Heptadecagon

We're at the end of week six for the semester and I'm hanging on by a thread. I've taken too much on . Let me repeat that: I've taken too much on . I have Literary Mama duties, an anthology I'm trying to put together, home school religious education for two of my children and two friends, plus five classes to teach. I'm also still mother to these four lovely darlings we have here and trying to maintain a blog. Add the animals into the mix and, as I said, I've taken too much on . I'm not complaining, I'm just stating a fact. Since this is my blog. I can do so. I've taken too much on . (Don't you wonder how many times I can write that same sentence? Am I starting to sound redundant? Yes, I am. Even to my own ears.) So what's going to give? The teaching? Ha! As much as I teeter on the edge of making that decision to say goodbye (and I say it every year),  I can't give that up. Of course, I can't give the kids up, either. Which mean

Our 20th installment and we have a guest kitty... We met this little guy when we attended a local Autumn Fest. Only six weeks old, he and his brother had been brought to The Learning Tree Farm to serve as resident mousers. As of Saturday, the kitties were unnamed, but our friend Brooke said she might name this little one Ferdinand, in honor of one of our favorite feline friends (a guy I still miss).

To read Part I of this story, go here . Hands had always been important to Caroline. Adam had large, warm, capable hands. Unlined, palms slightly calloused. When they first started dating, she'd never have described his hands as capable , but she'd read that description once in a romance novel and she realized that yes, her Adam, did have capable hands. Sappy, but true. Now, she looked at their intertwined fingers and wondered exactly what his hands were capable of. Did they harbor the capacity to cheat on her? Had his fingers trailed down the arm of that girl her friend had told her about? When he said he'd been at work, which lately, he'd been doing more of, had he really been out with her? The girl? She clutched his fingers tightly against her palm, afraid to let go of them. Caroline knew, if she did, she might float away from this world, never to come back. "Seriously, Caro. Let's go. I want to show you something." "What is it?" Car

1. Marveled at the complexities and awesomeness of the written word (not mine). 2. Marveled at the atrocities of the written word (mine). 3. Set up a time next week to see an old friend for lunch. 4. Explained a concept to a student, who seemed to understand it better after we spoke (fingers crossed). 5. Looked at the dry grass on the front lawn and was struck by the fleeting nature of life.

Dear Student: Renal and radial describe two entirely different areas of the body. Dear Student: Coming to class might be optional in your mind, but if you miss any more class, I'll have enough evidence to justify the F you'll be seeing in the grade book. Dear Student: Sitting at the front of the class will not make you smarter. (There have been studies performed that indicate students who sit at the front of the class achieve better test scores, but based on the exam you took yesterday, it's clear you don't fall into that bunch.) Dear Student: Sitting at the back of the class doesn't mean I can't see you as you text your buddy about your lunch plans. Dear Student: When I say that CO = HR x SV, that SV = EDV - ESV, and that you should memorize and understand how those formulas work, then YOU SHOULD MEMORIZE AND UNDERSTAND HOW THOSE FORMULAS WORK. Dear Student: Just like avascular means without blood vessels, so too does anucleated mean without a nucleu

I've been running around a lot lately, mostly to events, work, meetings, and such. I always feel as though I'm running behind, actually, and if I get to where I need to be on time (which used to be late for me), I almost congratulate myself. We have so much going on these days that I find myself reaching for the small comforts: an cup of warm coffee, a chocolate chip cookie, and yesterday, broccoli casserole. Strange, but true, but when I tell you what goes in this casserole and how to make it, you'll realize it truly is a comfort food. And comfort foods are allowed to be firmly entrenched in the strange category. Ingredients: 1 16 oz package chopped frozen broccoli (two 10 oz packages are fine, too) 2 cans cream of mushroom soup 1/2 cup of butter 1/2 bag of Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix Steps: 1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. 2. Add the broccoli and cook just until thawed. 3. Add the soup and the stuffing mix and stir. 4. Place into buttered casserole

Another week down and another five things I did this week. In the interest of saving time, here we go... 1. Yelled at the top of my lungs, "IT IS NOT A BATHTUB!" to Arnold, the cat, when I heard him batting the dog's water bowl around in the kitchen. 2. Explained cardiac output and how stroke volume and heart rate affect cardiac output so many times that I could probably teach it in my sleep. 3. Ran around on Tuesday for three hours in the afternoon all within two miles of my house. 4. Gawked at the nerve of someone on Facebook. (Okay, I think I need to explain this because it really bothered me. An acquaintance had written in a post: "Today I sit here over whelmed with my thoughts.... I have one kid in jail heading to prison... My son is currently in a hospital bed cause of not wanting to live any more..... I sit here consumed with my own thoughts....." No matter what you think of the person and her words, my heart went out to her. Least valuable commen

Dear Student, Congratulations on making it to the fourth week of the semester. As you know, in this fourth week, we take our first lab exam. The exam covers topics on blood, the heart, the EKG, and all the arteries we studied. I stood up, in front of the class, three weeks in a row, pouring forth all of the information that you would need in order to do well on this lab exam. In fact, having taught the course for the last 13 years,  I even stated something similar to: "I don't make the exam, but by now, I have a pretty good idea of how they ask the questions. Pay attention. You might learn something." Well, student, it is clear that you did not learn anything. Because as I stood at the front of the classroom after you had left and I corrected the exams with my handy green pen, I noticed something. The handful of sample questions provided by the department--the ones I told you were important to understand and study--appeared in some form on the exam. And even though I

Sometimes the writing prompt simply jumps out at you from the shelf:

