Five Things I Love About Fall and One Thing I Don't

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Well, hello, first Tuesday of fall!  Your gorgeous sky and cool breeze have me wishing I could spend the day outside, enjoying all of your glory instead of inside in meetings today.

In honor of today's glorious weather, here are five things I love about fall:

1.  Honeycrisp apples.  Yes, I know everyone seems to love these beauties.  I'm not a super-sweet apple fan, and honeycrisps are the perfect balance of tart and sweet.  When they're on sale, I load up and eat them at every meal.  It's a bit ridiculous, really.

2.  Lightweight sweaters.  My favorite days are when it's cool enough to pull a lightweight sweater on but warm enough to go without a coat.  The air seems fresher and lighter, somehow.  Perhaps it's because the humidity that makes Chicago summers so oppressive is gone.

3.  The new TV season.  I don't watch nearly as much TV as I used to, but I still get excited about the new TV shows.  I like seeing what's new and returning to fresh episodes of my old favorites.  Though it seems like there are always new shows to watch due to all of the cable channels available as well as web-only shows, nothing seems as good as those first few new shows in September and October.

4.  The Anderson's YA Literature Conference.  This is an annual weekend for my friend Sarah and I to get away from our busy lives for a day and meet up with friends old and new and talk books.  If you've never had the opportunity to attend this event and you live within a few hours' drive of Naperville, Illinois, you should definitely try to come.  Anderson's is one of the largest independent bookstores in the area, and they bring in amazing authors for the day.  I've had the opportunity to talk to some of my very favorites because of this event.  Eventually, I'll have to start bringing my daughters.

5.  My electric blanket.  I know... I know... why would I love my electric blanket?  My bedroom is FREEZING and my Land's End electric blanket is soft and fuzzy and warm.  The best part is the dual control, so I can have my side cranked all the way up and my husband can have his completely turned off.  It's the BEST!

and the thing I don't:

Ugh.  Squash.  Right now my CSA boxes are loaded with the stuff.  Spaghetti squash.  Acorn squash.  Delicata squash.  Soon we'll have butternut squash and even the dreaded pumpkin.  Every fall I try new squash recipes, hoping I'll find the one that will make me change my mind.  So far, no luck.  The only way I'll really eat squash is in butternut squash soup.  Of course, I'm the only one in my family who will eat it, so I never make it.



So there you have it.... five things I love about fall and one thing I don't.

What's your favorite thing about fall?

The Family Dinner

When I became a parent 12 years ago last month, I set a goal to have dinner as a family every night for as long as we could make that possible.  For the most part, I have been successful.  Somewhere between 6:15 and 6:45, my daughters set the table, Dan turns off the TV, and we all sit down together to my favorite time of the day.

We have a couple of rules at our dinner table:

1. No books. (I know... I know.....)  This rule is sometimes suspended on leftover night, because I just can't face leftovers unless I'm distracted.
2. We use our good manners.
3. No TV.
4. You have to try everything, even if you think you won't like it.

My girls are great about three out of four of these rules.  Occasionally Abby makes fart jokes or shows her sister her chewed up food.  Sometimes Molly pokes Abby under the table and starts a fight.  But for the most part, we have a civilized dinner and we TALK!  I love hearing about what my girls learned that day - they know "nothing" is not an acceptable answer.  We share our favorite parts of the day and describe a problem we each had to solve.  I like to think that when we sit down to a family dinner, whether it's in our home or at a restaurant, Dan and I are reinforcing for our girls how much they mean to us and how much we value what they have to say.  I know I'm teaching them how to have conversations and how to dine in polite company that will serve them well in their futures.

This school year is the first time that we will not eat together TWO nights of the week.  Because of Molly's dance schedule, she must eat either before the rest of the family or after.  When this happens, I sit with her at the table, sometimes with my dessert, to talk to her so she doesn't have to eat alone.  I don't want her to feel left out of this important family time.  I'm sad that her busy schedule has interrupted our family dinners so soon... I was hoping to make it to high school, but I'm not in charge of the Y's dance schedule.

I keep telling myself that the other five nights of the week, I have my family around me, usually not complaining about dinner, sharing our trials and triumphs and just enjoying being a family.

