Stories Connect Us [CELEBRATE This Week 167}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

Franki Sibberson & Katharine Hale

I'm tattered. Things have been rough in my momma corner of the world, but this is the time of year for my favorite conference of all -- NCTE.  

I cried while packing. I took a photo of packing, posted it on Instagram, and then sat on my bed and sobbed.

"What's wrong?" Andy asked, surprised when he walked in the bedroom.

"I don't know," I answered. "I love NCTE. I love the people. I love the sessions. I love presenting. I don't know what's wrong."

"It'll be fine," Andy said before slipping out of the room.

The idea of venturing out, putting forth the energy of connecting, and staying focused on professional work is a little daunting. 

I finished packing and made a choice to claim joy. I didn't feel like choosing joy, but I did it anyway.

I'm grateful for this choice. I folded up my guilty feelings. I put away feeling like I didn't measure up. I quit worrying about the schedule.

I decided to relax and just enjoy the experience.

I have been so blessed.It's a little unfair to pick one photo, because my celebration is the collective whole.  It's the goodness of people that I'm celebrating. I love the way paths cross and there's a hug and a hello. I love the diversity of friends and the way our professional work webs together.

I feel connected.

This feels like an extravagant gift, worthy of a celebration. Because of our intense parenting season, I haven't been able to keep up with connections like I would have liked. 

I love stories. 

I love people.

I celebrate the ability of story to connect us and the strength of those connections to sustain us.

If you're at NCTE, I sincerely hope our paths will cross. Let me know how to make that happen through Twitter. And if our paths have crossed, thank you for your sweet hello and hug. Your kindness makes me smile.

PS -- I made a free video mini-training. It was super fun, and I think you'll like it. You can get it by signing up below. Happy teaching!

Taking Time {CELEBRATE This Week: 165}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

I'm celebrating taking time. Life can be a rat race. We can get all caught up in the things that must-be-done. We can run ourselves ragged trying to keep up. We can crush our spirits under the weight of things that we didn't have time to do.

I'm learning how to slow down. This seems a little ridiculous to me, but it is the truth. Somewhere between savoring the moments and documenting the celebrations, I became hurry-scurry and controlling.

I'm learning to make time is a lie. We cannot make time. We've been given 24 hours each day. We have been created to sleep and eat and rest and play and work and love during each 24 hour cycle. Neither of these designs are a mistake. 

The human mistake is believing things like rest and play and sleep and love are not essential. These things are just as important (or perhaps even more important) than work and cleaning and appointments.

I'm thieving. I'm stealing. I'm swiping. And I'm celebrating!

We went for walks and lingered on the abandoned bridge. We tossed sticks into the creek. We jumped in leaves. We carved pumpkins. We watched a movie and snuggled on the couch. I went to bed early. I cooked from scratch and chopped broccoli.  We played Uno after dinner. We sat and talked with one another and with friends who dropped by for unexpected visits. I went with a friend to a doctor's appointment. I talked to another friend on the phone for over 40 minutes, processing some news. I made apple crisp. We kept up with the laundry and the dishes, making them times to talk instead of tasks to rush. I drank a cup of tea (and another) at my parent's kitchen table. I wrote two old-fashioned letters and dropped them in the mail. 

I will never be able to make time.
I will always be able to take time.
I think this is a mighty act of love.
Here's to being a time thief. I hope you will join me and together we can be a band of bandits -- bravely taking time and celebrating.

Share your celebrations!

Grace is Hard {CELEBRATE This Week: 130}

 

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

******

Jordan is typically the last one in the car. No matter how much earlier he starts to get ready, no matter how "completely" ready he is, no matter how many reminders he gets, he is still the last one in the car. Normally he hops out with one shoe barely on and the other in his hand.

He collapses into the backseat of my car. It's already filled with two other bodies. Steph, in the center says, "Sheesh, Jay, watch it!"

