bits and English Lit.

If we all were just honest with each other, we would all admit that I am a strange choice for a teacher of English. I certainly don't look the part. When people see me, I am sure they don't think, "yup, there goes an english teacher." I actually see that as one of my strengths as a teacher... I call it... "approachable." I fly under the radar.

I don't wear glasses.
I am not top bald.
I don't have a large goiterish adam's apple.
I don't smoke a pipe.
I can't cross my legs when I sit, leading to a complete malformation of correct english teacher posture.
I am in no way bookish looking.
I am not quiet... just ask my laugh.
I DO have a tweed jacket with elbow pads though!! (score one for me!)
I don't have a great memory for memorizing passages of literature or poetry.
And.... well,

I play video games.

Yup, sure do. I love em. I guess that pretty much seals my fate right there.

I remember when my Dad brought home our first video game... "Zork." A completely word based exploration game, I played it for hours. I remember him bringing home the scripts printed out on reems of dot matrix printer paper. Then more games would come. An Atari. A commodore 64, a 128, I loved them. So did he. Our friends up the road got an Intellivision. We played SNAFU for hours. I grew up with these games. I actually feel so much more a part of that culture than the kids that I teach now. I was there for the birth man! I watched the games grow up into what they are!

I just brought home Soul Calibur 5 tonight. It released today. I was on the top 100 best players in North America list for Soul Calibur 4 for a very short time. I am not a passive player of these things. I don't spend hours on them like I used to as a kid though. I just can't, physically and psychologically. I do have other things to do.

There was, and still is something that draws me to these games. They meant exploration. Reaching out into new space. I always needed to find out what was behind the next door. What was in the mailbox on the North side of the house. (Zork reference for those not able to keep up...) I am certainly more than these video games. I am a damn good English teacher. I am proud of being a good father. I hike all the time and I read Thoreau. And... I play Skyrim and Soul Calibur and eagerly...itchingly, am awaiting the release of Diablo 3. Ah... Tyrael, you coy little arch-angel.

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bright and shiny

I showed Henry and Nora where to find Orion tonight. The stars are beautiful in the winter, one of the blessings of the cold.

For those who don't know, Orion's belt is the three prominent stars in a slightly diagonal line near the center, top of the picture.

The Brothers

Its funny. I have taken to taking a couple of back up pictures throughout the day, just in case I don't get the one I want later on. Tonight we visited with some of Jenny's friends in New Hampshire. They were great, actually, it was a really enjoyable evening, and for me to say that about being around people I don't really know, its really saying something.

At any rate, I thought that I would take my camera and take some sort of group picture, but I kinda wimped out. So, what you have are my two kitties, Saul and Ramses, taken earlier this morning. They are brothers given to me by a former student... Tory. I love em. They are incredibly friendly. Nora seriously used to drag Ramses around by the head. She would put him in her stroller and push him around the house. They are just loving sweet cats. They only have two drawbacks:

1. For some reason they eat small wires. The kind of thing that connects "remote control" kids cars to the handset... headphone wires etc. Actually, one of them ate right through the wire on a $100 set of bose headphones that I had. Not a good day.

2. They lick. Do other people's cats lick? I have never known cats to lick, but as soon as you start petting either of them, they immediately try to lick you back........and....... I kind of like it..... yeah I said that. They have these dry little tongues. I don't know.

They are sweet guys. I really couldn't ask for better kitties. They now sleep on our bed, right next to each other. We have really lucked out pet-wise. All of our pets have been really well behaved and sweet tempered.

purrrr

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In the quiet

When one has lived a long time alone,
and the hermit thrush calls and there is an answer,
and the bullfrog, head half out of water utters
the cantellations he sang in his first spring
and the snake lowers himself over the threshold
and creeps away among the stones, one sees,
they all live to mate with their kind, and one knows,
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one's kind toward these other kingdoms,
the hard prayer inside one's own singing,
is to come back, if one can, to one's own,
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens
when one has lived a long time alone.

