Just Keeping Track

Waking up to Nora's admission:  "You know, I just don't really like the carnivorous dinosaur programs very much."   Next time I look up a dinosaur movie before I've had my coffee, I'll be sure to check for titles like "The Flesh-Eaters" and "T. Rex Buffet."

Crashing the Valentine's party at Nora's school today.  Singing with Nora.  When we get to the "I love you" part of the whole Skinn-amerink-adink--ee-doo song, she points to me, jumps up and hugs me hard enough to put everything back into the proper alignment.   Call it Emotional Chiropractics.

Watching two straight hours of Downton Abbey.

How the regulars at the Spur always ask me if I've finished grading all my papers yet.  How I never have, and I never will.  Not until May.  "You know what your problem is?"  "What's that, Bill?"  "Well, you keep assigning them."  Laughter around the table, and I just shake my head and push another millimeter of lead out of the mechanical pencil.

Learning how to be myself in front of so many people.  How vulnerable that is.  How I must also do what I ask that they too be brave enough to do.   Being a teacher who is also a human.

Ordering the entire "Love Comes Softly" series for Grandma Smith's birthday.  Being able to do that.

A notebook with pictures of vegetables glue-sticked throughout.  Where it all begins.

Plans for class tomorrow involving Jazz--Charlie Parker and Lois Armstrong and one of my favorite stories--"Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin.  And in the other class, a walk outside to gather a "setting" for our writing exercise.  How someone said he sees his classes as a haven.  And I also want to associate these classrooms with a haven. 

Knowing God walks always beside me, within me, before me--even when I'm so busy I forget to think of Him first.  Praying that I don't become so stubborn that I fail to hear His whisper comforting me, encouraging me, loving me on.

Sentence fragments.  Grateful for those, too.