bits of sunshine

a simple letter

hello friends,

this evening i was working away on entering grades into my online grade book.  what a funny feeling to be clicking quarter 4 each time i add an assignment and grade.  this quarter 4 mark makes me feel reflective.  and very grateful.

i think it's time for a right now sort of list.  

today i am

wondering just how some of the pieces will fit together, but it is a good wonder

listening to music in our classroom {avett brothers, symphonies, walk off the earth, film scores}

reading some mary oliver, some edith holden, some scripture, and some instgram - so many good words

eating gingersnaps and sweet potatoes {sort of sounds like fall, but feeds the need for warm and bright on this wild march day}

drinking coffee and more coffee.  always coffee

seeing clouds of every shape and size and description and color and type {some dropping all manner of precipitation} move through and over and around us today

wearing a cozy flannel shirt under a zip hoodie, my favorite jeans, my favorite glasses, my new favorite ring, and earrings i made

feeling grateful for this year of teaching both my kiddos again 

correcting social studies tests and grammar

enjoying journal entries and creative sentences

wanting all four of us {our little family here} to feel better {head colds and poison ivy = yuck}

needing maybe just some deep breaths and a bit of a certain kind of space

counting down the days until summer break and a bit of a reset after this first year in our new place

thinking that i am willing to be dazzled and filled with awe over simple, incomprehensible splendor

loving ben. always ben. and my kiddos

praising the author of grace and strength and peace and understanding

knowing that there is no line between the sacred and the secular, this life i live is all blurred together and wonderful and beautiful, a song of praise to my God, as long as i have breath to count blessings and gratitude, as long as i have life i have hope to share, that sacred hope pouring over into every nook and cranny of it all, making all sacred, making all a witness.

today i am making all a witness.

be a witness, my friends.  a witness to beauty.  a witness to gratitude.  a witness to the sacred.

go gently and be wonderful.  love, e

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older right now posts (a few of them anyway)

here and here and here 

 

3.5.16

yesterday
just before dusk
out in the old tornado scar
he pointed
flushed
almost caught
a sharptail
a hen
she flew
inches from his face
maybe her feathers brushed his whiskers
and had he been older
and just a little wiser
she wouldn't have flown off
to bed down for the night

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{i just found this poem in my notebook, while looking for another bit of writing, and wanted to share it here, with you}

{on another note, puppies and kiddos grow so awfully wonderfully quickly}

the sky i'm under

the sky i'm under, the sky out here, does wonderful, beautiful things. 

the sky has a way of making beauty.

the way sun and clouds play together. 

the way the wind whips through sometimes and sends clouds through a shape-changing, billowing dance.

the way the air can be so still and stable that every plane using this fly-way leaves a contrail.

the way that one can see so very, very far.  there is very little to stop and hold a long gaze into heaven.  so i let my eyes rest on the wonders of the sky.  

i take in, eat up, swallow the deeply saturated blues and golds, the fiery flaming pinks and oranges, the greys that undulate between soft and heavy, light and dark.

i am finding a home and rest for my soul under this expanse of sky. 

this evening, at the end of a lovely, warm (67 degrees F) day, i wrote a little snapshot from my backyard:  * still air * geese on the river honking out a bedding down song * a down jacket * an old jeep seat * a cup of fresh coffee * the pup that i'm still getting to know, still learning how to settle with * the owl over by the river hooting a disjointed melody * watching contrails {at least ten in the past half-hour}, what a busy sky tonight * the first stars {and planets, i think} starting to show their glittering selves while the sun put on a glorious show with encore after encore *

i sat on the old jeep seat through two whole cups of coffee, just watching the changing of cloud and color in the western sky and listening to night fall around me.  it was beautiful.