"I'm trying!" he snaps back. "It's not like it's easy to put on these shoes when I'm crammed back here."

Stephanie shoves his bag back to his lap.

"Knock it off, Steph," he growls.

"Get your bag on your own side." She crabs back.

"I'm trying to tie my shoes," he says and elbows her.

Of course she elbows him back, and shoves his bag again.

"Will you cut it out?" he raises his voice. "I've gotta get my shoes on."

"You should have done that before you got in the car."

Both of their tempers are on the rise, so I interrupt. "Grace," I say, my voice low. "Extend a little grace."

"You should tell that to him," Stephanie's words are curt.

"I'm saying it to all of us. Grace goes far."

Stephanie kicks Jay's bag. "Keep it on your own side!"

"Grace," I say again.

Jordan tugs on his shoelaces. "You know, Mom, I'd like to have grace, but it's hard."

"Don't I know it," I say.

Hannah laughs. Sam snickers.

"It's. Not. Funny!" Stephanie says, shoving Jay's backpack again.

"See? That's what I mean," Jay says. "Grace is hard. She doesn't even deserve it."

"Neither do you," Stephanie sneers.

Hannah laughs. "That's why it's called grace. None of us deserve it."

I pull into the school drop off lane and the conversation shifts to the predictable lines of sending them off to school.

"I love you, guys." I say. They each kiss me and I know it is not a slight thing. Then I say to each in turn, "Good things are going to happen..."

"To me and through me!" Jay says, stumbling out of the car.

"To me and through me," Stephanie says and rolls her eyes.

"I know, I know," Hannah says.  I lift my eyebrows and she giggles. "To me and through me. I might be too old for this."

"Mom, I need something different," Sam says. "I know good things are going to happen to me and through me. Hearing you say it every morning is annoying."

I kiss his cheek. "Go be a blessing," I say, "And be blessed."

"Good one," he smiles at me.

They walk into the day. I grip the steering wheel and take a deep breath.

Bob Goff via Instagram

Grace is hard. It isn't for the the weak, and it isn't for the undisciplined. Grace is undeserved...and, according to Bob Goff, it leads us home.

That's worth the celebration.

*****

I hope we've become email friends. I've been playing with my newsletter and have decided to use it as a place to offer stories, tips, and inspiration for teaching writers. This content goes out to my my email friends before it's shared anywhere else. On most Tuesdays, you can expect strategies for teaching writers, delightful stories, or little updates about my writing life.

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*****

I'm so happy you celebrate with me. It is true fuel for my soul.

An InLinkz Link-up

CELEBRATE This Week: XCII (92)

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

September 19 will mark our 100th celebration! I'm cooking up some ideas for this milestone. Won't you please invite your friends to join us?

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Have you signed up for the {Discover. Play. Build.} Newsletter? The first issue went out yesterday (woo-hoo!). They'll come around the end of each month. Register in the sidebar ----->.

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Teachers, I hope you have time to check out the {Discover. Play. Build.} website. It's designed to be my offering to writing teachers. You'll find video minilessons and a link to the {Discover. Play. Build.} YouTube channel where they are all housed.

( For more information on these resources (and others), check out this post.)

 *****

My cup overflows with celebration this week. As I think about my celebrations I thought it might be fun to pair them as opposites. I'm coming to believe when our celebrations are diverse we are mastering the art of living joy.

1. The kids were at sleep away camp last week. I celebrate the quiet that crackles in an alone house. And now, I celebrated the hustle and bustle of an active home.
2. I celebrated everything in its place and a tidy home that stayed that way all day and all night and the next day too. And now, I celebrate the shoes by the steps and the bowling pins at my feet and the pile of Legos and the trains on the dining room table and the sketch pad and pencils at the end of the couch and the books sprinkled all over. I celebrate the stuff that comes from happy, active kids...each finding their own niche.
3. I celebrate eating out. Andy and I zipped into town and avoided dishes at home. One night we stopped at the farmer's market and brought home a bounty of fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob and purple potatoes to make a summer meal with grilled chicken. Another night we ate out with friends. And now, there's 28 pounds of beef and 21 pounds of chicken ready to be made into 30+ freezer meals today. I celebrating cooking at home.
4. I celebrate dictating my own schedule, deciding how I spend my time, and allowing the day to lead me. And now, I celebrate getting to invest in four lives, learning to empower and encourage and support them. 