Galway Kinnel

They ate Robin's Minstrels...

It was all about the middle ages, choral singing and mutli-course eating of food tonight. Jenny and I went to the Madrigal Dinner. I love this thing so much. I can't quite convey how professional the singing is. I will tell you that there is nothing really like it. It doesn't hurt to personally know about every third kid up there either. It was a beautiful night. Even the chicken was good.

I wish I could have recorded how amazing the singing really was. It is shocking the ability that is brought out in these kids. But, seeing as how even the pictures that I took were against the rules, I guess actually taping the thing would have been a bit too far. At any rate... if any of you performers are reading this, I am completely moved by your ability.
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Henry David

"Rise, free from care before the dawn and seek adventures." HDT

Have you ever read something and have it shoot like lightning through you. This quote from Henry David Thoreau did it for me. Earlier this year I was on facebook ( how about that for transcendentalism Mr. Thoreau?) and one of my good friends Jenn Eagan had it in her pictures. It was on one of those state funded plasticized signs that you can find dotting state parks... you know the ones.

I have always been a woods person. If you were to ask me right now: Ocean or Mountains? I will almost always choose mountains. There is something special about the hushed woods, deep pines, that smell, the brown needles on the ground. I remember another good Jen friend, Jennifer Goodheart, talking to me while walking around the campus of UMASS about native american remedies for stress. "Just breathe deep and walk through these pines Dave. Feel the needles brush against you and listen to how they rustle in the wind."

I have a direct affinity, I honestly believe a connection, to the woods. I need them. I need to be close to them, to know that they're there. It was one of the things that almost killed me when I moved to DC for a bit. I feel most at home with trees all around.

This quote hits me from many different angles "Rise, free from care before the dawn and seek adventures." I am a morning person. I feel lost if I don't get up consistently early and settle before my day. Like most other people, I assume, I need to shed these worries and breathe. As far as adventure... I think that that is a chapter in my life that I might dare to open this year.

"Rise, free from care before the dawn and seek adventures."

I think he had it right on many levels. I am taking his advice this year.

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the things we keep

Henry has a small dresser upstairs that has a small top drawer that we affectionately titled Henry's "special" drawer. He puts anything that he holds "sacred" in it. I knew he put a lot of things in there, but this is the first time I have actually taken an actual inventory.
So, here is a privileged look into Henry's mind and heart.

kind of starting top left...

