Wheatzie

I’ve said this before , and I’ll say it again:  I hate field trips. But I love my students, and they love field trips, so I make sure to take them on three or four a year. The rule is, though, that I get to choose where we go. And if I want to visit a greasy bowling alley that reeks of stale beer and broken dreams?   Then guess what, kids?   We’re going bowling! A few of them were upset when I stopped doing the traditional, annual boring field trip to our state’s capitol building and decided instead to take them to the local roller rink for the morning so I could sit at a table and drink coffee while they skated the limbo and played red light green light. They felt comfortable voicing their dismay because for some reason awhile back we stopped teaching that children should be seen and not heard. “Wheatzie!” they grumbled. “We really wanted to go to the capitol!” “Awwww, I’m sorry,” I replied.   “But you know what’ll make you feel better?   Stuffing t...

If you were to ask me what my passions are— Who am I kidding, nobody has to actually ask me what my passions are.   I love talking about myself. Let me start again.   If you were stuck on a deserted island with me and there was no rescue mission in sight, no helpless volleyball to converse with as an alternative, and death hasn’t just yet become the better option so you had no choice but to listen to my incessant babble about myself, I would tell you that my passions are reading, writing, working out, traveling, and coffee.   Not necessarily in that order. I like a good, dark beer on occasion, too. Especially after a successful day of travel that includes something physical like a hike or a horseback ride. The trip to the Grand Canyon that I took a few weeks ago with my husband, boys, and favorite nephew was the best kind of trip because it combined all of those things.   There was also an argument with my 13-year-old son that began during the very first ...