Mostly, though, I celebrate learning to find the joy in the moments of the day. This is what sustains me. Thanks for celebrating along with me!

CELEBRATE This Week: LXX

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

We've been walking through some stuff with our extended family these past few weeks. It's been a mess -- and not the beautiful kind of mess I often write about.

It's the ugly mess of life. The kind of mess that jars you and makes you wonder when you're going to wake up and go back to the way things are supposed to go. It's the kind of mess that you're not sure will ever be okay, even if you do keep saying, It's going to be okay; It's going to be okay.

We've lost our 17 year old nephew to suicide. The day after his memorial service, his dad (Andy's step-brother) died of a heart attack. Two unexpected funerals within ten days is an ugly mess.

We have this remarkable family that we love so much, Andy's step-mom and sister, teenage nephews and a niece.  Their sorrow is overwhelming and there's not one thing anyone can do  to make it okay.

Jen Hatmaker said, "Sorrow is a tricky bedfellow with a God who is good."

Isn't that the truth?

I'm sitting here with chin resting in my hands, staring at the screen, wondering if I can just end this post with Isn't that the truth?

I remember that this is a celebration post.

So here it is, so raw that it's coming straight from my heart, down my arms, and out my fingers. It's bypassing thinking too much, rather simply coming from my core.

Sometimes life gets ugly, but that doesn't mean God is ugly. Sometimes life hands you a mess, but that doesn't mean God is a mess. Sometimes life takes a turn for the worse, filling your whole being with sadness, but that doesn't mean God is worthless.

God is good. This is faith -- believing God is good in the thick of an ugly mess. It's trusting there is more than the ugliness of this world. We can see it when we look:
The tight hug.
The offered job.
The small text.
The tears shed.
The sun shining.
The breathing in.
The beating heart.

God is good. 

We know it through the actions of His people.

CELEBRATE This Week: XLVI

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter.

***** 

Happy holiday weekend!

 I love questions. I ask a lot of questions, and have learned over the years this can be unsettling to people. But once you know me, you know I'm not trying to intimidate, I just think in questions.

This week I'm celebrating some of the questions rolling around my brain.

1. Beyond notebook decorating day, how do writers take ownership of their notebooks? Once we open the covers, how do the pages fill up with meaning and purpose for a whole entire classroom of unique and independent writers?
2. How can I help teachers believe in their students?
3. How does organizing cross country pasta dinners and running kids and cleaning and laundry and running kids some more add up to my big dream of being a writer about faith and adoption and parenting?
4. What does it mean to be under the authority of Christ?
5. Should I put just one color of mums in my planters or a variety of colors?
6. How do I love more when I'm exhausted and annoyed?
7. What does it look like when "love does" in my corner of the world?
8. What kind of system will allow me to document my conversations and remind me to follow up with people?
9. What kind of commitment do I want to make to social media?
10. How can Story connect home and school lives? How can I be the fuel for starting these connections.

I'm looking forward to celebrating with you today. Happy Saturday!

Unexpected Momma Adjustments

This summer didn't go how I wanted it to go.

I hate speaking of summer in past tense, especially since I've committed to keeping summer in my spirit until September.This is still my plan.

My plan, however, is adjusted to reality.

