Weekend Life

One of the many reasons that I love the change of seasons is the food each season brings.

Noah and I really looked forward to participating in the Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race again this year, which would have been our fourth in a row. But a few days before the race on June 2 we realized it wouldn’t work.

It is nearly indisputable that some things just work better together. 

It’s a teacher’s dream. How often do you get to point to something happening in your own classroom – about which you recently lectured – and say, “This! This is what we talked about! Remember the Fifth Amendment?" Man, that feels good.

It’s a teacher’s dream. How often do you get to point to something happening in your own classroom – about which you recently lectured – and say, “This! This is what we talked about! Remember the Fifth Amendment?" Man, that feels good.

I threaten to cut down our weeping willow after every storm while we’re out picking up all the branches it dropped. I threaten to cut it down when my husband is risking life and limb to prune out the dead wood that occurs all too often. I threaten to cut it down every fall when it finally drops its leaves after we have put away the bagging lawnmower for the winter. I just hate that tree!

Every two to three years in the spring we perform a ritual at our house that is repeated at many other homes in our area – the spreading of the mulch.  This has become such a tradition it should be noted on our calendars as Mulch Day! This year as I watched the truck dump a huge pile of mulch on our driveway I started thinking about why we do this. What is the purpose of mulch? Are there right and wrong ways to spread it? 

May. What a deceptively lovely month. It begins innocently enough, with those sweet little May baskets festooned with ribbons and fresh blooms, but by month’s end, most parents of school children are flat on their backs begging for mercy. Yes, May, you got me again. You’re worse than Christmas. You’re kicking my butt.