I'm pretty lucky.

Pre-teen smiles

This, my friends, makes my day:

Those moments when I look over and see my 12 year old daughter genuinely, unabashedly, can't-smile-any-larger happy.  It seems sometimes like I'll never see that smile or hear that infectious laugh again as we enter the mother-daughter-love-hate-dance that is adolescence.  I know she loves me, and I she knows that I love her more than words can say.

And yet....

We push each other's buttons.  We make each other frustrated.  We don't always HEAR what the other is saying.

It's not a new story.  Moms and daughters have been doing this dance as long as there have been teenagers.  Intellectually, I know that this is normal... it is all part of growing up and becoming an independent person separate from me and the rest of the family.  Emotionally?  Well... that's another story.


SO.... everyday I try to think of a way to make her smile.  To hear that giggle or at least to avoid the dreaded eye-roll.  I think twice before I say something I might regret, and I try to temper the tone of my voice so she realizes I'm just trying to make conversation, to learn about her life and her day, and not nag her about her laundry or her homework.

I want to enjoy these 12-year-old moments so that in the blink of an eye when she is off at college I'll know that I did my best.

And that's the best I can do.

A Somber Reflection

I have a confession.  I am obsessed with cemeteries... the older the better.  I'm not sure when this started, but I can't remember a time when I wasn't absolutely fascinated by wandering through a cemetery, examining the headstones and wondering about the statuary people chose, especially during the Victorian age, which seemed to be the golden age of funerary monuments.  I would peek into family mausoleums, wondering what they looked like inside.  One day I decided to explore a very old part of the cemetery where my great-grandparents (and now my grandparents and mother, too) are buried and got myself stuck in a hill of mud.  I wondered if I was ever going to get myself out!

When I was in high school, we lived for a time in a duplex across the street from a different cemetery, one of those that looks like a park because the headstones are all flat on the ground.  From time to time, my mom and I would take a walk through the cemetery since there was really nowhere else for us to walk.  It was on these walks that I learned my mom was terrified of being buried alive.  She told me that when the time came, she wanted to be cremated.  I had no idea that just a few short years later, I would be making sure that her wish was followed.

This past weekend, as part of our family vacation, we visited the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.  Part of the draw was that Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, is buried there.  The other reason was that part of Cave Hill is a national cemetery, established during the Civil War.  As we drove through the winding lanes, I was struck by many of the headstones, both old (early- to mid-nineteenth century) and modern.  They truly are works of art.  Though it felt strange at first, I had my daughter take some pictures of the sculptures.  Here's one....

I was truly struck, though, by the thousands upon thousands of small white markers in the National Cemetery.  Though I've been to Arlington, it was a short visit on an 8th grade class trip I chaperoned my first year of teaching.  It's a blur.  This, though small in comparison to Arlington or other National Cemeteries, has haunted me for days.

I looked at the headstones, read the names, the regiments, the dates of death, and I couldn't help but wonder about these men... boys really, when it comes down to it, and the circumstances of their deaths.  Were they wounded in a battle, only to die, days later of infection or loss of blood?  Did they die of dysentery before ever stepping foot on a battlefield?  I thought about the small, rectangular markers that signified an unknown soldier.  How long did his mother, wife, girlfriend wait for him to come home, only to wait in vain?  These men, known only by a number etched into the top of the marker - who grieved for them?

It didn't take me long to think of the soldiers serving today and those who have been killed in the past 12 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave what Abraham Lincoln called in the Gettysburg Address "the last full measure of devotion."  While I may not agree with the politics that got us into two simultaneous wars in the middle east, I can still hope for more soldiers to return whole and living home to their families.  Unfortunately for many, that is a hope unfulfilled.  

