Monday

Another photo from our family foray
 in to the flowering gardens
at the UF/IFAS Extension in Orlando.

Today is the kind of day that I don't feel like writing, but it's kind of like working out, I don't have a choice not to do it (at least that's how I speak to myself in my head).  It was a long day of moving at work and although my image is a looking toward the sky, my topic is a little more earthbound aka my shoes. A little mundane, but for most teachers, our feet take a beating. As I sit here with my legs elevated and my ankle on ice with a round of heat next. I can't stop thinking about my feet and my favorite shoes!  Here are my top three for work and my special sock recommendation *thank you Erin Dorso for that).  No- I don't get kickbacks, just comfort!

1. Dansko-  I love the backless clogs and like to wear them in "winter" months with socks.  I know as a brand they are pricey, but I kept seeing how other professionals who are constantly on their feet moving (surgeons and chefs) wore them. As a shoe investment, I love that you can bring them to a cobbler and get them re-heeled or re-inner soled.  Their lastiness frankly outlives my desire to wear them, but they are so comfortable on my twelve hour days. The brand has added more attractive shoes as my daughter would say, but the sturdy clogs are my favorite.  There is an artist who paints them and I have been thinking about asking my husband to paint one of my pairs. 

2. Adidas Cumulus or Nimbus running shoes, both of which are apropos with my cloud image.  I supinate like crazy which means my foot rolls outward when I walk or run.  I rotate between two pairs at a time, mostly for working out.  I do, however, put them on for work days like today when I know that my work mileage will exceed my normal daily  mileage due to testing.  Did I tell you our campus is 35 acres?  Did I mention we testing around 1900 students today for our two hour state writing test and it was all on the computer?  Non-stop troubleshooting and movement.  Fortunately I had a hot new pair of Nimbus to wear and that made the day more fun and foot-tolerable. 

3.  My newest addition, FitFlops.  If I had written this post last March, it would have stopped a two.  But last May I discovered the comfort of the FitFlop.  Again a little pricey, but three of my five pairs were gifts from a really good friend. They are perfect for Florida weather where it rains almost every day in the summer. Some of these styles are jazzed up and appropriate it for work.  I already have some converts too.

4.  My go-to socks- Balega's.  They are expensive and my daughter has developed a taste for them too. I can't  begrudge her. As I ask myself, if I wore better shoes\socks in my youth, would I have the issues I have now?  I mean in my day we played basketball in Chuck Taylors!  I still love Chucks, but they hate me at this age. Balegas have a little compression and padding in all the right places plus they retain their shape over time and abuse.  

What are your go-to work shoe favs?

Sunday Seven

Signs of Spring at the UF/IFAS in Orlando

The Sunday Seven is devoted to uncovering gratitude from the week's passing.  

7.  The Slice of Life Story Challenge is back and pushing me to write.

6. Co-workers who dig in and do the work before we test 2200 students on Monday.  Yes, that's not a typo.  2200 students on computers writing for 120 minutes.  

5. Workout compatriots cheering each other on to do one more squat, push press, push-up, crunch, burpee or lap.

4. The privilege to work with curios engaged students who want to be English teachers.

3. Arriving home on Friday to find all the laundry and I mean all the laundry washed, folded and put away. Thank you husband!

2.  Flowering gardens at  the UF/IFAS in Orlando open to the public from dawn to dusk daily.  

1.  Gorgeous Florida spring weekend weather so I can enjoy the outdoors with my family.

Spring into Saturday: Thinking about My Writers

Azaleas in Bloom

Signs of spring abound in Florida these days. I have always felt that we should have summer break during spring here so that we could enjoy the amazing days of spring.  Spring break hardly seems long enough.  There are so many options for this spring morning, but I spent the first part of it responding to my future teacher's blog posts.

I have crafted a mini-blogging challenge for them over the course of the semester as part of our class Teaching Writing in Middle and High Schools. I have built blogging as an assignment in this class since 2013 (after my 1st experience with the Slice of Life Story Challenge in March). We post bi-weekly and respond to each other.  Each person has an accountability partner (stolen from my Camp Gladiator experience) to ensure that they get at least one comment from another student as well as don't get behind in the posting.  I feel it defeats the purpose of the assignment if a student waits until the end of the semester to do all of the posts.  Although I comment on each student's posts, they end up assessing themselves and giving themselves the final grade.

What I love about this assignment as part of our class is that they get to experience what being part of a digital writing community feels like, remembering the difference between assigned writing and totally free choice writing aka open posts, explore the possibilities digital writing as opposed to paper-based.   What I've loved most though is the conversation and thinking that is cultivated in the commenting section in response to each other's post.  It let's me see tracks of their teaching thinking that aren't always so evident in class because of the numbers in class.  It's powerful.  This past week, they explored tech.   Check out their posts here.

With my feedback done and this slice complete, we are heading out to the Plant and Garden Festival offered by the UF Agriculture Extension in Orlando.  My seventh grader's school has a community garden now and she has earned a plot.  I will save this topic for another slice!  Enjoy your Saturday!

Food for Thought: Mac & Cheese

Mac & Cheese from Vanbarry's 

My seventh grader has long since outgrown Kraft Mac & Cheese and has developed a more discerning mac & cheese palate.  That being said it can be tough going out to eat with her because she veers more on the cheese and carb diet aka cheese quesadilla, cheese pizza, cheese ravioli or any pasta shape, grilled cheese and on and on and on. She is currently in the kitchen engineering her pizza cheese ball in which she takes pizza dough, puts cheese in the center, rolls in into a ball and bakes it. I am waiting on one right now  She does, however, love her fruits and veggies, but proteins other than cheese don't whet her appetite. I have worked hard to expand her palate and she has developed a taste for seafood and chicken  also, but most often when we go out to dinner she wants mac and cheese.

