Moving on beyond Grace

 It has been a long time since the house has been quiet and my mind has been active enough to flip through my pictures and into my feelings and find anything that I wanted to share here.  The last I wrote was about the death of Grace, my greyhound.

Of course life has a way of moving forward, even if you do not take the time to examine it, or choose to share it.  My spring has been filled, even though my blog pages have not.

I have planted sunflowers and let the grass grow rampant.

  My 18 year old son saw his birthday as his chance to make all those grown-up decisions I have been trying to hold him back from.  He turned 18 and got a tattoo and a puppy and moved in with his girlfriend, and yet managed also to plod his way through those last two required classes and get the precious high school diploma.

I tried to tell him that he was rushing this adult thing, and ask him how he intended to take care of all these new responsibilities but with adult decisions come adult consequences and so far he is doing OK and still swinging by to give me a hug and let me cuddle the puppy when I am missing Grace.

I have taken some time to go to the beach, and to admire the bloom's

painting by one of my students

and I have been teaching a middle school class of severely handicapped students.  I have a love/hate relationship with Special Ed.  I love the kids, love teaching them to be creative and to like who they are, but I hate the getting spit on and kicked and having to do hours of testing and meetings and paperwork.  i actually don't mind the physical stuff like diapers on a kid who is bigger than I am, but I struggle with the bullying they encounter in the playground and lunchroom every day.

I used to feel tall!

I took some time just to celebrate the two wonderful young men I am lucky enough to be "Mom" to. and to remember the marvelous supportive friends that we have found in this adopted town of ours.

Celebrating Graduation.

 I also had two really sad, frightening episodes to deal with.  One was the city wide lock-down of schools for the Tuesday of the last week of school, and the fear and boredom of the kids when they had to keep the room dark and quiet for the day without really knowing why, then the sadness of finding out that one of the girls at our school, and her mother had both been shot in the head at their home, just before school started, and the man who did it was missing, and known to still have his gun, for 11 and 1/2 hours until he shot himself to death as a policeman approached the sea cliff picnic table where he was located, 5 blocks from our school.

The other was the drowning death of a 26 year old man who had been a 4 year old in the very first class of special ed. kids that I ever taught.  His body has yet to be recovered from the Rogue River where he went missing 9 days ago.

We fought the lawn and the lawn won

My husband and youngest son got to go to San Francisco to see Blue Man Group, while I used the time alone to walk and read and take hot baths and remember how the good outweighs the bad in this life.














So I go into the Summer, relieved that my life has a chance to get back on a more even keel, a better time to hug my man, and cheer my kids, and run into my students and former students and be able to have a smile on my face.  You have a good summer too and I will try to write more, take more pictures and find more beauty to share.


RIP Cecilia and Robbie

Love Mrs. Goode