my craft on. Which mostly translates into a lot of tiedying. But I also painted a metal wall hanging and made it look artsy. I will take a picture of that today.  My garden is art. For so many reasons. It does the same thing for my spirit that drawing, crafting and tiedye do. But in it's messy glory, I carefully chose where each plant would go and what colors would be together. And to you it may look disorganized, to me it is a little piece of joy.

So much to be thankful for. Living a life of gratitude.

Go to Big Time Literacy to read about what others are doing this month to keep writing alive in their soul. Blogging is soul food. btbc#17

July 2017 Currently.....

Big Time Blogging Challenge is underway this month and I love reading what my friend Michelle posts! She posted a super-cool "Currently" theme. I am not ambitious enough to fill ALL of those out so I "borrowed" an old template from Farley at Oh Boy! It's Farley. I don't know if that is legit or not. If I was ambitious and had some free time, I'd create a new template because I would love to change some of the prompts. But my ambitions don't lie with learning PowerPoint, sad but true. And time.... well, I feel like I've already gone past my allotted time for this morning and this post. Also sad, but since I'm a teacher in summer, probably not all that true.

So the last prompt was 4th of July and that ship has sailed, so I changed it in my not so savvy way.

Listening to the dogs in the yard is about as close to listening to the sounds of silence as it gets. So I am soaking it up. And there is also the sound of heavy equipment being unloaded and rumbling by and that is exciting too because my friend and her family are the recipients of the 2017 McPherson Area Habitat for Humanity house being built right around the corner. We could call this area H4H housing! There are now 4 of them within a block of each other and the new one is going up in the lot next to the house they built last summer! My house (of course), and my friend Rebecca's house is just a stone's throw out my back door, and the other two are in the block behind me on the street that I used to refer to as "crack row." Now it is H4H row!

Loving all things summer! I am doing very little teachering (it's a legit verb, trust me). Partially because I don't know what lies ahead in a new building and new grade level. And partially because I really needed a summer! I cleaning (okay, not so much), tie-dying, crafting, connecting with friends, and doing my best to get on track with my health.

Thinking about this upcoming trip! We leave the state on Sunday! So for me, this thing starts on Sunday. But really, for my bestie, it starts on Saturday because she is coming to stay over so we can head out bright and early. "Did I tell the mechanic everything he needs to know?" "Don't forget to call your insurance agent!" "Did I do everything I need to do to prepare my kids?" "What about...." And then there are these thoughts.... "We have to remember to take a picture here (fill in the word here with about 255 places)" and "I am so stoked about all things New Mexico (okay not totally true, some things about New Mexico.... not-so-much-- insert puke face emoji here)." But there is car cleaning and washing and packing and making arrangements for kids and, and, and....

Wanting to be obligation free.... and tie-dying. I have stuff to do, so there's a part of me that wants tie-dye time to be OVER. But there are some upcoming birthdays that I haven't finished the gifts for and those are soaking in soda ash already. So I am committed. (p.s. the mailman just knocked on my door which means my dyes and chemicals are here.... Christmas in July is a real thing people!)

Needing to adult again and "take care of business" as my friend says. Blech. And there's some homework involved here that I don't know how to even articulate about.

Wondering.... what lies ahead. So many things!! I don't even know where to start! The world of tie dye is growing into this entity that is taking on a life form of its own! I am so super excited! Teaching and learning are also super awesome and I can't wait to see where they take me. This school thing.... it opens the doors to the future for me. And I am good at what I do.

Not on the template.... but on my mind and on Michelle's list....
Drinking.... what I'm not drinking is coke. Which is deserving of both the sad-face emoji and the happy (?) (is there a proud?) emoji. In 3 weeks I have had approximately 1/2 of a 20 oz coke. I have seriously gone through the drive thru and ordered coke for my kids and not gotten one! I do miss it. I will not write an Ode to Coca-cola though because it is not the same elixir of life as coffee. Don't be surprised if you see an Ode to Coffee post one of these mornings. But Coke is a very close second! Last year when people would ask about those little gifty things at school to help encourage other teachers, I also replied, "Coke. coke. coke." "Coke is my love language." So this is not easy. But today is weigh and measure day and if I make gains, er, I mean losses, it will be in part to cutting out Coca-Cola. I might be re-thinking the whole no-ode-to-Coca-Cola thing. I feel a tribute coming on.

Read about everyone's summer! And join the challenge! It doesn't have to be big! or Long. Just write! Big Time Literacy Blogging Challenge '17! #btbc17

Tie Die For.... get it? har har

Tie Dye is my spirit animal. My fun, my release. It is time consuming and occupies my mind with both something and nothing all at the same time. When my dog died, I tie-dyed. It's a fairly effective grief counselor. So if I come to your funeral with discolored hands and feet, you will know that you were truly loved.

I made these last week, and the two on the left are bestie shirts for our upcoming trip!

Tie Dye is also an obsession. And more than slightly addictive. Lunch? sorry kid, I will be outside today. What do you mean you want quality time? Come outside and talk to me while I tie-dye. What do you mean you don't want to sit outside in 100 degree heat? I don't understand.... Homework? sorry prof, I was tie-dying. I mean, something came up and I was really, really busy.... I'll do better I promise. I can stop any time I want to! I just don't want to. Kind of. I kind of want to stop. I want to become a responsible adult again. kind of. But then again... tie-dye.