1. a bag containing the shell of a cicada, and the shell of a seapurse
2. 6 various leggo pieces including a bright yellow, highly valued satellite dish
3. a baseball keychain
4. Nora's green squinky ring
5. a blue sparkly see-through mesh bag
6. various pipe cleaners
7. rolls of caps
8. a magic trick finger guillotine
9. A spider man watch
10. a cub scout bear paw bead holder
11. a squishy rubber skate
12. a pink pompom and two small blue pom poms.
13. a pokemon card
14. two cardboard disks, one with a chicken leg on it, and one with a bagel
15. a squishy green dinosaur
16. a green chaotic card
17. a schlech tag
18. a green lantern plastic bracelet
19. a sparkly piece of pipe cleaner
20. a collectable star wars trading card
21. a plastic sponge bob soccer figurine
22. three unknown drawings.
23. a paper with an "n" written on it standing for "knut" that Henry created after my reading Harry Potter to him.
24. a foam airplane
25. a bobcat badge award card
26. a soap box derby liscence
27. a clone wars action figure advertisement
28. a tag from a stuffed animal "malaria" microbe
29. a tag from a stuffed animal "black death" microbe. (he sleeps with these every night)
30. a jose guervo shiny purple plastic piece
31. one ripped off googley eye.
32. safety glasses
33. a squishy orange skeleton
34. a ginger bread man commemorative pocket watch
35. a baby jabba the hut figurine
36. a purple top
37. an orange cricket
38. a "who's book" book plate
39. a green frog ring
40. a black bat ring
41. a fake penny
42. a real penny
43. 3 plastic gold coins
44. a cat's eye marble
45. a plastic superball with a spider inside
46. a piece of play dough made to look like a split watermellon
47. a red dolphin flashlight
48. a blue plastic flashlight
49. a star trek flashlight that lights up red
50. a blue plastic frog
51. onw small magnifying glass
52. one larger magnifying glass
53. two green spider rings
54. three orange spider rings
55. one purple spider ring
56. 9 black spider rings
57. 6 black rubber spiders
58. one green plastic spider
59. one black broken insect leg
60. an amber necklace with a real bee inside it
61. a plastic necklace with a real spider inside of it
62. 3 snake finger puppets
63. three blue and one white dice
64. a black handle head
65. a plastic sticker ruby
66. a crosscut of an amethyst geode
67. a large blue sticky gem.
68. a nerf dart
69. a commemorative star trek blue flashlight
70. an orange plastic cockroach
71. a black plastic beetle
72. 3 bits of neon pink putty
73. a piece of clear glass
74. a clear sticky gem
75. a piece of clear quartz
76. a plastic silver coin
77. a pistachio in its shell
78. a sunflower seed in its shell
79. a wolf kerchief holder
80. a piece of a sea shell
81. a cardboard half circle with a battle axe on it
82. 2 amber sticky gems
83. two clear sticky gems
84. a black and green swirled rock
85. a squishy green alien
86. my old car key
87. a flattened penny
88. a highly annoying beetle clicker toy
89. an orange piece of paper
90. a grey piece of paper with the cryptically written W and 2 partially recognizable
91. a green star wars action figures light saber
92. Cad Bane's hat
93. what is, I believe, a storm trooper action figures laser blaster
94. Han solo's laser blaster
95. an amethyst sticky gem.
96, just realized I missed the three tool looking things that are actually hammers a files for unearthing things buried in sand and rock.

And there we have it. Henry's treasure trove.
I am proud.

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Good boy

It's late...we both need some sleep...

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The end of the day

I have always wanted constancy... It is my holy grail. I've never really found it. There are some small areas of success that I have found though. Reading at night is one of them. I read with Henry and/or Nora almost every night, and have been really consistent with that... especially with Henry: I am building that up with Nora as well. Every night we come upstairs and lie on my bed. I read to Henry while Jen reads to Nora, they very rarely like the same books. Sometimes, like tonight, I will read to both of them.

Henry is working his way through the second Harry Potter: Ron just swooped in with his flying car and rescued Harry from the Dursley's house. To Nora, I read the disney version of Robin Hood. If I read to Nora, Henry usually stays for that as well. I have really seen the benefits of this "every night" ritual. Henry nearly begs to keep reading, if we miss it, the world begins to end... no lie. He is now at the point of taking a real interest in what the words mean, and the physicality of reading. He likes to point out word groups that look especially enticing and ask about them. He always... always stops me if he doesn't know a word. Maybe I was able to make this so consistent because I have such a willing audience.

Nora isn't that attentive. She will dance around and sing as I am reading to Henry... which kills him. She climbs all over me, up on my back, fall of my side, climb through my legs, down face to face. But she is slowly building an interest, as long as she can pick the book. Henry used to fly around like that too. It took me a while to understand that he was still paying attention. He always knew what was going on if I asked him. I just had to trust that he was with me... and inevitably, he was.

I love this time. It's close and focused. No bright lights, nothing pulling them away, just some decent lighting, a good book, and the best company you could ask for.

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Weekend Update

I had a pretty busy weekend this weekend, and I couldn't really settle mentally. Sometimes this happens to me. Maybe it happens to everybody, I don't know. But it certainly happens to me. It's like I lose my center... my focus, and everything just flies around. So, still managed a picture a day, I just didn't get them up here. So here is a double whammy!!

Nora saw had her first 3-D experience this weekend. I went with my Mom and Dad and we saw beauty and the beast. She watched part of it with the glasses and then couldn't take it (I think the glasses themselves not the 3-D aspect) and watched the rest without them on. She didn't really respond to the "magic" of the 3-D like I thought she might.

