Weekend with the Fam

How quickly I lose steam while blogging, or maybe I've just been busy! You know, family time, it can be exhausting. Especially when your morning starts with the dog being dumped on your bed by Mom, already dressed in her running clothes. The woman is a little Energizer bunny. I was dying on our run - but I blame it on the coffee and cinnamon roll I had before we went. Good excuse, right? For my mom to last longer than me? She was proud and demanded I take this picture "for the blog."

Saturday we celebrated Father's Day with grilled stead and a rousing game of croquet in the yard. Rousing because our yard is sloped, my family is competitive, and despite it being the summer solstice, we still ended up chasing poison balls around the yard in the dark. It was beautiful though, perfect weather and more fireflies than I've seen yet this summer! Our neighborhood is a good mix of trees and open spaces and the fireflies were going to town. My mother, however, prefers to smell them. Try it sometime . . . I don't really know what she's talking about . . .
Sunday after church (and packing), we went to a Redhawks minor league baseball game. Our little Bricktown ballpark is adorable and, on a Sunday, sparsely attended. We went with some friends from church (and some out of towners) and had a nice time . . . nothing like a ballpark hotdog to say "summer!"

Today's big activities included pedicures, the "perfect book" hunt, and a trip to the drive-in. I know I'm going to be having some down time (long flights, quiet nights) in the near future and my biggest fear is having nothing to read. I blew through A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in 5 days this week. (I love Francie!!) And lately I've been on a secondhand kick - it is 'greener' and I have some romantic notion that a book is richer if it's already been read once. So anyway, we browsed some used bookstores for a thick good book that would supplement Emma, which I'm reading with three girlfriends. So what did I end up with? Gone With the Wind. It was long, and cheap, and I've been told - a classic. When I'm sitting under a thorn tree in Machakos 2 weeks from now, I'll let you know how it's going.

So besides packing, that's what I've been up to. I'd rather not dwell on the packing, it gives me a stomach ache. More on my baggage situation soon.

Midwest Living

Events of the Day:

Mom takes me on a tour of the garden. Besides the abundant summer flowers she's expertly planted on the patio and in the yard, she also has taken on a few vegetables and herbs: tomatoes, peppers, basil, oregano, and mint. She's very proud of the mint. "It's like, oh, I'm out of gum! Have some mint!" Cute, mom.

Buying a shower curtain. Macy's doesn't have the one I like for sale, just on display, which the clerk refuses to sell. Instead, he calls a different mall and assures us they have it and will hold it for us, but just for today. We go to the other Macy's, which is boiling hot and deserted in the housewares section. When the oldest employee alive finally shuffles to the front with our hold, it's the wrong shower curtain. The manager appears and, finally, takes the shower curtain off the display to sell to us. It's very cute, worth the trip.

At the dinner table, we start talking about spiders. I recount how Ryan cried once because we saw a giant camel spider in our car, but then could never find it. When the story is over, I spy a strange blob on the ground by my chair. I bend down to wipe it up - it's a smashed spider. Big. Missing some legs, which are on the ground next to it. The next second finds the spider on my brother's dinner plate, subject to examination, and me perched on the back of my mom's chair, sick to my stomach and too afraid to stand on the ground. Much family yelling ensues, mostly centered around the identity of the liquid on the ground around the spider. Did the dog throw it up? Or did one of us accidentally smash it as we sat down for dinner? Still unknown. (Tucker is fine.)

My proudest moment - getting a new drivers license. Good riddance to the old, which was a vertical "under 21" issue that I hid behind credit cards in my wallet, so unattractive was the picture. Whenever I had to show my ID (say, at government facilities), the checker would spend 10 minutes trying to find my birthday even though it said "under 21 until 8-10-2005" in big red letters. If I was lucky, the guy might even comment on how decent I looked now compared to the picture. So . . . happy to be rid of that thing. My grown-up license will last until 2012. Same as my passport.

Productive day in OK.

Oklahoma!

Driving from Charlotte to Oklahoma means getting to I-40 (Asheville) and going west forever. And waking up the next day and doing it again. Really, the trip was a smooth one and I managed to catch up on some of the sleep I'd been missing over the past two weeks. My dad is the greatest- he got braces Monday (per dentist orders), got in the car, and drove to Charlotte to get me. Then packed the car and drove back. He can't even eat regular food and he's driving cross-country . . . without an atlas! I was shocked by that, until he pulled out the trusty Cracker Barrel map, the one that has every CB in the country on it. All well and good until we were eating dinner at a Cracker Barrel (they have applesauce for my poor father) somewhere in Tennessee - and neither of us knew where. Dad made a guess and we were jubilant about our progress - until the waitress informed us we were 30 miles off. Oh, well.

