For the last several years I have spent my early spring planning out my beautiful garden. You know like the ones on Pinterest with the all the plants in neat containers and overflowing with bounty. With this image in mind, I toil through the spring getting the soil ready and planting my seeds. Each year I get a little closer to my image. The first year, within months my walkways were covered with weeds taller than my planting beds. I didn’t realize my dream included weeding.

I was recently on a long car trip to Nashville, TN for my son’s college day. I love listening to books to help pass the time. This trip I was excited to listen to a book by an author, Benjamin Hardy, who has really inspired me along my writing journey. Hardy writes books with strategies to encourage growth and transformational science. I was excited to listen to his newest book, Be Your Future Self Now. One of the interesting suggestions in this book was to write a letter to

It’s a winter wonderland. Ice covers the trees from head to toe. Rain falls. Water freezes encasing the branches in a thick, shimmering block of ice . A crunching sound fills the air. I look, trying to locate the source of the sound. A tree once solid and strong lays split on the ground. Another crunch and another tree falls to the ground. I stand in awe trying to embrace the beauty of the crystal forest in contrast to the slow, nearly silent destruction of the mighty trees s

When I first started planning to do this blog, I had a great idea for an inspirational message about getting up in the morning and leaning in. But to be completely honest, this is something I’ve struggled with over the past few weeks. With the cooler fall mornings, instead of jumping out of bed, I have been hitting the snooze and snuggling under the covers for a few minutes. Many of my creative writing tasks have recently been replaced with needing to develop spreadsheets and

As my students walked into class today, they were greeted by someone new. Dr. Peterson, the Head Zookeeper, welcomed the students into class. Wearing my safari hat, vest, boots, and my official nametag, I handed the students their new nametags. They were now zookeepers in training. We continued the role playing as I shared a letter informing them of a challenge to create a zoo. The zookeepers in training would need to select an animal, design a habitat that could be disman

I didn’t grow up with any pets. My dad always said, “We’ll get a dog when we have a barn.” I guess I showed him, because now I have a barn and I’m on my third dog. I also have a horse, chickens and cats. In all honesty, I never imagined this would be my life. Life just put me here. I’m enjoying almost every minute of it. There are some days when it just seems like a little too much. Like this week. What started as a simple water test, turned into the complete collapse of o