The reality is this: The first four weeks of summer were crammed-jammed with have-tos. The second four weeks of summer were supposed to be lazy summer days when I write in the morning and we go for bike rides and we eat lunch next to the water fall at the park and we pop over to our neighbor's for late afternoon swims and we roast marshmallows and catch fireflies and dirt swirls in the tub and one more book is read together. It turns out the last four weeks of summer were crammed-jammed too.

This isn't a summer issue.

My kids are growing up.

I know this isn't shocking and for those of you on the other side of the screen who have been there before me, I'm sure you are nodding, maybe even smirking a bit.

But for this momma, you might as well hit me with a stampede of elephants.

Hannah is a 7th grader. Her legs are almost as long as I am tall.
Stephanie organized her dresser drawers according to sports season.
Jay is planning for his first sleep over.
And Sam always has a baseball cap on his head and quarters in his pocket, just in case he wants to buy popcorn at the concession stand or a pack of Juicy Fruit at the store.

What happened to 7:30 bedtime? What happened to park visits? What happened to left overs for the next day?

There's this too. They can devour a 4 pound meatloaf in a single meal. I can pile their plates with a main dish, a starch, a vegetable, a fruit -- they can have seconds and still are hungry.

Hungry!

They make plans and add them to the calendar. Softball practice. Run with a friend. Football try-outs. Boyscout camp out.

Their plans have suddenly usurped mine.

And summer didn't go as I expected.

How could I have expected this? I'm not needed to orchestrate the day. They are building their own lives. I'm sidelined to administrative assistant and taxi driver.

But there is still this: Wherever I am, they find me. They still join me on the front porch with books and chocolate milks. They still pile in the family room, snuggled under quilts. They congregate in the kitchen when I'm making cookies or dinner. They let me rub their backs before bedtime and they still whisper important thoughts to me.

We are on the move, but I don't get to set the pace.

Instead, I get to be along for the ride as their biggest fan. (Well, second biggest, because Andy will make no bones about being bigger in mass and therefore a bigger fan. I still contest this logic.)

We are their biggest fans. And I am stunned by how remarkable I find them.

That little girl who shelled up and ignored the world is joining the cross country team so she can make new friends. The other little girl who threw a fit every. single. night. when asked to put her dishes in the dishwasher clears the table without being asked. The little boy who used to be afraid to play outside shoots hundreds of baskets each afternoon. The one we brought home from the hospital and stopped every three miles just to check to make sure the car seat was still secure, sits in the front seat on the way to run this errand and pick up that sibling.

This summer has been one of adjustment for me. I'm learning to let go. I'm learning to give up my freedom for scheduling in the most convenient manner for me. I'm learning a conversation is more useful than a timeout and that sometimes you have to lose the battle in order to win the war (as my dad would say, even though I promised I would never utter those words.)

I guess what I'm realizing is I'm okay with all of this. I'm okay with being sidelined. I'm okay with losing some battles to snotty retorts and huffy feet. I'm okay with giving up some of my freedom. (Although I am grieving the loss of 7:30 pm bedtime.)

Because in the end, there are going to be four rather remarkable people who will make the world a better place. Meanwhile this momma will adjust her pace and cling to the truth that her stories still matter and her writing is still a calling and she will keep making her corner of the world better too. It just may take a little longer as I run a young soul to one more commitment and listen to another heartache and console anxious nerves and stand next to the train table, building a skyscraper out of a cereal box because I realize more than ever how short-lived childhood really is.

I hope you keep reading as I find my footing as my children outgrow me.

CELEBRATE This Week: XXXVIII

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter.

***

I can't believe I totally missed today is Saturday. It's my favorite day of the week and everything! I guess having a birthday, and anniversary, and a national holiday in the same week is enough to throw anyone off.

My celebration is that I'm surrounded by a whole community of people who don't mind one single bit that I'm a little scattered. Actually, that's only a little smidgen of the celebration. The true celebration is this:

I'm able to accept this as truth.

Here's to celebration in the midst of the real life. And a piece of my real life right now...

