Admittedly, I’ve never been a huge fan of Mary. I have nothing against her specifically, but after 25 + years of hearing the Christmas story each December, I think my heart grew numb to her role in bringing our Emmanuel into the world. The verses in the gospel of Luke just seem to roll over the tongue in oh-so-familiar tones,…
It’s taken me a long time to say those words. Even now, they start to make me shiver a little, just thinking those thoughts. Am I ready for this? My journals for the last 15 years are full of so many hopes and dreams, but they’re fluffed up in between the multiple fears that I’ve had while going through different…
For all of my junior high and high school students – past and present – you are, after all, my inspiration… My grammar is just as terrible as anyone else’s. The only difference is that I tell people I have a degree that allows me to make up new words. #TheNextShakespeare #FemaleDrSeuss I showed my students a photo…
I’m tired. Am I allowed to say that? It’s now been three months since I’ve been back at the front of the classroom, and I think I’m finally starting to settle into things. But after a week’s visit to see family in Ontario, we returned home to a grey, cold, snowy, day… and I felt so very, very tired. And…
And I have no idea how to deal with it. Because this isn’t the kind of season where you can see it in the forecast, or mark the calendar with the changing colours… It’s invisible. Hidden. Secret. Unimportant. At least, to everyone but us.
There was a slight drizzle, as it should be. After all, we were walking in an old cemetery, littered with mossy headstones and broken slabs. Odin was in doggy heaven, racing around the occasional bushes and rocks, poking his head into holes and paths leading from the clearing. I, on the other hand, was apparently the last living human to…
In a school yard not so far, far away… PLAY GROUND WARS EPISODE V Summer Strikes Back It is a dark time for the school. Even though June is coming to a close, exams and final projects have driven the students from their outdoor play and pursued them back inside the classroom. Evading the studying and the tests, a group…
“If you have faith, you can move mountains.” But when mountains move, it’s not magic. No abracadabra, snap once, POOF. Applause. …There’s crumbling, cracking, grumbling, moaning. There are fault lines and avalanches, earthquakes and falling rocks. It’s long. Sometimes Painful. Yet miraculous. A New Birth.
My year of Hiatus is almost up. At least, that’s what my unknown future is telling me. What my bank account is telling me. What my current career options are telling me. And that’s scary. Because this has been such a beautiful collection of days, strung together with free time, learning, games, and love. And I don’t want to give…
May 23, 2016 Dear Seventeen, Ten Years. It’s been Ten Years since you wrote that letter, and stuffed it in an envelope labeled “Lisa Kaastra: Age 27”. Ten Years? I can’t help but laugh a little at you, Seventeen. You were silly. But in a fun, naïve, adventurous kind of way. You asked, “Does the year of twenty-seven have all…