Henry was at a freeze out with Jen on Saturday. He was supposed to stay overnight but came home instead. He got really nervous about a couple things and worked himself up. Jen actually thought he might have a fever, but he didn't. It didn't matter, he came home anyway, and that is fine and good. I remember feeling the same exact way.

Jenny also told me she got the car stuck on a hill for about 20 minutes, the whole time, Henry was completely freaking out in the back seat... this couldn't have set him up well for the day. He was actually nervous about getting back in a car at all and I had to talk him down about the whole thing. "Car's are safe Henry. Cars very very rarely tip over. Cars have all sorts of safety features... lets go over each one in detail..." He seems better now.

We went out to Ciao Bella Sunday after church (picture 2). I highly recommend the greek salad/spinach turnover combo. Actually, I think its the only thing I have ever ordered from there... Why mess with perfection?

Back on track

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So close... and so far gone

So for today, I am not going to post a new picture. I was looking through old videos and watched this, now a few years old, video. They are so tiny!!!! Nora's smile at the beginning completely melts my heart, and Henry has this little angelic face. I honestly didn't know I had the capacity to love this much. So, here, our trip to Mcdonalds.

Very Very Late

I am posting this this morning because I got home late and was completely exhausted. But I did manage to snap a picture... even though its pretty lame. I was out in the snow before the plows last night... let me tell you, that was an experience. The big adventure of last night was the hill that goes by the worcester airport. Wow! Total test of my winter driving skill. Kept it in 4th and bogged out all the way up the hill.

New baby...

Hello brand new baby :)

Homework

I have these pretty severe memories regarding homework. I distinctly remembering hitting these walls of ...I am still not sure what they were, but inability to focus on what I was doing. Really though, not just something that was a choice of mine. I remember just trying to make myself pay attention and it became this awful time where it was my will against whoever was trying to impose something else on me.

I tell Henry all the time that we have the exact same brain. He thinks so much like me that it honestly, honestly scares me sometimes. It kills me to see him struggle. But, at least I have perspective, and I have devoted myself to making learning a better place for Henry.

He actually had a really good time with his homework today. He normally spends about half an hour on homework and then 15 to 20 minutes reading every night... not bad for second grade. I don't want "homework" to become a dirty word in our house. I sit right next to him, every night, and correct papers while he works. I tell him he can take as long or as short a time to accomplish his work as he wants, and I don't put pressure on him to hurry.

This year, I have really seen a change in him. He seems to be embracing school in a whole new way. I love that.

Good work Henry.

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My place

This is where I write.

Nora's Birthday

Nora's Birthday was actually a couple weeks ago. But we divided her party up into two parties, one for family and one for friends. Today was the friends party.

She has been so excited for this. It is odd having kids and watching them grow. As an adult, you just seem to hit this stand still, where your own growth seems to stop and everything else around you speeds up. Nora is growing up right before my eyes. She is assertive and willful. She is smart. She give me problems, sure. But, I am proud of who she is.

One day Nora will rule this country... mark my words.

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Grandma Bronson

My Grandmother recently passed away. Jenny and I bought her paperwhites to keep in her room and this year at Christmas Jenny suggested that we grow them every winter to remember her.

She was strong at a time when many women were forced to be weak. She had a very difficult life at times. I have very clear memories of her clashing with my mom and not backing down. She had this frail little voice, especially near the end of her life, but her will never really fluctuated. She was always this force for me, outside of my immediate family.

I always knew that she was for me, even when she was completely disagreeing with something that I was doing. She never allowed herself to take a passive role in my life.

I love her. And, I miss her.

She was an artist and an intellect.

I will see you again Gram.

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Practice

It was good tonight to play with such great people and great musicians. It gives me hope for what could come. Thanks to everyone who came. For those not there, tonight we had two new singers, piano, violin, two guitars and bridget and I singing. I must say, it sound really nice.

its late...

