planning

Hope

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today, during the quiet moments between things, make a conscious effort to breathe deeply, down into your roots. Feel your spine straighten and your branches extend out and up.

Gratitude List:
1. The sweet little chirpy purr of a small cat who is happy that his human is awake.
2. Homemade soup
3. Making little changes to routines
4. The intense excitement of a small boy preparing for a competition. You’d think he was flying to California, with the seriousness of his planning and preparations.
5. Breath.

May we walk in Beauty!

Getting It Done

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

“What? Love.

Who? Everyone.
When? Now.”
―Glennon Doyle Melton
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“No, Charles Wallace said. “I have to go on. We have to make decisions and we can’t make them if they’re based on fear.”
―Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
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“Live not for Battles Won.
Live not for The-End-of-the-Song.
Live in the along.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Report from Part One
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“We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole…. ” ― Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
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“Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.”
― Abraham H. Maslow
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“I don’t try to understand everything in nature. I just look at it. And enjoy it.” –Bob Ross

Gratitude List:
1. Snugglesome cat
2. Lots of tea
3. Stretching sore muscles
4. Reading, reading, reading
5. Planning ahead

May we walk in Beauty!

I Just Love that Kid

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I wonder if my students sometimes find themselves filled with a warm feeling out of nowhere, as if someone has just whispered, “I just love that kid,” and they can feel the vibe like a gentle breeze across their souls. I always feel a little frustrated with myself at the end of a semester when I still have a stack of grading to finish, and I wish I could have handed the papers directly to the students for the feedback; still, I also love to have these final moments of quiet, thoughtful contemplation of each one of them, bringing them back into my mind as I read their last words of the school season. Often, I catch myself whispering, “I just love that kid.”

Gratitude List:
1. My own schedule. Sleeping when I want. Working and taking breaks when I want.
2. Planning for next year. While I am doing this last bit of grading, I am thinking about how to make next year’s classes even better. How to define my assignments more clearly. How to ask more effective questions. How to get them interacting with each other more. How to elicit critical thinking. How to stimulate curiosity and creativity. How to challenge them without creating frustration.
3. Indigo bunting
4. Nettle/mint/dandelion/wild chamomile/catnip/plantain tonic. Good for what ails you.
5. Solitude

May we walk in Beauty!

Reading the Day

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

Yesterday as I was sweeping up my classroom at the end of the day, I got to thinking about leaves and feathers and little paper frizzies.  When my world was centered mostly around the house and farm, I felt like I sort of learned to read the litter of leaf and bark and feather, of stone and seedpod.  Now my association have shifted from the glorious beings of tree and field to the glorious beings of teenagers, and I wonder: can I learn to read the weather of the day through the little bits of paper and pens and pencils, the candy wrappers and strands of hair that I sweep up before I go home?  Teenagers are like trees, I think, dropping little bits of this and that as they go about their day.  I’m listening and watching. . .

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Kingfisher chattering along the MillStream
2.  I’m meeting Mara today!  A dear and wonderful friend whom I have never met in person is coming to see me!
3.  The way the planning of one day gives naturally on to the planning of the next day.  I get stumped about how to proceed with the lesson plans, but then I step back and look at it from a bit of a distance, and suddenly the next thing falls into place.  And the great thing about it is that the planning muscle is one which is strengthened with use, so the more I do it, the less anxiety-producing it will become.
4.  Comfortable shoes (this is a reminder to myself: yesterday’s shoes were not comfortable)
5.  The moment when I get home in the afternoons and see those boys and Jon.  Shiningest moment of the day.

May we walk in Beauty!