Archive for February 2012
Gratitude journal: Not tempted in the slightest
Tonight I am grateful for my job. Earlier this evening, I was offered a teaching job at a different school that included an increase in pay, an opportunity for advancement and an allegedly lighter workload. And while I was honored to receive such an offer, I never thought for a second about leaving my school…
Read MoreIt’s here!
Fresh from the other side of the pond!
Read MoreThree important writing lessons, as described by my three-year old daughter
My daughter is only three years old, and yet I can already see the exacting eye of an editor in her. She cannot read yet, but as she watches television, she quickly and mercilessly identifies errors made by writers and producer and reacts accordingly. Sometimes her critique comes in the form of words. More often…
Read MoreGratitude journal: I was wrong. I’m so glad.
In our ongoing efforts to improve our dog’s behavior comes this minor miracle: Following the advice of our outlandishly affordable behaviorist, I set up a crate yesterday in hopes of crate training our nine year old Lhasa Apso. We’d like to be able to put the dog in the crate when little kids are visiting,…
Read MoreRaising my daughter is a piece of cake, and there’s a good reason why I say this as often as possible.
Maybe people find pleasure in complaining. Maybe they need to justify their own problems by projecting them upon others. Perhaps some people simply lack perspective. I’m not sure. But when Elysha was pregnant with Clara, we were repeatedly told about how difficult and exhausting parenting would be. For reasons that I still fail to understand,…
Read MoreGratitude journal: The sliver of time spent in the car
Tonight I am grateful for the fifteen minutes that we spent driving to the dealership in order to pick up my wife’s car. Clara, who refused to nap this afternoon and went to bed extremely late last night, was strung out, altering between maniacal laughter and blithering, teary eyed nonsense as we discussed the probability…
Read MoreDinner with a dead man
Two weeks ago I thought my brother, Jeremy, was dead. A week ago, he reappeared in rather dramatic fashion after a five year disappearance. Last night Elysha, Clara and I ate dinner with him and the woman responsible for our reunion (an amazing story that will hopefully end up in print soon) at Jeremy’s apartment.…
Read MorePirate ship/In-law apartment
We spent yesterday morning celebrating the birthday of one of Clara’s friends at an indoor gym filled with outdoor play equipment. It’s actually a clever concept. All of the equipment that the children can play on is also for sale, so the business makes five bucks for allowing a kid to play indoors, and in…
Read MoreGratitude journal: The cat-saving, stain-removing, near-miraculous SpotBot
Tonight I am grateful for the Bissell SpotBot, which has saved our cat’s life on numerous occasions, including today. Owen is prone to vomiting, as cats are wont to do, but he chooses to vomit only on soft, easy-to-stain, difficult-to-clean surfaces. Our bedroom rug. Our living room sofa. Our bath mat. The SpotBot removes all…
Read MoreWhy learning to write well matters.
There is a policy in my classroom that requests submitted in writing receive greater consideration than those that are not. Also, the quality of the writing has a direct impact on the likelihood of a request being granted. As a result, I receive some very serious letters from very serious students with very serious requests,…
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