Eli at Twelve Years Old

Eli at Twelve Years Old

• favorite color: red
• favorite food: burritos
• favorite dessert: cheesecake
• favorite thing to do: sleep in
• favorite video game: Star Wars Battle Front (PS4)
• favorite subject in school: language arts
• favorite book you read this year: The Outsiders
• favorite music this year: Ed Sheeran

What is the meaning of life?

• to return to Heavenly Father

What do you want to be when you grow up?

• an architect guy

What makes you happy?

• When I don't have to wake up early in the morning to go to school. And elephant jokes.

What are you afraid of?

• Crabs. And bad elephant jokes.

If you had one wish, what would you wish for?

• Cole to get appendicitis.

What is the funniest word?

• fard

What is the hardest thing to do?

• whistle

What is the easiest thing to do?

• eat

What is the best thing in the world?

• food

What is the worst thing in the world?

• Rylan. Wait, probably the hour and a half on the school bus.

What makes you mad?

• When the school bus is late. (What makes his mom mad is when the school bus is early...)

What is the meaning of love?

• personal space

If you had all the money in the world, what would you do with it?

• make it rain

A Hard Day for Dreaming

This is a novel I wrote once upon a time. It's been gathering dust in a google drive for a few years. If you're not doing anything with the rest of your Christmas break, you could read it. I'm pretty proud of it.
...

A HARD DAY FOR DREAMING

In her last semester of college, Emma Whitacker is torn between two men. She feels a connection with steady but stoic Thomas thanks to their shared love of indie bands, and when he tells her that he loves her, she believes she has found true love. But when her friend Will impulsively kisses her, her confused feelings leave her questioning how you know when you've found The One. Ten years later, married to one man but dreaming about the other, she can’t help but wonder, “Did I make the right choice?” Pulled between the past and the present, Emma contemplates what it means to fall in love, to be married, and to become a mother.

Thanskgiving 2017

Mom, Dad, and Kellie (and family) came to our house for Thanksgiving this year. Michael made his traditional pulled pork and cranberry stuffing. I made some pies.


Kellie's husband Alex is an ice hockey fiend, so we took him and our own ice hockey boys to a skating rink. This was my second time ice skating in my 40 years. I actually think I'd enjoy ice skating if I could do it more often. Too bad it's so expensive.








While they were at our house, I put my mom to work making me a work of art to hang over my table. I don't know if you'd call it a painting or what - it's just a quote from my favorite book ever. I can't decide yet if I want to frame it, but currently it is unframed. Either way, I love it.

Halloween 2017...It happened

Mad scientist, the 11th Doctor, Hype Beast

My narrative nonfiction example

My students are working on an assignment in which they have to interview someone and then use that interview as the basis for their own narrative nonfiction piece. They were having a hard time with the assignment, so I wrote my own example.

RECURSIVE DREAM

Mika the Terrible

After we got back from our beach hopping adventures, I started hounding Michael to let us get a dog. His criteria for years had been that I get a job in Wake County, and since I had finally met that criteria, I figured we'd better hurry up and get a dog before I started work. After a couple of weeks of scouring the websites of all of the animal shelters in the area, I came across this dark chocolate pit bull mix named Mika, and I figured it was fate. (If Michael and I had ever had a girl baby, we'd planned to name her Mika.)




For the first few days after she came home with us, she was an angel. Then I took her to dog training classes for the first time, and she turned into a terror. She did not like the trainer's dog and spent the whole time growling and barking at him. Truth be told, she didn't like being around any dogs; she couldn't understand why we wanted her to sit quietly and behave when there were other dogs to play with.

Then she started testing the boundaries at home, nipping at the boys and running in crazy circles while on a leash (which is not fun for the person holding the leash!). Finally, I was getting really worried about having her around the kids - not because she was mean but because she was too excited and would lose control. I wanted to take her back to the shelter, but Michael convinced me to hire a dog behavior specialist, who came to our house, observed her, and gave us some tips. Mostly, she just put my mind at ease. We finished up the dog training classes, got Mika somewhat under control, and we're all very happy to have Mika in our home now. Even Michael (even if he says he just tolerates her).





One day, a neighbor's dog wandered into our yard, and Mika thought she'd died and gone to doggie heaven.

Beach-Hopping 2017: Angel Tree and Charleston

Michael made his way home from Tybee, and the boys and I continued on our beach hopping adventure. We originally intended to do a couple of days in Charleston, SC and then make our way up to the Outer Banks for our final destination, but by this time, the boys were beached and camped out. We ended up staying in Charleston for four days, part at a gorgeous KOA on an old plantation and part at a Holiday Inn. Then we headed straight back to Raleigh.

On the way to Charleston, we took a side trip to see this amazing 400-year-old tree.




On the first day in Charleston, we took a boat tour of an old fort and walked along the river. The boys were so grumpy this day and bickered constantly about the heat, so the next day, after we'd moved to the hotel, I told them I was leaving them while I went sightseeing. So of course, they begged to come with me and swore they'd be good. (They were mostly good.) On the last day, we found a spot to watch the fireworks for the Fourth of July.








One other crazy memory from the KOA in Charleston: one of the other groups of campers had two dogs with them, and we were woken up to the sounds of them shouting for their dogs, which had jumped the fence to get a flock of ducks in the lake. One of the dogs swam back, but the other kept going and going and disappeared into the distance. I have no idea if the campers ever got him back. It was insane.