When you replace people with possessions…
I have spent the weekend denuding a room. I emptied the room of all its contents minus the large furniture … Continue reading When you replace people with possessions…
I have spent the weekend denuding a room. I emptied the room of all its contents minus the large furniture … Continue reading When you replace people with possessions…
“Wherever you are be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” … Continue reading When being “all there” takes you away from here…
Sick days, sick days
Dear new golden sick days
Sniffling and sneezing and hacking cough
Kept me at home on a rare day off.
Were I a teacher I’d go to work
Share all my germs, make my illness worse.
But the job I have now I can duty shirk
Without hurting a classroom of kids.
— (my revised, working girl version of the 1907 song “School Days”)
Yesterday I went to work even though I felt terrible. My head was aching, my throat was sore, and I knew I was battling something. But I had an afternoon meeting I didn’t want to reschedule, and I knew I could muscle through the day with a little help from ibuprofen and friends. My symptoms weren’t visually apparent, and I tried to keep mostly to myself so as not to share the joy. But when I mentioned to my supervisor that I was feeling a bit under the weather, she said, “Go home!”
I didn’t, but it struck me that I could.
I am a technical editor with eight hours of work daily. I get to work early and sometimes scrimp on my personal lunch hour because I like to get work done. But I have generous deadlines, an equally generous, perpetual pile of work, and I leave work daily knowing I did the best I could and that I can take up tomorrow where I left off today.
Today I have the privilege to attend a conference that will help me lead my school through the accreditation process. … Continue reading When work feels like play…
“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1 … Continue reading How pride squelches our talents…
I hate going to weddings alone. But now that my youngest son is 16 and more eager to weed the … Continue reading This Fun’s for you…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” This paradox beginning A Tale of Two Cities … Continue reading Why I teach…
When a teacher has laryngitis but has to teach anyway, what is she to do? This is a day in my life — with an inkling of what to do and what NOT to do! Continue reading Speechless…