All in a Day’s Work: From Career-Woman to Stay-at-Home Mom

This past Wednesday, I went in to Mountain View to pack up the last of my things.  I wept my way through the San Gabriel Valley, grieving my many losses.  Each August for the past…well… 22 years, I have been starting fresh with new notebooks, new pens, new books, plans and goals for what I will accomplish in the coming year and how.  And now, instead of the blank slate of a new school year looming before me, I am shutting the classroom door (at least for the time being).

Now don’t get me wrong, every year that I have taught has been difficult in some way; there have been days, though fewer each year, when I wished I could find a way out of teaching.  The first few years, I dreamed of the day when having a family at home would keep me out of the classroom, anticipated the glories of stay-at-home-motherhood.  I imagined taking an eight- to ten-year sabbatical in which I would shine in all my domesticated ways, baking daily from scratch, filling our home and our children’s closets with home-made-ness, volunteering in our community, gardening, and being satisfied.  There would be no hurry to get back into teaching, not in this imagined world of mine. Read the rest of this entry »

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Raindrops on Roses

I have been on blog-hiatus for quite some time now, busy with life and also avoiding public writing.  I have, however, decided to at least attempt to re-start my blog habit in order to write about the many new experiences I have daily as the mother of a seven-month-old.

As my re-inaugural post, I thought I would start with my favorite things of the moment.

1. Setting L in front of the floor-length mirror that is our closet door when I need a minute (to take a diaper to the laundry pail, use the restroom…).  I return, always, to a joyful child, waving her arms in the air and talking rapidly and loudly to herself.  Today, she was leaning into the mirror, nose-to-nose with her self.

2. Free coffee.  My husband works at his school’s bookstore/coffee shop, and I get coffee and tea free.  Yay!

3. Jogging.  After a loooong hiatus for pregnancy and its aftermath, I am back to jogging somewhat regularly.  When I was pregnant, I constantly looked at joggers in envy–”that should be me!” I would exclaim, my heartbeat speeding up in memory of the adrenaline rush of moving quickly on my feet.  Now, it is me!

4. My husband.  But that is a whole blog-post of its own.  

5. Watching Stephen Colbert through Hulu.  Hulu is the television-less family’s best friend.

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Resources for Teaching Writing (or coming up with blogging ideas)

As a teacher, a resource I have found invaluable has been the National Council for Teachers of English.  I have yet to enroll in a masters degree program, so I keep up with the latest research and  get new ideas and new ways of thinking about my craft through some of NCTE’s various publications.  In the January edition of English Journal, I found a few great websites with prompts for creative and reflective writing.

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Anne Lamott is coming to town

One of my favorite essayists, Anne Lamott, is coming to Pasadena tomorrow (Wednesday, March 28). She will be speaking at All Saints Episcopal Church (you know, the one that made the news for its sermon during the last presidential election). Wess and I are going to see her and I would invite anyone who lives in Southern California and reads this in the next 24 hours to join us!

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Music I Love

Elvis Perkins in DreamlandAll my life, I have wished for the gift of music. I realized early on that I was not born with a beautiful singing voice, and in high school when I tried to teach myself to play guitar, I discovered I also was not blessed with the ability to create music by instrument. Somehow though I knew all the chords to a song, when I put them together, all I could hear was my strumming, jolting from one note to the next. I decided then that I could claim the gift of music appreciation in the absence of all other musical giftings.

I have three new favorite artists that I have spent much of the last three weeks (as I have been MIA from blogging) appreciating. Read the rest of this entry »

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