In less than 24 hours, Harper danced her last dance, then put on her swimsuit and got herself a state cut for the 400 IM. (I’m no swimming expert, and she’s only been doing this for a couple of years, but if you ever have a chance to watch Harper swim, I recommend watching her do the distance events. I don’t want to give away any strategy, so I’ll just say that the girl is a gambler.)
Does this mean dance is over? Does it mean that Harper is meant for swimming? It means that Harper is choosing to swim. It means Harper gets to choose. May it always be this way – that my daughters can always get to choose.
Hadley’s team is having a historical season. They are undefeated, having let up only two goals, and scoring sixty-five. Word on the street is this is the most goals a JV women’s Pioneer soccer team has scored (I cannot confirm this, so please don’t get your sports underpants in a bunch).
I’m perfecting my cherry-almond scone recipe. This is the first recipe I’ve made up. I roast the almonds, and don’t use almond extract or paste because I like neither (do not tell my Dutch constituents).
This week was finals and graduation week at Concordia, and one morning I walked into my office to find a package of chocolates and a card from a student who graduated, thanking me for all my help. It was the sweetest surprise, and a lovely moment to acknowledge that I am finding myself at home in this work.
Sometime at the end of last year, my friend Rachel Bouman asked me to help her out with some curriculum development for a leadership course for high school girls that she would be teaching at Timothy Christian. I had such fun coming up with ideas and helping her design the course, but it is turning out to be much bigger than an interim class. Rachel was featured in The Banner, and you can read about the non-profit she is developing here. I’m excited for her. I’m excited to get to be a part of this.
Finally, I want to take note of Heather Armstrong’s death this Monday. I make no claims to fame, or to having the same struggles as she had, but as a fellow blogger, as a fellow mommy blogger (two words I detest with a stomach churning passion), as a woman who can call herself a writer because she started with a blog, I know that some of the reason I started a blog in the first place was because Heather paved the way. I stayed up late many, many nights reading Heather’s essays and feeling both in awe of and deep gratitude for someone who could write about motherhood in the way she wrote about it. It was funny, and true, and hard, and sweet, and I remember thinking, “I want to do that, too. I CAN do that, too.”
Can we please be careful about the comments and the statements we make on social media? Can we all try to remember that we are all of us fighting battles of some sort or another – some of them invisible, some of them visible but we don’t completely understand when we craft a thing or twenty to share with you all in the hopes you’ll bear it with us?
Read:
- Postcards from Summer pgs. 47-97
- Sitting in St. James Prologue
- Emily’s Quest pgs. 84-114
- “Play Call” (poetry from Dave Malone)
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