My dad loves books on tape when we travel. He had finished one and was halfway through one of the Bourne series when he picked me up. That was good, definitely held your attention, and the reader did great accents. Dad let me pick the next book - and when he vetoed a Jimmy Carter memoir, we settled on one of the Mitford series. My dad complained about it, but even though it took 3 chapters (3 cd's - 3 hours!) for Father Tim and Cynthia to leave Mitford for their summer sabbatical, my dad can't deny he was chuckling at all the funny parts. That Father Tim!

We left the mountains of NC for the hills of TN for the flatlands of Arkansas and Oklahoma. The only place of interest we stopped happened to be Checotah, the home of famed Idol winner, Carrie Underwood. I woke up to us pulling off the highway and Dad slowing to avoid two trotting creatures - a mangy dog and what had to be a coyote. Oh, Oklahoma. Then we spotted a thick black plume of smoke pouring into the sky from behind the gas station, and a seemingly unconcerned couple running a garden hose over the fire, which was concealed behind a large black pickup. It wasn't until we left that we could see for sure that it wasn't the pickup on fire. Strange. That's Carrie Underwood for ya.

And, it's good to be home.

On the Road

Leaving. Rough. I mean . . . really, REALLY rough. Consider two tips I've tried to incorporate into life over the past two weeks:
1. Sunglasses. They hide puffy red eyes.
2. Waterproof mascara.

Two years doesn't sound like a long time, but it is long enough. Long enough to put down roots, to invest in others, to allow them to invest in me. The problem with this investment is that parting is painful. But there is joy - joy in knowing that a sad goodbye means hearts have been touched. I have been BLESSED by friends that feel like family. You know the kind? What a gift!

I wish I had pictures of all those I've left in Charlotte - they are all deserve a tribute. I'll be busy writing cards for the next week. But these dear ones have endured buckets on my part, and sweetly shed many of their own. Roommates - they know the good and the bad, and still love you for it.

(sunglasses)

(Meg goes home to Idaho)

My dad drove for two days to get to Charlotte, pack the van, and hit the road again. Currently we're in Tennessee, anticipating a full day of heading west on Interstate 40 tomorrow. To be honest, all that joy I wrote about above is eluding me . . . parting is such sweet sorrow, but sorrow still!

contact info

I'm (finally) in the process of compiling a list of those who might like updates . . . if you'd like to get occasional emails, just send me your address to ericacanderson@gmail.com or just reply here!

thoughts on teaching

(Disclaimer: Here I go being super-sentimental about the last day of school. You might want to skip this one if you're not into teaching.)

Proud to be a Raccoon - Summer 2006

Today was my last day at Reedy Creek. Only two years there, but they were my first two years of teaching! 360 days devoted to walking those halls and educating those children. Where the glamor of influencing young minds was dashed by the reality of classroom management, and then bolstered again by sweet students who care, and - finally - get it! Conflicting emotions - I've experienced more stresses and angst within those walls than any other building on earth. But tipping the scales to the positive are innumerable moments - small and large - that make Reedy Creek a special place to me.

There is nothing in the world like being a first year teacher. The whole teaching scene was much different than I had pictured it - even my student teaching situations were nothing like the reality of this school. I wondered if I was cut out for this environment - was it normal to cry (repeatedly) in the principal's office? Apparently I had a lot of learning to do, but fortunately there were teachers willing to share their lesson plans and management skills, and administrators willing to back me up and help me out. And I am so grateful!

While I dreaded the start of year 2, I am so glad I came back. This class allowed me to break away from the monotony of the pacing guide and do (gasp!) novel studies and math investigations, biography reports and random visits to the pigeon loft. I know my skills as a teacher have improved, in large part due to the people around me who volunteered their expert knowledge on everything. I'm going to miss working with a team next year when I'm the only teacher on the grade level.

So that is a mediocre explanation of why I felt the tears start to come as I walked out the door of that building. This school will always have a special significance, as the place of my first job, where I learned how to teach. (Look at the pictures - you can tell I grew up, huh?)

June 2008

and . . . action!

Field day. Wonderful for so many reasons. I'm going to miss these kids . . .