The Trip from **** continued

As I sat in my middle seat, watching other passengers get on the plane, I was relieved that we had made it on time and that I would be in warm weather in three hours.

I settled in and tried to text my mom to tell her we had made it. But my phone wasn’t working. I tried to turn on the TV to decide which movie I wanted to watch… not working. I looked around and saw a passenger with a dog sit down next to Jake. I could hear the dog panting from where I was sitting. Thank goodness that’s his seat mate and not mine.

Eventually the plane pushed back from the gate. The pilot got on the speaker and welcomed us to the United flight, told us how long it would take to get down to Miami and told us to sit back and relax.

20 minutes later, we were still on the runway. What is going on? I should be heading to Florida by now. “Ladies and gentlemen there seems to be an issue with the temperature gage so we have to return to the gate so that a mechanic can look at it. It should take little time to fix and we will be on our way soon.”

60 minutes later… “We’re just finishing up, need to add a little more fuel because of how long we were on the runway. We should be good to go in 10 minutes.”

45 minutes later… “Ladies and gentlemen due to federal regulations we cannot keep you on the plane on the runway for more than two hours. Therefore, we ask that you take all your belongings and exit the plane. We are already searching for a new plane to take you to Miami.”

At this point I’m almost happy to be getting off the plane so that I can grab some dinner and some wine. But I would definitely rather be almost to Florida.

Eventually, we are told we should head to a new gate for boarding at 10. By 10:30 we are still in the terminal waiting. “We just need the catering truck to get here and then we can board,” we’re told. So we wait some more.

Another 20 minutes pass and boarding begins. Again, I settle into my seat, this time with a working phone and TV. “Ladies and gentleman we are going to fly down to Miami with no catering. No drinks or food will be served on this flight. Sorry for the inconvenience.” 

We takeoff about four hours late. We finally arrive in Miami at just past 2am, tired, but ready for a great vacation... with no more mishaps 🤞🏻.

The Trip from ****

Jake, Tori and I jump in the car with the driver at 3:20 to head to the airport. The GPS reads 5:22 as our ETA. “Perfect,” I say, “that’ll give us 45 minutes to check Jake’s golf clubs and get through security before boarding. Thank you TSA pre-check.”

As we are driving, though, the ETA keeps creeping up. “Looks like you’ll have to hustle when we get there,” says the driver as the ETA reaches 5:45 and my anxiety goes up a notch.

20 minutes later and I check the ETA again. We’ll arrive at the airport with 7 minutes to check Jake’s golf clubs and get through security before boarding starts. This driver needs to get aggressive I think as my anxiety goes up even more.

Eventually we arrive at the airport and sprint from the car. Jake darts to check his golf bag and we all race through the TSA pre-check line. As we get through security we start running to our gate…of course the furthest one from security.

We arrive at the gate with 15 minutes to spare until the doors close and out of breath. We all collapse in our seats…all middle seats, all 5 rows apart.

You would think our journey ends in there. But it doesn’t…

So much to do, so little time.

So much to do,

so little time.

Piles stacked high,

piles to file.

Units to work on,

units to complete.

Valentine’s to dream up,

Valentine’s to create.

Meetings to attend,

meetings to present at.

So much to do,

so little time…

but only 3 more wake ups until break!

 

KHS Learns

Last Monday my principal organized a walk through of sorts for our faculty meeting.  She wanted the staff to go around the building and see the amazing things happening in classrooms…things that are making classroom life slightly easier.

Coworkers signed up to share a variety of things like:

• anchor charts
• books
• student made charts
• book clubs
• read alouds
• small group plans
• video alouds

To be honest, at first I thought I had much better things to do with my time than to walk around and see these things, but I was proven wrong.

One of my coworkers shared a video aloud which I could not wait to try.  I showed a short video to my class called Pip.  Reading partners took on the role of the 2 characters in the video paying attention to the character’s feelings.  We stopped often and discussed the feelings, especially trying to push ourselves to think of different words for happy and sad.  On day 2 we “reread” the short video and noticed new things (one huge concept being the video had no words).  Day 3 we used those feelings to help us retell.  The class LOVED it.  It was a nice change of pace…but the students are still doing all the same work as in their books.

So, thank you to all my coworkers for sharing their classrooms and ideas with me.  I can’t wait to try even more of the great ideas that were shared last week.

A Time for Everything

  There is an appointed time for everything,

          and a time for every thing under the heavens.

 A time to be born, and a time to die;

           a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

 A time to kill, and a time to heal;

           a time to tear down, and a time to build.

 A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

           a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

 A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;

           a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

 A time to seek, and a time to lose;

           a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

 A time to rend, and a time to sew;

           a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

 A time to love, and a time to hate;

           a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

I’ve heard this Bible verse many, many times and never stopped to really think about it.  But this past weekend at a funeral for my friend’s dad the Deacon spoke about it in great depth.  He talked about life being this “collision of opposites:” tear down and build up, weep and laugh,  love and hate.

It made me think of my own life.  The ups and downs, this collision of opposites, of the past year, month, week, day or even hour.  I sometimes refer to this as the roller coaster of life.  Sitting in the pew listening, sitting among some of my best friends, I thought about how I get so down on myself with these changing emotions and yet that is what life is.  We need those down moments in order to learn and build ourselves up again.  We need to lose in order to seek, we need time to speak in order to be silent, we need to mourn in order to dance.