He said, "I always want to remember what it was like to ride a jet ski for the first time. Take a picture of this!"

Please link your posts!

Summer Plans FOR ME

My friend, Franki, shared this link with me: Mom's Summer Bucket Lists. Franki and I like to joke that we are successful when we manage to put on lotion or lipstick. On the rare occasions when both occur, it is a gold star day.

The article made me realize that although I helped my kids write three things they want to make sure happen this summer, I kind of slid through without a list of my own. I say kind of, because I did make a list. Looking at it now, I realize it wasn't a list for me. It was a list for them.

I'm not a big subscriber to the do-all-kinds-of-things-for-yourself movement. I think it's important to take care of yourself, but that self-care can happen in small (and effective) doses -- like lotion and lipstick.

At the same time, I'm not a big subscriber to wear-yourself-ragged-because-you-only-take-care-of-others-and-never-yourself mentality. It's important to take care of others. We all have someone in our lives who drains energy -- every single one of us knows what this is like. We are better at caring for others when we care for ourselves too (in small and effective doses).

Currently, I'm more on the ragged and tattered side of things. This is why the idea of a Summer Bucket List resonates with me. I'm claiming today as my first official day of summer and extending the season to September 5. Typically, I start to enter "autumn" when school starts. Not this year. I'm keeping summer in my heart for the next two months.

Following the inspiration from Franki...

The top three items on my Summer Bucket List* FOR ME are:

1. {Move} Somehow with ball games and friends over and needing this and getting that, I've lost my regular and expected movement each day. I believe in movement being a lifestyle, not a regiment, and so with this item, it can be a run (and will be some days), but a walk with a friend or a bike ride or a family game of football in the yard all count. The point is I move every day. I stretch in the morning, I move during the day, and I crunch or lift or balance at night.
2. {Write} My writing life has become a mess. This once disciplined 1000 words/day girl has become a tangled mess of a writer. It is time to reclaim the space with one hour/day in order to find my footing with an evolved process and an expanded territory of topic, audience, and purpose.
3. {Preserve} When I consider what I will miss most if I don't do it this summer, preservation came to mind. I want to preserve summer through photos, scrapbook pages, and canning. I wish I could say something like, each week I'll spend three hours preserving photos, stories, or food, but I don't work this way. Rather, by the end of the summer, I'll have uploaded and printed photos for the first half of 2014, bought an album for Jay and have some scrapbook pages inside it, and replace the shelves of empty canning jars with full ones.

*Lotion and lipstick will remain indicators of gold star days!

Celebrate This Week: XXXI

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter.

*****

A don't-miss...

If you are attending the All Write Summer Institute in June and would like to meet up for dinner on Wednesday, June 18, consider joining us for dinner. Sign up HERE!

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A promise...

I'm saying it here so that I will be accountable: I will be blogging again before next Saturday. If I don't, I certainly hope someone makes it sting a little.

*****

A real post...

I am exhausted. It’s been a week where it seems like everything is falling apart. I know this isn’t true. I know there is good. There is good in my family and work and faith. 

But at the end of the day (and even the beginning), it seems like it’s all cracking – there’s a child who is lying ad another who is crying. There’s silence and screaming. There’s last minute notice and long-standing meetings. There is a sore throat and a stuffy nose. There’s too much to do and we’re moving in more directions than there are people who can drive. Our calendar is overfilling and the main mode of communication is texting. Yes, texting.

But there are also giggles. Giggles from the kitchen as Andy and Karianne make Knekkebroed for the Norwegian National Day celebration we are hosting. Giggles in the airport, accompanied by a little squeal when Sam saw Karianne for the first time in nearly two years. Thankfully she hurried to us, reaching Sam for a hug before he ran through security in his excitement to see her. 

