10 Saturday Jun 2017
Posted in Educating Julia, Growing a Daughter
Julia graduated from eighth grade on Wednesday and had a pretty wonderful day. She picked out her dress and the blue rose for her hair. She is a kid who loves dressing up and here was an occasion. She was even willing to pose for numerous mother pictures. The bus ladies were effusive with the compliments. These two women who drive and help out on the special ed bus greet her every morning and appear to love her chatter. Julia entertains them every morning. Continue reading
27 Saturday May 2017
Posted in Educating Julia, Growing a Daughter, Travels with a Daughter
4:00 p.m.: I’ve spent the day in the garden beds, digging up the last of the bulbs in the front terrace beds, transplanting ajuga from those same beds to the side in front of the fence. This is a place where the worst weeds grow. Ugly, ugly, ugly. I planted ajuga on the fence line last fall. About a third of it took, so I’m trying again. Cutting back spent bulb plantings and weeding just a tiny bit. I have some mighty incredible weeds after our week of rain.
Julia is working on cover art for a class project while she listens to music. Kid bob mostly with a bit of classic rock mixed in. “I just love ‘Thriller,’” she tells me. How can I not smile indulgently?
For the cover art, Julia sketched the old fashion way and then transferred her drawings to an iPad app for coloring. When finished, the enhanced drawings will all go into a collage app to be arranged on a background and titles. For a child who stumbles over simple directions, she has figured most of this out by herself. When she’s run into problems and asks me, which surprisingly she is doing with more regularity, she is patient as I figure the problem out and usually fully understands my solution about half way through my explanation. Continue reading
01 Monday May 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Travels with a Daughter
Sitting in front of the Capitol.
I miss writing about our travels, but of course, we haven’t been anywhere for awhile. Browsing the NYTimes Saturday morning, I found an article about Genoa and I melted with the memories of last year. I added my favorite restaurant and B&B whose owners took such good care of us to the comments but I was ready to sink into my grumpy, petulant child self because there will be no travel like that this summer. And then, after breakfast Julia and I bundled up and went to the Madison Farmers Market and I decided do some writing about the pleasures of Madison and surrounds from now until the next time we board a plane.
So, the Madison Farmers’ Market. Correctly titled the Dane County Farmers’ Market began in 1972 and is America’s largest producers-only farmers’ market. It hosts 300 vendors and completely encircles the Capitol Building. Continue reading
20 Monday Feb 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Pondering Quietly
Lunch at cheesecake factory.
Sunday: 62 degrees at the end of February. We must be outside, but I do not feel free to dictate in public. Sigh. Ego or just not wanting mothers with small children to move away from me. So I type with one hand. Slowly and with fewer capitals. We’re at Burney’s Beach, a tiny made-beach on our bay, after a special ed advocate’s meeting in a coffee shop. Julia is sculpting in the sand and I . . . I sit like a turtle in the sun craving the warm, gentle warmth. This is the time of year when I can imagine giving up the four seasons in favor of eternal spring.
The meeting: Politically, I am totally out of the educational policy loop. It will be an effort if I want to catch up. I need to if I want to figure out what I can contribute. Believing that the way to change is at the local level where passion lies, the spirit is willing . . . Continue reading
08 Wednesday Feb 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Travels with a Daughter
I broke my wrist on Sunday. Of course it was my left wrist, my dominant hand. Aside from the pain and the splint and the doc appointments and the craziness of trying to figure out how to hook a bra, button up jeans and open pill bottles with one hand, there’s a steep learning curve of another kind going on and I have to grudgingly admit, I’m grateful for it.
For my birthday. I gave myself two presents–a creative workshop taught by a poet friend of mine called Spirit and Shadow. Her provocative questions are stirring my soul and disturbing my sleep. The other is an online course called Awakening Joy. Taught by James Baraz, it is a mindfulness class. This week we are put the intention of joy/happiness /contentment into the center of your life. Continue reading
26 Thursday Jan 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Journaling My Days
Julia’s impression of the Women’s March
Promising myself for my birthday that I was going to write every day come hell or high water . . . umm, last night I was ready to sit to write about 10 minutes before my eyes were ready to close. Some of it busy but some of it just puttering. What am i avoiding? I can’t even do a sit-down-write justice right now, but I can scribble a few doings. Continue reading
20 Friday Jan 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter
Winter middle school concert, solo concert, birthday brunch (ordering and cutting herself!, indoor miniature golf (Wisconsin’s best on a freezing rain day) and lunch with a friend.
Certainly, a very sweet birthday and a busy week.
The elaboration. Continue reading
04 Wednesday Jan 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Travels with a Daughter
Coming home from New Years visiting of friends and feeling the contentment of both journey and home. Needing a few quiet day to settle and catch up. Needing to make and put into practice some of the new year’s resolutions. Needing to organize to send out holiday cards-more on that later. Needing to figure out just how to plunge into the new year. Then again, the plunge has happened. Umm, am I already behind? Continue reading
30 Wednesday Nov 2016
Posted in Journaling My Days, Travels with a Daughter
Bryant Park at noon.
Back from a week of NYC travel. A different kind of holiday, a different kind of time spent in NYC.
We usually spend Thanksgiving with old friends in a country setting but that didn’t work for us this year and so, Julia and I were in NYC, actually Kew Gardens, Queens, with Cheshire. The time was notable because we spent more time in her apartment than we have in the past and did not do any visiting of family or friends. Continue reading
08 Tuesday Nov 2016
Posted in Educating Julia, Growing a Daughter
After watching the debates and talking about the election in school, Julia is very much into it. She fished out an old Obama button from some treasure trove and is wearing it along with two new Hillary buttons. Her assignment for Tuesday is to color a map as results come in. She told me that she is going to color the whole thing blue before any results come in. Magical thinking to be sure, but she’s got the right idea. Continue reading
