33 will be a great year!

I had a great birthday doing some very Eugeny things like disc golf, running 3.3 miles (since I'm in no shape to run 33 right now), cooking hotdogs out at Dexter, watching the dogs romp and swim, and dinner and wine tasting at King Estate Winery. 

But the even better present is the idea that next year I get to have my birthday back home in NC. I'm happy to officially announce on the blog that we are moving back to NC...again...but this time for real!!

No AC

Normally the problem of no AC wouldn't really be a problem in Eugene like it would be in NC. However, no AC becomes a problem when the Northwest experiences an unprecedented heat wave with temps nearing 100 degrees.

When you have no AC you start to learn the ropes of keeping the house somewhat cool. Things like opening the windows at night but definitely not during the day, not cooking very much, closing the blinds, and not turning on any lights. I must admit this has taught me a few things, most notably, how to appreciate a dark house and how sweating in your house is quite different than sweating outside during a run or even in the hot room doing yoga.

I've grown accustomed to this view

Cool spot

WA

We weekend tripped to Olympia, WA to see Bekah and James/Morrison for a little over-nighter at the Foster-Keddie family compound and Marina.

Nice time.

Bekah!

June 13th is a very special day because it is the day that my very special sister, Bekah was born. 

She is kind, compassionate, selfless, afraid of flying, hilarious, and a damn good writer. She's the oldest sister. The sister of reason and right. She is the successful sister. The sister who knows exactly what she wants, works hard every day for it, and gets it. What an inspiration!

I'm so lucky I get to call her my sister. 

Happy Birthday, Beeeeekah!

A grid for the woman who taught me about grids. Grids!

15 years?!

I graduated high school 15 years ago today. 

Does that make me old?

I need it!

I day-dreamed that I had a pineapple dress. And now I totally need one. So, instead of grading my EDST 464 finals, I'm googling pineapple dresses.

Are you my pineapple dress?

Maybe it's you, classy picnic dress...

Maybe it's a pineapple romper

Or the subtle pineapple approach

Or maybe the not so subtle pineapple approach...

Rewards of Teaching

Teaching is hard, especially when you're teaching 86 seniors the last term of their senior year. They stare at you, get on their phones during class, try to get out of doing their work, and other seniory things that I can't really get mad about because I did them all myself when I was a senior.

However, one of greatest rewards of teaching is seeing your students present exemplar work or having a student say "Thank you, I learned so much from your class". On my last day of class this Thursday I got to experience both of these rewards.

For our final project for Multicultural Literacy, I gave the students a choice between writing a 10-page paper or writing their own Multicultural Children's book.  I got a lot of really cool books and some well-written papers (along with some half-assed papers as well), but this book below really takes the cake. It's the story of my student's father, a Japsnese-American who was afraid to eat his lunch on the Boy Scout trips he went on when he was younger because it was different from the other lunches. 

The cover. Notice these individually cut out, collage-style illustrations

Notice the detail on the rolled brown paper bag lunches

We all have these thoughts sometimes.

I love how she captured the emotion in these faces.

This isn't the whole book, but I just wanted to share a few pages of this adorable and moving story about being different. I'd like to think that my stellar teaching had a small hand in its creation.