Along the Road to Home

~from along the Oklahoma-Kansas border in Kay County, OK~ It's the early morning hours here and some how or another, I don't think there will be enough coffee in the coffee pot today.  My eyes popped open at 2:00 am and after tossing and turning for an hour, I just simply gave up.  I guess it was time to start the day. And here I am. There is school today in our little community of Newkirk but instead of coming to the school, the kids are learning virtually from home today.  We are practicing what it would be like if the need for distance learning arises due to an outbreak of Covid 19.  I'm really grateful to our local school board who gave the green light for this day to happen.  Much hard work has gone into the planning for this day with teachers spending extra time to get preparations into place.  All of us agree that we'd much rather keep our students in class with us in the brick and mortar facility rather than see their bright and shining faces from ...

I pulled out a loaf of homemade bread from the oven Saturday afternoon and although it will never taste as good as the bread my mom used to make, I'm not doing half bad.  The dough rose nicely and the kitchen smelled delicious as it baked to a golden brown in the oven.  We let it cool for a bit and then proceeded to sample a couple of slices of it with butter.   There's nothing like the heel of a loaf of fresh bread. Lucky for Mike and I, there are two of them. Long ago, back when I was so much younger, I used to bake bread on occasion.  Then I got out of the habit of doing it, mostly because it took so much time from start to finish.  It was easier to just buy a loaf of bread or break open a package of those frozen rolls that so many people use.  Baking bread was not at the top of my most important things to do in life list and for quite a while I got along with that excuse quite well. Then came the pandemic and the time of Covid 19. I remember the d...

  Every day I go to battle. From the moment I walk into my classroom even before the 6:00 in the morning hour until I lay my head down on my pillow to rest at night, I'm always trying to stay at least one step ahead of a nemesis that has been looming over us all since this past March. -Covid 19- I chose to return to the classroom this year, even after having every good intention to retire after the 2019-2020 school year ended.  As a nearly 65-year old woman, it seemed safer for my health and well being to be home and away from huge groups of children each day.  After 40 years as an educator, people were always admonishing me to remember that I had paid my dues to at least a couple of generations of kids already.  Yet all through June and into July, during the summer that really wasn't ,  I kept having this aching within my heart to be with children once again and to help make a difference in their lives.  Story after story within the news told of teachers s...

Nearly a month has now passed by since this school year of 2020-2021 began.  In our fourth grade classroom it has been a busy time with the kids and I getting used to one another as we tried to pick up from where the pandemic intervened this past March.  If I told you that it has been easy, well then I wouldn't be telling the truth because some days it has not been.  There have been many programs that I've needed to become familiar with plus dozens of first and last names that I forever was mixing up.  I have made what seems to me at times like a zillion mistakes and of course I am hard on myself for making them.  Often times I forget what I tell the kids in my class each day. "Don't be afraid to make a mistake once in a while.  They help you to learn, grow, and change.  That's a GOOD thing." I'd do well to keep that in mind.  One of my character defects has always been being overly critical of myself when I do the wrong thing or let someone down....