Later in the day I was watching a TV show where two friends were talking about how to grieve properly.  We all know that there is no one way but one of the girls shared that she cries when she needs to and laughs at other times, dances at some moments or mourns the loss at others.  Again, she’s talking about this collision of opposites, this piece of life.

As the Bible verse goes, “there is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every thing under the heavens.”  My time will come for so many things.  But until then I’ll connect with and embrace this collision of opposites mindset.

Thank you times a million

Dear Rosanne, Bill, Katie and Elizabeth,

Who knows how this tradition started but for sure I don’t want it to end…

Walking around enjoying fresh air and popping into bars and stores to warm up was perfect.

Eating and drinking while sitting by a nice warm fire was delightful.

Catching up, sharing stories and laughing was the medicine I needed to recharge.

I’m leaving Boston with a full heart feeling spoiled to the max.

This weekend was wonderful…just what I needed. Can’t wait for next year’s trip.

Love you!

Rasheed

My school adopted the TC Units of Study for Phonics this year.  Needless to say, it has been a whirlwind learning and preparing for each lesson.

One of the hardest parts for me has been being animated with Rasheed, the lion mascot.  I have never been a singer or a “make believe” person so it’s been a challenge.  In fact, I have forgotten recently to even take Rasheed out of his bed to participate in our phonics lessons.

“Where has Rasheed been lately?” Indy asked me one day during pack-up time.

Think fast.  Think fast.  Think fast.  “Umm… he must be hibernating.  It’s been pretty cold out recently.”

“Oh!  Ok!” Indy replied smiling.

Phew!

“Umm…Ms. Wetmore. Lion’s don’t hibernate.  In fact, they live in very warm places,” Aiden, my animal fanatic, exclaimed.

“I didn’t know that.  You sure do know a lot about animals,” I replied caught in my own lie.

“Actually, when Rasheed finally does come out of his bed.  We should probably have a very warm winter coat for him.  He’s going to be cold because it’s a very different environment here than he’s used to.”

Ooookkkk!  That’s not part of the kit from TC.  Guess I need to go shopping AND learn my lion facts. 

 

Connect

For the past 3 years I’ve participated in what is called “Holiday Council.”  It is a 3 week (or more if you want) course that, to quote Molly, the founder, will take you from feeling like life is moving at warp speed to understanding exactly where you’ve been and exactly what you want from the year ahead.”  Essentially it is a method to help come up with your OLW, and ways of being, and create goals for the next year.

As I moved through these 21 days I thought about how much my OLW for 2019, EMBRACE, meant to me.  I was able to embrace life but felt like there was still work to be done with it.  While I embraced the chaos that is life most days, I felt like I still need to pause and connect with different aspects of it.

So my OLW for this new decade is…CONNECT.

I’d love to use this word to live an authentic, fearless, alive life.  I’d love to connect more deeply with myself and others.  I’d love for this word to provide me with love and hope each and everyday!

Word of the Year Reflection

December 2018, for the 2nd time, I came up with a word of the year.  And in January 2019, I made it public by writing a slice about it.  My word of 2019… EMBRACE.

I kept this word close to me at all times (written on a PopSocket). I made a vision board of pictures that reminded me to embrace life that I kept on my computer and near my couch.  I told some friends too so they could check in and ask me.

And now that it is New Years Eve, I can safely say…

I embraced 2019 for sure!  I worked confidently on projects at work sharing my ideas freely.  I even interviewed for positions I wasn’t so sure about.  I pushed through uncertainty plenty of times and trusted my intuition just as many if not more.  I tried to take each day one day at a time.  Most of all, the one I really wanted to conquer this year, I found time for myself to relax among the chaos of life.  I embraced sitting on my couch and doing nothing (a feat many didn’t think I could do, and probably need some more work on still).

Yes… 2019 taught me how to embrace life…each and every moment of it.

This picture sent to me 1 year ago today! 

Now to think about what 2020’s word should be.

Tradition

The holiday season brings about traditions for many families.  According to Google a tradition is “the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation.”  That is exactly what some of my favorite traditions are…passed on from my grandparents generation to my generation.

Every Christmas my family enjoy pizzelles.  When I was really little it was my grandparents who made this coveted Italian cookie.  I’m not sure how or why but my mom (number 5 of 7 children) got this tradition passed down to her.  For years my grandparents would come to our house with their pizzelle iron and teach my mom how to make them just right.  Of course, my siblings and I would be running around eating “the bad ones” and picking up some tips along the way too.

Slowly, this tradition was passed solely to my mom who recruited my sister and I for help.  Each year we gather to make pizzelles only days before Christmas, pausing during the chaos of the season for time together.  We talk to my grandparents in heaven each year asking for help when they are too soft or too burnt or getting stuck to the iron.  We reminisce about making them years ago altogether or the one time we made them not at Christmas time for a cousin’s wedding.  We make fun of my grandfather with his egg timer being an absolute perfectionist and driving us kids crazy.  Or the time he didn’t like our cheap extension cord and found a very heavy duty one to use that now lives with our pizzelle iron throughout the year.  You never know what other stories might arise too.  There is a lot of learning to be done around the table during pizzelle making time.

Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without this tradition being passed down from generation to generation.    What are some of your holiday traditions?