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Home Alone

It's not true. My title to this prompt. I am never home alone. Someday, maybe in the future... someday, maybe I will have a bit of time to myself. But I really don't see that happening any time soon.
Jenny worked tonight. So, me and the kids. Which is fine. I am certainly not one of those work all day and commute home, eat supper and watch tv till I go to bed kind of Dad's. I absolutely hate it when Dad's refer to themselves as babysitting when their wives leave... totally offended. One of the big reasons I chose my profession was to have time with my family, and I love them. Just... sometimes...
I remember, when I was a kid, lying down in my room and watching the dust particles fly around in the sunbeams that shot above my bed. -Lets reiterate, I was lying down, and watching... dust particles twirl around.- And I look back with fondness, with feelings of some sort of lost utopia.
I don't need it all the time. Most of the time I am fine. Just somedays I would love a bit of silence. I don't turn on the the radio in my car anymore. I have a less than ten minute commute to work. I know that most people would kill for that. I do love it, no lie, but I really need some alone time sometimes.
And yet, I am feeling the need to tell you that when, at the end of the day, both of my little noise makers curl their little lima-bean-bodies into mine, and we read and they relax. There really is no better thing. . . just sometimes...

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Chaucer's first B-Day

So, today is Chaucer's official birthday. He turns one today. The kids were all excited about it. They wanted Hank, the neighbor's dog, to come over for his "party." Hank sometimes escapes his yard and wanders over here, and when he does, Chauc goes absolutely crazy. So, like a very good mom, Jenny called and they brought him over. Jen gave them both birthday bones.

We got Chauc in August this year. He was already pretty big... he is a "big" Chocolate Lab. We actually got him off of Craig's list believe it or not. He was in a house in Worcester, and they already had another dog and Chauc was too much trouble for them. So we bought him.

I knew that it would take some getting used to. The first day we had him, we decided that we weren't going to let him upstairs where our rugs are... the first floor is all wide pine floors. Well, that first afternoon, Nora wanted him to come upstairs, so against our decision, I let him. Five minutes later, diarrhea all over the rugs. Unbelievable. I spent the next half hour cleaning and recleaning the rugs. Jenny spent equal time cleaning after letting me know, in no uncertain terms, how stupid I was.

Fortunately, that is the only time that happened. He is sleeping on the rug right at my feet in our bedroom as I type this. He is a really good dog. He is all love... for months I didn't think he could bark. After a bit though, I heard him. I guess he barks when we leave for a while.

I have had equal success and failure with training him so far. I bought a wired, in-ground invisible fence and boy do I love it. Chaucer hit the thing a couple times, and now I don't even have to put a collar on him at all... he completely knows his boundaries.
He still doesn't crap in the woods though... right in the yard. If any of you know a good way to train him on that one, I am completely open for advice... (please).

The biggest asset he has become is with our kids. They both completely love him. Nora seriously rides him like a horse. They both look forward to seeing him first thing in the morning. He sleeps right next to Nora's bed some nights. Although, we have radiant heat downstairs, so on these cold nights, you can mostly find him down there. I've actually considered joining him... ah those heated floors!

He is sweet and loyal and kinda dumb. He knows how to sit and lay down and he comes every time I call. He is absolutely crazy about dog treats. He jumps into any body of water near him. He dug up some flowers in the front yard, destroyed the spotlight, tore apart the rope ladder on the kids swing set. But how can you hate on a dog that drapes himself over your feet any time you sit down. He is a great addition to our family.

Happy First Birthday Chauc!

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hidden

I was walking Chaucer when I got home from work, and instead of walking the dirt roads in Rutland State Park, I chose to walk the periphery of the fields that stretch all throughout that part of the park. We walked for about an hour and there were deer paths shooting off all over the place so I followed one especially prominent one. It lead to this thicket of twisting old vines, and I kept losing the path and finding it again. It finally ended at this mammoth pile of stones that must have been carted away from the fields when the prisoners farmed this area.

