classes – Peaceful Reader

Just do it!

I’m happy to share that I’ve made it to a yoga class the first Saturdays of January. State Street Yoga has a new teacher, Corinne, on Saturdays at 10:30, which is a very good time for me, because I can’t roll myself out of bed too early on a day off. Corinne is slightly unconventional, with a very soothing voice, good energy, and I’ve learned some new poses from her. New learning is always good. So I’m happy to have started again and found someone interesting in that process.

I’m reading several books right now, trying to read more than watch, which is a struggle especially because Groovy Girl introduced me to Grey’s Anatomy. I didn’t pay attention when the show aired originally but now I’m genuinely interested in the characters and what’s going on. It’s a bit like watching General Hospital while I was in college.

Books I’m reading:

The Library by Susan Orlean – so beautifully written, would not have thought I’d enjoy a nonfiction book about a library fire.

Endling by Katherine Applegate – I am just about 6 chapters in and curious about where the story is going. This morning I had the book in my arm at church and a precocious 10-year-old reader told me she thought the story was great. That recommendation alone should keep me going…

Code Girls: the untold story of the American women code breakers of WWII by Liza Mundy – This is for book club and I’ve cracked the cover twice and read a total of one page. I’m not encouraged to read this whole (572 pages) book. I’m a fiction girl at heart and struggle with titles like this. I’ll take a fiction book about this topic any day. If you loved this title, let me know…

My hands (and the house) smell all spicy from chopping onions, garlic, and ginger for a big batch of chicken korma. Friends are coming over for a beer tasting first and a bite to eat after. I’d already planned the korma dinner for family; I just had to double the batch. It smells delicious.

Namaste…

Beautiful October…

Greetings! I’ve had this blog post milling about in my head since October 1st and I just didn’t take the time to get it down in this format. It seems that is a tough leap to make for me some months. The ideas are there yet they stay swirling around in my head. I’m making a promise to myself to do better; my goal for the month.

This month I took a class entitled It takes a Family from the Safe Schools Academy. The coursework was great and doable and part of one assignment was video chronicling an LGBT celebration at a Quaker school in New York. What a different world we would live in if every school could celebrate diversity this way. There are other classes I want to take from this group including one, On Wednesdays we wear pink: understanding the politics of girl world. Each class is only one graduate credit yet the interesting social justice issues are more relevant than many other grad credits. Each class I take leads me to something else, some other big moment in my constant life-long learner journey.

This video by Courtney Ferrell popped up while watching the Quaker school celebration. I want to pass it along because it is just how I feel about empowering young woman. We all need to “Girl Up” ourselves so we can pass that deep love on to others in our families and community. But we can’t just “Girl Up”; we also have to Man Up because we cannot leave our young men behind allowing them to think they can make disrespectful decisions just because they are young, drunk, or just didn’t know better. It’s up to us to teach them to be an important connection in our community. We need to hold hands with other women to create change for ourselves. We also need to connect with men in a deeper way as well so we can be our allies. What an amazing world we could live in if women and men learned to work together for the greater good-like real solutions for climate change instead of the male-dominated world we now try to exist in. And it’s important to always have some mad money tucked in our bra just in case…

No disservice to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at all because what she did was very brave but the girls of today need to speak up right away. Tell someone. This situation would look very different if Ford had shared this story with one adult or mentor. So women of today speak out to one adult, your roommate, someone at school so the facts are there. In this instance, the current administration wasn’t looking for a real solution but if one woman did have it on record of Kavanaugh’s behaviour his career would have looked very different.

This morning I shared the video with Groovy Girl and her response was “I know all that and it isn’t easy”-I agree but you have to keep trying. Here’s another Courtney Ferrell TedTalk to keep you motivated and energized. I like how she empowers one person from the audience by bringing them into her space on stage. Have some kind of creative day today!

Back to school

The end of school vacation is here. {try not to sob}

Summer remains-I prefer a long summer. This summer was the busiest I’ve had in a long time. Two grad classes to spark my imagination and recreate my classroom and two lovely vacations to relax my brain and prepare for the year ahead. I’m ready to celebrate more JOY at school and at home. I’ve finally fallen head first back into my yoga practice and feel ready to keep that going every day with intention. Today as I practiced my mind took me back to Loon Lake in Northern Minnesota. A perfectly calm place to be.

Groovy Girl is back at the dance thing and we’ll spend 4 nights at the studio each week. We’ve picked up a small batch of school supplies here and there. Today she managed to choose a new backpack (difficult b/c of ALL the choices) but she prefers to wait until her classes begin to see what she really needs. I’m freaked out about the need for a $180.00 graphing calculator…? I’m also shocked that my baby is a junior in high school and my firstborn is about to graduate from college! My – how time flies. It seems like yesterday that I was rocking my way through library grad school with a 6-year-old and a baby. And now I’m in my 16th year of teaching.

This past week I’ve made new binders for myself, got a little organized, mentally prepared my brain, and made a new batch of my homemade salsa. My mom has huge batches of tomatoes and I wanted to remind myself of all the steps so I did it alone one night this week; chopping onions, banana peppers, jalapenos, and skinning 20 cups of hot tomatoes while listening to music. It was magic in motion and a whirlwind of hot, spicy, and a few tears shed to get to the final-6 jars of salsa!

I made a simple dinner tonight with farmers market fare and I’ve had a lovely glass of pinot noir. I ate an amazing dark chocolate bar with blackberry sage and I shared with G, J, and K. In a few minutes, I’m going off to do a little bedtime yoga. This year is going to fly by and I want it to begin (and end) with flare. Are you ready for school?