On My Mind

What do you do when you have so much going on in your brain that you can't think of any ONE thing to write about?  That's how I'm feeling right now.  Here's why:

1. Last week I attended the All Write conference in Warsaw, Indiana.  Some of my literacy heroes presented, and I'm still thinking about all of the learning, conversation, laughter, and friendship that comes out of those two days of learning.  I'll be thinking about this stuff all summer, planning how I can incorporate all that I learned into my coaching work next school year.
2. On Saturday, I attended the commencement ceremony that marks the end of my Ed.S. coursework.  Last spring I suddenly decided to go ahead and get my school administrator's certification and joined a cohort that was forming at National Louis University.  The ensuing year was stressful but full of learning.  As I sat in the auditorium and watched the Ed. D. students during the hooding ceremony, I wondered if I had another commencement to attend down the road.... I won't say never....
3. On Monday night I had dinner with three of my friends, the first time we'd been together socially since school got out.  I was reminded of the importance of letting loose.
4. In between, I've been thinking about whether or not I'm making the most of my summer, this precious time when my girls and I (and Dan on his days off) can spend time together and do things we just don't have time for during the school year.  I worry, though, that I'm spending so much time thinking about the things we COULD or SHOULD be doing that I'm missing the opportunity to just go DO!

So what about all of you who've been lucky enough to be out of school for at least a couple of weeks... is your summer filling up or are you taking the opportunity to relax a bit and do things for yourself that fall by the wayside in the midst of a school year?

Summer

School has been out for two weeks now, but in many ways I feel as if my summer vacation has really just begun.  Last week was full of professional development meetings and completing my internship hours for my administrative certificate, so I was at school for a great deal of the week.  The weather has also been conspiring against pool-going and picnic-taking, so when the sun shined bright on Sunday morning, we all headed out to the forest preserve for a bike ride.

We're lucky to live in an area where there are miles of well-maintained (for the most part) bike trails that wind along rivers and lagoons and through forests.  It's easy to forget that busy roads and intersections are nearby when you're gliding under a canopy of green with birds calling above.

Because I'm usually biking with my family, I don't wear earbuds on these trips.  This gives me the opportunity to get lost in my thoughts while I ride.  On Sunday, I spent some time thinking about balance.  Balance, of course, is important on a bike.... you can't ride if you don't have any.  Balance is just as important in life.  If one part of my life is taking over my time and energy, my family suffers, and  summer is a great time to work on reinstating that balance.  I can spend time with my girls, just doing whatever strikes our fancy on a particular day without feeling overscheduled like we do during the school year.

I also spent some time thinking about how the bike trail in many ways mirrors the bigger world.  Along the trail you find people who are friendly, who pass you with a smile and a nod.  Several of the "real" bikers cheered Abby along with a "You're doing great.... keep it up!".... something she needed as we approached mile 15 of the ride.  Others, while not overtly friendly, were polite and considerate, letting me know they were coming up on my left so I wouldn't be surprised as they passed us.  Then there were the boors.... those people who seemed to believe the trail was theirs, those who didn't bother to let us know they were passing or who looked at the four of us as if we had no business being on a public trail on a beautiful day.  These are the same types of people I encounter as I move through my life.  The  trick is to focus on those friendly, supportive people who help you along the way.

So yeah.... it's summer.  The craziness of dance recital weekend and Abby's birthday is behind us, and the month of July stretches before us with the promise of a long weekend at Kyle's for the Fourth of July and our vacation to Louisville and Mammoth cave, then the girls are off to Camp Woodbrooke for two weeks of fun without Mom or Dad.  I just have to remember to slow down and enjoy it.

Holding Them Close

Today, images of yesterday's tragedy in Boston fill the newspaper, sounds of it fill the airwaves.  It's nearly inescapable, even from the front windows of the school building where I work - I can easily see the flag flying at half staff in honor of the victims.

One of those victims was an 8 year old boy.  That hits home for me... I have my own 8 year old, currently getting ready to head into bed.  I can't stop thinking about that child's parents - the father who ran and the mother currently hospitalized with serious injuries.  How will they ever pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on?  I can't imagine many things that would be worse than losing a child, especially in such a random, inexplicable way.

I want to keep my girls within arm's length.  I want to hold them close and keep them safe from harm.  I don't want to send them off to the Y to dance class or to school or around the block on their bikes.  Something might happen to them.  Someone might hurt them.  They might hurt themselves.

Realistically, I know that I can't shield them from every danger, real or imagined.  I know I need to let them explore and become independent.  I need to let them bump their elbows, scrape their knees, and get lost not too far from home.  I need to let them experience the joys of first love and the sorrows of a broken heart.

I need to let them live their lives.

Easier said than done on a day like today....