It got me to thinking about what is around us that is manmade and what is made by other things, wild things, things that we are in no way in control of. I was playing around with a poem while I walked home... something about the reclaiming of the wild. The deer taking back what we struggled for and our indifference to it all... our willing unawareness. We think they live at our discretion... but maybe it isn't that way, maybe they are just waiting to take it all back, slowly reclaim it all right under our noses.

The Soup Group

I am a bit nervous. This is the last of my weekly rituals to write about. After this... who knows? On Monday nights I go to a Bible Study at the McRell's in Holden. This is really no normal Bible study. Its really a no-holds-barred look at Christianity and culture. There is no questions beyond the scope of our conversation... tonight's topic was a perfect example, the subjugation of women both inside and outside the walls of Christianity.

As with all good things, what it really boils down to is the people who are with you. While the topics and opinions can fly all over the place, it is the real friendships that I have with all of the people that come that make it so special.

Someone makes some sort of soup... someone brings some sort of wine... someone makes some sort of bread.... and we all sit and talk while all of our kids progressively rip apart Sara's kid's room.

In truth, I didn't know if I would be able to find friends that I hold this close at this stage in my life. It gets more difficult as you get older, and I am not exactly easy to get to know. It is a special group of people that allow for the differences in opinion that we share, and allow for the full strengths of those opinions to be aired without fault. It is a rare find in the world at large and almost an impossibility within the Christian Church.

It should be known that the picture doesn't include everyone that fills Sara and Kevin's living room once a week. It can range upward of around 20 or so people some weeks.
I love our tiny ragtag group of thinkers... I love the closeness that we share.
I love Monday nights.

Uncharacteristic

Of all the things that I do semi-regularly, this is by far the strangest... for me at least. Here is some background first:

When I was in high school, I was completely lost. I mean really lost. As in, I had no idea what was going on and lived a semi-panicked life-style, drifting from one social tragedy to the next. Lets just say that I don't have many good memories from any of my teen years.

When I was in tenth grade, this guy named Kris befriended me. He was, and still is a great guy, and as quickly as I could, I hid under his personality. He was a singer and a keyboardist and I picked up a second hand bass guitar, put stripes of black electrical tape in random pattern on it, and grew my hair nice and long. The thing was, I barely played bass. I did like music, but the "band" bit, for me, was pretty much all external.

During that time however, I did develop a love of drums. After high school, when all of that school stuff dissolved, my love of music/drumming stayed. I kept on playing while my social life shifted around and new groups of friends phased in and out. I actually, eventually got to where I could hold my own.

Later, to foil the plotting of a soccer captain named Ash from taking my girlfriend while she was at college at Temple, (a strategy that ended up working by the way) I moved to Washington DC for a while. It was closer to her than Massachusetts and I had friends living there that graciously allowed me to stay with them. While I was there, I picked up guitar.

I am, at heart, a hermit. I would love nothing better than to be by myself for a long, long time. One of the best vacations I have ever had involves me camping alone, without any human interference for a week. I don't do well with crowds. My students might argue this, but teaching is a whole different thing... just trust me on that... Well, enough prattling on, here's the crux:

Every Sunday, I get up in front of a crowd of people and sing and play guitar. The picture is what I see once a week. It is so far out of my character it isn't even funny. I am not a spotlight kind of guy. But here I am, willingly, in front of people. I am slowly putting together a band. (We may have just picked up a keyboardist and another guitarist today and any bassists or drummers out there that are wanting to put in with a folk alternative vibe, please don't hesitate to contact me :) )I am practicing with a violinist. I have videos on youtube. I must ask myself every week where all of this came from.

There is definitely something in it for me. There must be or I wouldn't keep coming back to it. I love the oneness of being in a band with talented musicians. I love the anticipating of each other's moves. I love the build and languish in music. I love the intimacy that comes from being in a band. My new band is just beginning, and I just left a really solid group of incredibly talented musicians, that I miss. I can't wait for all of those perks to come alive again.

