playing at camp

This morning
my ladies at camp
were turning cartwheels.
During the course of their dizzy happiness,
they recalled that some teacher...
(mmmm... who could she be?)
knew how to do them too...

Sigh...
yup...
that would be me...
playing
with my crew
at
summer camp!

Captured Calm

As I glanced into my rear view mirror,

on the way back from our favorite Metro Park,

I grinned.

There,

on my middle child's face,

was an expression that made my heart glad.

Our hike,

through the massive trees

and down near the pond

had been well received by all.

I picked up the camera from the cup holder,

instinctively turned it on and held up the camera to my mirror.

Cross my heart their was no one behind us

and my eyes,

after checking this fact,

never left the road.

Back at home,

as I looked over the pictures,

I had to let out a sigh

and send up a prayer of thanks.

I was glad that I had agreed with my oldest daughters plea for an adventure.

All afternoon I had worked on paperwork that has been piling up.

I made it through the whole pile with only a few loose ends to tie up.

I thought while I worked,

I thought about words of wisdom I had heard today.

The first were from Pastor Angie's sermon this morning

when she talked about her own path to accepting the phrase,
"Bloom where you are planted."

I think about my life, it is not what I expected,

and yet there are so many blessings,

so many opportunities

that I think I need to do a lot less fretting

and more enjoying the life I have been given.

The second wise words I considered came from my dad who loves me enough to call it as he sees it. I was whining about my mountains of work which, though I freely admit were my fault, never -the- less were getting me down. My father assured me I wasn't the only one in the world who felt that way. Sigh... parents... useful critters...

At dinner time

when my dear ones had an itching for an adventure,

I knew it was a good idea.

So off we went joyfully and appropriately leaving our cares behind us.

We enjoyed each others company,

found bugs,

admired flowers,

saw a heron fly in and land looking for food...

Happy moments to treasure.

My life is good.

I am grateful.

May your day,

your night,

your week...

Be blessed with happiness.

May we all,

"Bloom where we are planted"!

Fun Days with Children

In less than a half hour I'll be headed out the door to work. I am so fortunate that my "work" takes me into a school. Being a teacher is the most wonderful job in the world. I'm constantly busy and the challenge of teaching so that my students learn the standards is an amazing responsibility.

However, this week, none of the "stress" of teaching applies. It is a non-curriculum week which means basically I get paid to play all day. Yesterday I played Old Maid and Crazy Eights. Small children brought me pretend food for me to taste and I played chasing games in our gym. At lunch I still reminded children of their manners and I did put kids, "on the wall" at recess for hitting and kissing, but it was a purely fun day.

There are so few days in life that we are allowed to just play. When they come they should be treasured, enjoyed... and lived to the fullest!