Thankfully the two best places to order mac & cheese are in Orlando. Our number one choice for mac & cheese is the skillet mac & cheese at Vanbarry's pictured above.  What make this special is that the mac and cheese is creamy like it was made on a stovetop, but then the top is finished with a "brulee" of cheese, delish.  This dish is appropriate for kids and adults alike and if you are in the mood bacon is part of the deal. (She obviously doesn't have it).  Her second favorite is the smoked gouda mac and cheese at the Artisan Table.  It too is creamy, but the smoked gouda brings a more subtle contrast to the rosemary panko crumb topping.  The Artisan Table is a great pre-show dining place if you are heading to the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center.  The mac and cheese is just one of the many fabulous items of both menus.

If you aren't up to leaving your house, I make this mac and cheese when we stay in or have family get-togethers.  Remember that Kraft Mac & Cheese still works in a pinch- I just make it with half and half and butter to adult it up a bit.

Titles to Read with Your Tween/Teen

           

                                                                                                                                                               Over the past year, my daughter, a seventh grader, and I have started listening to titles together while in the car. Since her birth we have always read together each night, but starting in 2nd grade she want to read all by herself which meant we didn't share the stories even though we continued to read side-by-side. Listening with our ears together in the car has been a magical time. We can once again enjoy literally reading together.  It has also pushed her to read genres that she wouldn't normally read, historical fiction.

Our first favorite was Jennifer Donnelly's These Shallow Graves.  She loved the mystery and strong female character in Jo Montfort.  I love the history and the exploration of female inequalities at the turn of the century America. We would eagerly climb into the car during our bi-weekly commute to ballet and linger in the car when we arrived home to just listen to one more chapter.     Later she read the hard copy and then decided to read Nellie Bly's Ten Days in a Madhouse.

Our second foray into reading with our ears was Ransom Rigg's Miss Pergrine's Home for Peculiar  Children.  Although I had read it before, I have a rule with my daughter that she can't watch a movie related to a book unless she has read the book first.  She has purchased this book earlier in the summer in anticipation of the movie release in the fall, but she stalled in her reading of the book. Listening allowed her to re-engage in the story and finish the book.  We finally got to see the movie together.

Our final recommendation, The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grisson is actually a book we listened to together because it was my book club selection. I knew I would slog thru it as the setting the South, pre-Civil Story was a story that I had read many time.  This telling, however, did end up liking Lavinia's story about her life as an indentured servant as it wasn't a story that we had encountered to often.  Hope loved it so much she wanted to name her next pet, Lavinia. It also led us to tough tough tough car conversations.

If you find yourself too busy to actually sit and read, you might be able to build some listening time using such as Hoopla or Overdrive from your local library.  That's how Hope and I are able to fund this listening habit.

Glad to be Back!

A view from my happy place!
Rainbow Springs, Florida

Officially it's my 6th year participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge, but my 7th year of blogging.   Looking at my blog posts numbers over the course of years (2011-2016) and getting that daily Facebook reminder of this day posts, I am all too aware of the little writing that I have done over the course of 2016, only 33 posts. (The lowest being 2011 when I created my blog in which I posted the sum total of once.)   No matter the quantity, I am all in for March and I resolve to be better about my weekly posts after March!

The Slice of Life Story Challenge makes me write.  We make time for what we value and I value the community of writers dedicated to this challenge.  I understand what we give up to write daily and comment on 3 people each day. I understand the commitment writing and it always takes longer than I think I have.  

The Slice of Life Story challenge hasn't been far from my mind. I have been thinking about what I want to post. Thinking about writing drafts. Thinking about content. Thinking about organizing. But thinking isn't doing.  Perhaps at best it is the prepping for writing, the percolating, but it doesn't count as writing until I get it on the page.


The Slice of Life Story Challenge is a happy place in my life.  I  look forward to reading newbies! I look forward to catching up with previous Slicers. I love the hope and insight your bring to me each day!

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my post!
 

Kintsugi: 8 Things I Know for Sure

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold. I'd fix my broken pottery with bronze, not as precious as gold, but bronze and pottery are traditional 8th anniversary gifts.  My choice makes sense as I celebrated my 8th Diaversary this past weekend. I've written about this day before, my life sentence, my celebrations large and small and my why of seeking six.  Ultimately there are eight things I've learned since my diagnosis that matter most.

8.  If you are traveling with small children, make sure you put your oxygen mask on first.  Just like we are reminded before each airplane takeoff, to put ourselves before others so we can better help them.  Truth be told, I'm still working hard on this.

7.  Exercise is my daily prescription, sadly not subsidized by health insurance.  Working out each day allows me to take 10 units less of insulin.  In the long run, it's better for the body and the mind and will pay off fiscally and physically.

6.  Stress Kills!  It certainly kills your blood glucose even when you have done everything else right. Unlike you mortals with a functioning pancreas, I have the luxury of seeing my physiological response to stress every five minutes.  I also, however, have a choice each and every day to determine my response. Most days are stressful when you are adulting.  I, alone, am responsible for choosing my perspective wisely.

5.  Make space and time to play.  A big change! My resolution this past year was to spend each Saturday as if it were a summer day.  Still working on it.

4.  Avoid the drama! It's never really about you.

3.  Organize, Organize, Organize.  Keep your supplies in stock and have them where you need them, which basically means in every odd place you spend time.

2.  Nothing gets easier. It just becomes more manageable.

1.  There will never be enough time in the day. Learn when to walk away.