So here I am, with Bridget by my side (a very talented singer), every week, completely out of my element, and willing myself to keep going. Life is strange and can take you so far away from who you tell yourself you are, if you are brave enough to let it.

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Beautiful morning

I had totally different plans for this picture today, but my morning walk was just about as beautiful as it gets. I went with Henry and Chauc.

Also, I know it is only supposed to be a picture a day, but I thought that the three captured it better. The birds are Cedar Waxwings and House Finches. Pretty little things.

You can click on any of the pictures on my page to get a bigger view btw.

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reliance

They have been this way forever. And even though they fight during the day, and jealousies rage all over the place, this is what it comes down to. Nora actually went to bed in her own room, something that has just recently started happening, maybe a week ago. She normally sleeps on a little mattress that we pull out next to Henry's bed. But they stay up so late talking to each other that I had to make a three strike rule. Three strikes and they sleep in different bedrooms, but I woke this morning to find her right back where she feels safe.

And I must say, I do love that.

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holding on

briliant
hanging
reminders
of what just passed

clinging
to bare
memories

red, green, blue
shining lamely

our hopes
for better things
to come

Home

I am home right now. Sitting next to Henry and hearing him work through his math homework for the week.

"The petting zoo had 6 goats, 2 sheep, 1 pony, and 1 calf. How many animals were in the petting zoo?"

He wrote "9." ... missed it by one... I'll tell him in a second.

Nora is watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the other room.

The dishwasher is making watery mechanical sounds.

Chaucer is at the door outside (better go let him in).

Both the bike that Henry got last Christmas and the one that Nora just got for her birthday are sitting ready to go in our living room. They just finished riding them in endless circles around the inside of the house. Henry got pissed because Nora is already a better rider than he is.

Ramses and Saul (our two cats) are curled up on my bed upstairs.

There are paperwhites growing on the window next to me in memory of my Grandma Bronson who recently passed away.

I never really thought I would get here. We don't have a big house, its a little white cape. A student I taught that lives down the street called it a "tiny, cute, little, white house." I told her that was too many adjectives.

It is surrounded by untamed woods on pretty much all sides. I still have yet to build up the courage to use a chainsaw. I have only tried once and the thing got bound up in the tiny little tree I was cutting down, and as it fell on top of me, knocking me to the ground (it was surprisingly heavy) it also broke the chain on my saw. I have never really got around to getting another one, or building my pride back up enough to try again.
( just told Henry that he got it wrong... he took it like a trooper. He's now spelling the words "World, something and different" by sound.)

There are comforts here. I still am looking for the overwhelming peace that I thought would come with owning a home. There is a lot of stress that I wasn't expecting. But I do like having this thing that I can mold as I see fit, or ruin as it may be.

Henry is done now, and Nora and he are riding in their circles again, right through the closet that I tore down to make a hallway, through the livingroom and what used to be the wall that divided the two bedrooms that we had downstairs before I built the upstairs ones, past the endtable that used to be red before I painted it blue and then painted it again a light tan color, (we still call it the "blue thing") past the new/old piano that we bought about a year ago and that I moved for the corner to be open for the christmas tree that we cut down at a neighbor's house and set up a month ago, and past the blocks that sit on top of it, that the McRells, our close friends, gave us that spell out H O M E.

home away from home

I hold an amazing and amazingly strange job. I have tried to explain the complexity of what I do several times and have never really been able to capture it. I think that the reason for this is that we have all been on the receiving end. We were all students at one point or another, and we think that our experience as students some how equates to what a teacher does. I can tell you that for several serious reasons, it doesn't. Not the least of these is that teaching has changed so drastically since I have become one. For example, I have never taught a single lesson from a text book. Actually, I have never even opened one in class. I am pretty sure, that is all that my teachers in high school ever did... the face of teaching and academia is changing fast and is racing to improve, making it a boiling pot of pressure and stress, and also rewards.