Giggles with Christy Rush-Levine  in her classroom and during reflection time and over dinner, turning into just the right nourishment for my weary teaching-soul. Giggles with my Grandma, who Sam and I visited after she fell and is recovering. Giggles with my friends, who somehow understand that hard doesn’t mean sad and exhausted doesn’t mean too-much. Giggles as Sam shows how flexible he is and J proves how flexible he isn’t. Giggles from Stephanie and Hannah as they draw and paint together. Giggles that come from texts. Yes, texts.

I am exhausted. It’s been a week where it seems like everything is falling apart. I know this isn’t true. I know this isn’t true because I choose to celebrate. I choose to celebrate even though things aren’t perfect and poor choices happen and I’m tired and my head hurts and my heart hurts and my soul is fragile. 

I find the celebrations  even when they are hidden in the fog of an exhausting week. It’s different than being happy and it’s different than being grateful. It’s gritty celebration. It takes gumption and a bit of moxie.

I’m glad you are here, sharing the gritty celebrations you are seeking in your own corner of the world. Thank you for inspiring me to find gritty celebration in the grayest of days.

A Small Offering {1 of 40 Stories}

Click here for the back story.

By the time I was 12, I thought I knew exactly how my life would turn out. The highlights included:

• A job as an artist or a writer with a creativity that quickly produced masterpieces with ease.
• A husband who liked sports, dressed in suits, and walked in the door by 6:00 pm with a loosened tie and a briefcase. (A home cooked meal was waiting on the table.)
• Two children, a little girl with my curls and a boy with his eyes.
• An immaculate house.

It's a good thing 12 year old girls don't get to determine the way a life will go. I look at that list and cringe a little. It turns out that I don't like ironing, and I like cleaning even less. I would be miserable ironing suits and keeping an immaculate house!

Those two children turned out to be more than four and although the girls don't have my curls and the boys don't have his eyes, they have so much more.

And I've learned, over the years, that true masterpieces are never quickly produced. It is the time and effort and tears that make a masterpiece. Of all the items on the list, I think I am most grateful that the first one did not hold true.

If you would ask me today how life will turn out, I'd laugh...a laugh that would make you smile, a laugh that can only come from a woman who realizes she is not the one in control. It's taken a while for me to accept this in life. I am not in control.

Said another way: I am not responsible for making a perfect life.

I am, however, responsible for making much of life. Life isn't about what you get, but what you give. And so, it comes down to an offering. What do I have to give?

Story. It seems so meager. I look around the internet and see hundreds of comments, thousands of retweets, hundreds of thousands of friends, and I feel like my story is too small to have an impact. I offer 40 Stories and feel insignificant.

Yet, if I'm going to give everything, not just from my surplus, then this is the offering. Stories of family and faith. Stories of adoption and marriage. Stories of parenting and friendship. If I give everything, not just from my surplus, then this is the offering.

Stories real and raw.

I wonder if this is what it feels like to drop two small coins in an offering plate. Was the widow afraid? Did she wonder if her tiny contribution would not only fail to make a difference, but would also be the end of her? She had little and she gave it all.

My stories come from a small corner of the Midwest. My reality is better than the 12 year old's dream. My husband (an avid sports lover) picks up the kids from school and unties his work boots when he comes home. He starts dinner and homework. We cook together when I get home and he often puts dinner on the table so it's ready when I get back from a run. We have four children who live with us. We are an "American family" to Taija in Finland, Karianne from Norway (who each lived with us for a year as exchange students), and Jose, a Compassion child in Lima, Peru. There were two babies who were almost ours and then the adoptions fell through. I am a full time instructional coach for a school district, a speaker, and a writer. The house is 15 minutes from clean, and I wouldn't be embarrassed if you stopped by. I'd offer you a drink and a warm cookie, and we would spin stories.

These stories might make us laugh and cry and maybe even roll our eyes. But they wouldn't feel insignificant. Story connects us. Story makes much of life. I'm determined to also share the story that makes much of God. So I'm dropping in my offering and pretending you are eating a cookie while you read my 40 Stories.