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Conferences: 100 Days (97)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 97:

The shadberries/Juneberries/serviceberries are purpling!

I have never been at a school where I loved Parent Teacher Conferences. I would say that I have enjoyed meeting parents and talking with them about their kids, but they were always grueling and energy-draining days, weirdly lonely (every teacher in their little silo cranking out 15-minute conversations that never seemed to get very deep.

All that changes at The Janus School. We meet with parents in teams. All a student’s teachers sit in a circle with the parents (and the student, if they’re in high school), and talk about needs and successes and challenges. When the conversations are easy, it’s wonderful to have other teachers there, celebrating together. When the conversations are hard, it’s wonderful to have a whole team of teachers working together with the family to talk about how to help a student problem-solve. We see threads of goals met and behaviors experienced across many classes. We strategize together. We hold each student in a bowl of care. It’s still exhausting, but it also gives energy and reminds me why I love teaching these kids.

******

Today I finished the triangle half squares and steamed them to block. I might need to make four more in order to shape the sleeves. (One of these photos is of the sleeve of sweater one of the moms was wearing to our construction groundbreaking today. It reminds me of my granny square cardigan.)

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Fidgeting and Focus: 100 Days (83)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 83:

I’m going to have to buy more black yarn tomorrow. I made seven pieces of squares today, which will all need the black outer layer. I crocheted while keeping an eye on students in the cafeteria during dress rehearsal and the performance for the all school play today. Watching me crochet and playing with some of my yarn scraps kept two of the littlest fidgety ones occupied and focused when they were waiting their turn to go be oompa-loompas on stage.

I set today’s squares around a photo of my family in 1967 in Tanzania (my sister wasn’t born yet), and on the wooden car my dad made for me (a model of the car he owned when he and Mom got married), and a little red box of Grandma Weaver’s recipes.

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Mindfulness: 100 Days (80)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 80:

Twenty more days to go! I managed two squares today. Granny squares take longer than hearts and flowers. I saw more horned larks up at at High Point today.

This is Play Week at school, so often students are called out to practice during class time. Today, I was left with one student for about an hour. What a great opportunity to just listen to what is important to this about-to-graduate brilliant human. I am going to miss this class.

I am taking an online mindfulness course these days, with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. That, and the mindfulness practices in the wellness app I get through my health insurance, are helping me to inhabit time more thoughtfully and mindfully. The last couple sessions have been like Rumi’s “Guesthouse,” looking at emotions as they arise, naming them, bowing to them as guests, and being present with them.

I think of myself as a fairly grounded and mindful person, pretty self-regulated in general, and still, I have so much to learn about living in the moment; perhaps my sense that I am already comfortably mindful means that I have lots of learning ahead. Interestingly, Rob Brezsny’s post this week was about not getting dogmatic about the mindfulness of the moment, but doing that work in the context of recognizing one’s history of pain and trauma. Both. And. I love when synchronicity brings me messages about the thing I am working on at the moment.

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Irked: 100 Days (61)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 61:

I need to figure out how to turn my protector eyes into granny squares of the proper size to match my other granny squares. I do love this one I tried today, along with a properly-sized regular granny square. I also worked a couple rows on the prayer shawl while I was watching the Menno Action Zoom tonight.

Irked
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

loud buzz then a whoosh
past my ear out of control
stinkbug lands on me

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