There are things to love about teaching, and things that make you want to hide under rocks. I guess that is the same for any career. But it seems that both sides of that equation are magnified in teaching. For example, I absolutely love working with kids and the rewards that come from benefitting them in their education are really priceless. I can go home most days knowing that I made the world directly around me a better place. That really is saying something.

One of the most frustrating aspects of teaching completely blindsided me. The "public" aspect of this job is incredible. I never thought that teaching is holding a public office and is really given to the whims of public opinion. I simply don't function that way. I am not a politician and I have no aspirations or skills in that arena. Even now, writing in this blog, I am monitoring my words because they are being made known to the public and may be levered against me someday. In my eight years of teaching, I really have never had that happen to me, but I see it all the time.

I could go on about the pay, but that is pretty commonly known. The only oar that I will dip in here is that most people see teaching as a job with tons of vacation time. Teaching has no vacation time. We are never paid for our vacations, not even one day. We, instead, are forced to take time off without pay. How many people would like to see that in their careers. "Hey have a couple weeks off for some down time, but yeah, we aren't going to pay you for those. OK?"

I have worked at many places in my life. I came to teaching late: in my thirties. I love what I do. I really love it. But it is in no way easy. In the eight years I have been a teacher, I have never had a year when at least one of the teachers around me hasn't left or been let go for some reason or another. It is a complex and high stress job for far less than average pay.

Well, I guess that that is a good first foray into that arena. I didn't really even touch the complexities of it all, but I feel that that could go on for far too long for one post. I love what I do, in all of its difficulty and satisfaction. It is a wrestling match with the now for the future and I do love that fight.

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Orange

We wear these hats. Mine is just as orange but it has a visor. Henry and I picked them out together at Klems, seriously, my favorite store of all time. It's in Spencer. I have found both fox scat spray and crystal, floating fairies in the same trip. Also, they give out free popcorn every time we visit. That, is pretty big with the kids.... and Jenny.

So, we picked out these hats because sometimes Henry will wake up early enough to go for my walk with Chaucer. I go before school, when it is light enough and on the weekends. We walk for about an hour, although today it was more like two. Chaucer becomes an entirely different dog. For those of you that haven't met him, he is the chillest, less-than-a-year old chocolate lab puppy you have ever met. I seriously don't think he will bother to move at all when he gets older. But, take him out for a walk in Rutland State Park and everything changes.
He has this little jingle bell thingy that I put on his collar to scare away bears (don't laugh, I have come face to face with that and worse in that park). As soon as he hears me pick them up, the change ensues. I bring a collar, but I don't put it on him unless we meet other people with dogs. He blasts around the open fields, dives straight into the water, chases every available bird/rabbit/coyote/stick that he can find. Then when we get home, he completely collapses, and that's it for the day.

Henry loves it. There is something seriously amazing about seeing him in his element. He literally dives into the water.

So, we follow him, in our orange hats and I look for birds, and Henry swats things with sticks and breaks the ice on the surface of puddles.

This is why I don't live in the city.

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Begin

So this is a beginning of sorts. Maybe introductions are in order. I will be as succinct as possible here.

My intentions.
I am going to try to take one picture every day this year and write a little. I am also going to try to streamline this whole thing by only taking one draft/picture every day (no multiple attempts and massive editing). And I promise that whatever picture I post will be taken that day... no hoarding pictures and then releasing them.
I hope that this will help me to think before hand and not spend forever trying to edit out mistakes. Mistakes happen, I intend to let them.

My Writing.
So this is me. One solid year of photos and thoughts. I have ideas for this, some of them are kind of crazy and will ask for a bit of bravery. Some might be boring. I guess I am equal parts both so it is to be expected.

My Goal.
Why would I tie myself to something like this? Well, I have seen a couple of these done in the past and I just love the outcome. One solid year of my life, with all of the ups and downs recorded nicely here. I want to tap into some creativity here. I have been feeling a little dry and I want to flow again. I want to be honest, so you can expect that. I am 40, and I am feeling maybe a little melancholy. I am hoping to gather my thoughts and this seems like an exciting way to do that.