Monday, January 20, 2014

2014 Field Trip Number 1

Two of my educational goals for 2014 are to do more field trips (after all it's not a Great Green Room if we are confined all the time to the house) and to dig deeper into the meaning behind holidays.  Today, Martin Luther King Day, we accomplished both.

This morning, after doing a limited amount of desk work and practicing violins, my two pupils and I headed downtown to our area's Martin Luther King Annual Parade.

While I understand that a parade may not seem inherently educational, MLK's presence was all over the place in banners, and pictures and references.  For example, we saw a garbage truck covered in a banner showing a picture of guardsman and older garbage trucks in 1968 in Memphis, the event attended by MLK prior to his assassination.  To enhance our experience we had read the simple but informative picture book, Martin's Big Words the evening before.  It told about this event and others in MLK's life.

Waiting for the parade to start

Here it comes!
The fifty degree weather was ideal for a January parade.  It was a good parade, too.  It contained the right mixture of cars, walkers, and floats. Plus the bands.  As a former bandie, I love the bands--it is a physical impossibility for me to watch a band without tears.  Also, with cavity prone kids, I was quite satisfied that they each got one piece of candy.  One.  There are advantages to being at the end of the parade route.

**sniff**

To top things off, after the parade we met my husband for a little downtown lunch date.  If there's one thing I miss about full-time employment, it is the restaurant lunch.  It was a treat.


Sunday, January 5, 2014

Snow!



In October, a falconer came to speak to our Classical Conversations group and told us that physical changes in his birds indicated we were in for a hard winter.  So far, the falconer and his birds have been right.  It's been a snowier than usual winter so far.

On Friday, we travelled north to Missouri to visit my parents when the weatherman was predicting less than an inch of snow.  We arrived to snow-accumulation of forecasts of 6 to 10 inches.  We decided to cut our visit short and high-tail it back to Oklahoma a day early.

As my Facebook feed fills up with pictures of jack-knifed trailers alone I-44, I'm glad we did.  Instead of inching alone the interstate in the snow, we're nestled at home with a fire in the fireplace and chili simmering on the stove.

Our evening church services have also been cancelled, allowing me extra time to put the finishing touches on lesson plans for our first Classical Conversations meeting of 2014 on Monday.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A New Year

A new year has arrived.  Oh, the possibilities!

There was nothing wrong with 2013.  Many blessings came our way during those twelve months.  I'm thankful to God for those.

Our little family celebrated the year's end with a game of Mexican Train, nacho cheese, jalapeno poppers and grape soda.


I played out around 8:30.  Pathetic.  When the neighbors shot of fireworks at midnight, I raised an eyelid then flopped over went back to sleep.

The dreamer and schemer in me sees a new year as a new chance to fulfill those familiar resolutions--the ones about weight loss and self-improvement and spiritual renewal.

I'll work on these old friends and most likely experience the same combination of success and failure as last year and the year before.  The important thing, I think, is to keep on striving.

During the striving, I'll keep on living and enjoying God's gifts.  This day number one has already brought one of my favorite blessings of the year, my book club's annual first-day brunch.  I grabbed my quiche and went to enjoy a few hours of food, friendship and books.


If this first day of 2014 is any indication.  It's going to be a great year.