So I have trying to decide what I want to do about this obsession. Someone suggested I do classes. I have had two public classes now and a private one. Success. And I have a group for it and now I have started a page. So that I can grow this thing. Yay. I can't wait! I have plans! Big plans! And so I have started. Launched. I can't wait to see what the future holds.Why? Because.... magic. Tie-Dye. Magic. They are sort of the same thing. I can plan what I think something "should" look like, but I cannot control the actual results.

Yesterday I helped a friend create some love for herself, her hubby and their grandkids. It was amazing and awesome.

Big Time Blogging Challenge 2017. Check it out! #btbc17 or visit Michelle at Big Time Literacy.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Try. try again. Or is it.... try. fail. try again. repeat. ???

The answer is yes on so many levels.

I thought this today because there's sort of a never-give-up vibe behind it. And the last couple days I wouldn't have told you that I had given up, and yet... the list of things I did not follow through with is long-ish. I didn't water the garden for two days. In Kansas. In July. And it wasn't raining. Thankfully almost all of it came through without getting burned! I didn't do ANY homework. Summertime, yay. Two classes simultaneously.... seriously?! When do I get to, you know, summer? It's kind of the opposite of adulting. I didn't journal my food. Nor did I practice restraint. I did not keep my water intake high. And last but certainly not least, I did not blog. Boo. I was on a streak too. Six days in a row. *sigh*

So the momentum is building to just let the pendulum swing and stay on this crazy avoidance ride. Because once it starts to swing, it is not that easy to stop. In fact, talking myself into.... blogging, garden-tending (at least the basics), healthy eating, drinking water, and adulting (ugh, responsibility~ parenting, providing, cleaning, homework)... is hard. Real hard. Damn hard. blah.

I was hit hard this morning with the realization that much, most, or possibly even all of this behavior could easily be coming from forgetting to take meds on a regular basis. So get started Care! Take those meds! Water that garden! Etcetera.

Yeah, well, I may or I may not. Because depression, somewhat like alcoholism, tells me lies. Alcoholism tells me I'm not really sick and that I can drink AND I can stop drinking any. time. I. want. Depression doesn't tell me that I am not really sick, but it tells me a laundry list of other lies. Like that being proactive about taking meds FAITHFULLY will not actually help. It tells me no one cares, so why bother. It tells me that if I wasn't lazy, slothful, awkward, (I can keep going, but you get the picture), then I would just do those things that "normal" productive people do.

So today I feel like I have failed. Fallen off the wagon. The healthy lifestyle wagon. The responsible adult wagon. The proactive, functional, find your inner peace through gardening wagon.

Today I will start again. Again.

I will drink more water. I will stop beating myself up. I will start doing the homework. I will climb back up on that wagon. Again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I Can't Even....

That is what my brain says this morning. It is everywhere. And nowhere. Probably because I stayed up waaaaaayyyyyyy past my bedtime. Like 3 a.m. So the ADHD symptoms are strong this morning. Blog. But no, first facebook. No, blog. But first, process this deep thought. Oh. I could blog about it! But first tie-dye. Research it. Next.... stop. It's time to blog. But I am thinking about.... wait. What was I thinking about? Maybe gardening. Let's garden this morning! No. First blog, then walk. Then everything else. *sigh* Where are the dogs. Maybe I'll walk my dog. After I blog? Or before. That is the question. Only one. of many. I can't even. I can't even sort out my thoughts. I can't even slow down my obsessions. I can't even focus. I can't even. And it's summer. Do I have to? Argh! Today I am only going to commit to adulting in regard to necessities. Like getting us to appointments. Because staying up until 3 am finishing up birthday cards makes adulting darn near impossible. I just really can't even....

This is what kept me up. Moving from one obsessive artsy behavior to another. But, you know, tie dye. It will be back. Gotta get this posted so I can go rinse....

Big Time Blogging Challenge 2017 is underway! #btbc17

Transformation? It's a process, not an event

Today I am celebrating my 2 weeks of eating better, walking more, and drinking lots of water! And do I dare say..... almost (almost) no coke. Only a half of a 20 oz. bottle one time.

Today there are no picrues of the journey per se. Because although I'm PUMPED about the losses and they are significant to me, they will not show in a photo. And because my starting measurements are not for sharing. Just the progress.

Enough of the nots. Drumroll please.....

In two weeks time I have.....

• Lost 5 pounds! 
• lost an inch in my chest!
• lost about 4 1/2 or 5 inches in my waist

Today is another busy day in the summertime life of a teacher renewing her spirit after a grueling year and after losing touch with so many of my friends. I will drive to a neighboring town and connect with a life-long friend and we'll talk, laugh, hug and catch up. We will celebrate each other and the chances we've taken and the changes we've made. I will probably eat more fat than I *should* but then again, life is for the living. I will still consume LOTS of water, concentrate on movement, and on developing patterns of exercise in my life. And plan a healthier supper.

I might celebrate my victory by using up the rest of the dye I have mixed up already. I mean, I need those squirt bottles empty for my upcoming class. Right? heh heh....

Big Time Blogging Challenge '17 is underway! So far, so good! Five days of blogging in the books! Check it out at Big Time Literacy! #btbc17