WARNING: THIS POST IS NOT FOR THE LITTLES! It's early in the morning sometime last week and I find myself chopping mini-cucumbers into small slices and placing them into plastic containers for the girls' lunches. Most of the time, I let the twins, who are 14 and freshmen in high school, make their own lunches. But I was putting together a work snack for myself and I thought I would help the twins save some time. My intent was to peel them one mini cucumber each, wrap it in foil, and then place it into the respective lunch box. But after I'd peeled the cucumbers, I realized how phallic these two particular specimens looked. I could just imagine what the kids at the table would think as the girls unwrapped their cucumbers and went to place them into their mouths. I had already chopped our cucumbers, so I had to find this picture here . Yes, that's where we are these days. In the thick of high school depravity and debauchery. And just so you know it's not jus

My eyes are drawn to color (hence, my penchant for ugly fleece ). And sometimes, I find myself craving color around me. Its presence will calm and soothe and make most hectic days seem manageable. (The same thing can be said of freshly vacuumed floors, but that revelation speaks to my OCD tendencies, which might be a better subject for another post.) Lately, I've been looking for that color in pictures...

Dear Blog Readers, Today marks the end of week three for my classes. Yes, I have three weeks in the books and only thirteen more to go, but who's counting, right? (I am, and you know it.) And here we are, on a Friday in early September, on my day off, and I should consider doing something fun today. Perhaps I will, because nothing else this week was much fun. I stayed after class to help a student out who needed it. I sped through Aldi so quickly, the lady behind me in line (who had seen me first in the dairy section, then in produce, and finally at the cashier) told me I was "on point." I substituted aerobics for running on Wednesday because I only had 25 minutes to exercise. I lost it in class when my students couldn't tell me what gap junctions were for (soon to be a Dear Student letter ). I laughed so hard, I almost wet my pants. I guess that last tidbit could be considered somewhat fun, but not really, considering if I had wet my pants, I would just have

As many of you know, I drink coffee (part decaf, part regular). I also drink tea. And if you didn't know, I enjoy a cup of hot chocolate from time to time (made with milk, not water). While I have my favorite mugs , I also have a cupboard full of other mugs that fit the bill at 5 a.m. Meaning, if it's a mug, and it holds coffee, it will do just fine. (Shoot, there are some days I'd consider just drinking right out of the carafe, but I'm afraid I'll spill the hot java on my shirt.) However, I actually do enjoy having witty or funny mugs in my mug arsenal. And yesterday, FRN sent me a link to an article on The Huffington Post entitled "21 Brutally Honest Mugs that Nail Your Morning Struggle." If you have a chance, scroll through the list. My favorite mug is one I can envision taking into work each day, waiting for someone to look at me like I'm nuts (because I am). What's your favorite? P.S. Just as an aside, and so you have the backstory

Rita always knew what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, but as she sat in her car in the parking lot of her local Kroger store ("Right Store, Right Price"), words refused to move from her brain to her mouth. "What did you say?" Rita asked her brother, Robert, who called her most mornings with a news update. Those updates spanned the gamut: from non-news about current celebrities to the antics of his twin 10-year-old sons, to things that their parents had said to him. Lately, the last category contained preposterous news. "The shit old people say," Robert always said. "Who knew?" "Yep. She said it. Mom said it. To me. On the phone. Yesterday." Robert's clipped words meant only one thing: he was driving into work, probably surrounded by loads of traffic. Rita gazed out the window at the fog that hung in the air. She was so tired of the heat and humidity that draped every landscape and just as tired of hearing all the cr

A week or so ago, Sesame Street 's Facebook page featured a clip of a very old short. I'm including it here, in case you've never seen it. But I bet for some of you, if I said, "a loaf of bread, a container of milk..." you'd fill in the rest with "and a stick of butter." This clip is labeled Can you remember? And seeing it last week reminded me how bittersweet memories can be. That clip was a favorite of my mom's when I was little, and just the words conjured images of green shag carpeting, long, dark coffee tables, the wrought iron railing between the kitchen and the family room, and Mom's voice repeating this chant. I wonder if I said to her, "A loaf of bread, a container of milk..." if she'd be able to fill in the rest as easily as I can. My guess would be no, but since this is a memory from a number of years ago, Mom might just surprise me with a yes. I'll do my best to remember to ask her the next time I see he

Mondays are great days to look again at what I'm doing with my writing life and why I'm doing it. Even with this busy semester of teaching, I try, each day, to get to my computer and put words to the page. It might be a few hundred words for a blog post, or it might be a measly couple of paragraphs for a future book idea, but I'm afraid if I don't write ANYTHING, then I'll walk away and never return. (It is, after all, A LOT easier to do so many other things, a list of which I could gather, but won't.) What I've figured out in the last few days is that my best writing can fall into a couple of groups: I write novels (that eventually I hope to get somewhere), blog posts, essays, and creative nonfiction. And these forms of writing are things I can actually do somewhat well (according to feedback from alpha and beta readers). But for so long, I've tried my hardest to fit into the category of short story writer, all because someone told me the way to a nov

When Melina was in second grade, she had to write a letter each week called The Friday Five. The letter actually started out as a list of five things she had done that week. By the time the end of the year rolled around, she had progressed to writing a letter, complete with the date, salutation, and closing. She'd bring her notebook home, I'd sign it (saying that I'd read what she wrote), and I'd write back to her in the same notebook. I started with lists, too, and made my way up to letters. Now Melina is in third grade, and she's not bringing home The Friday Five anymore. However, I liked reading those lists and letters, and I liked writing them, partially because it gave me a reason to relive Melina's week as well as my own. Sometimes, those weeks were long, and other times, they flew by so quickly. Most of the weeks varied on a theme: busy, busy, busy, with teaching and writing thrown in. But every so often, like last April , I wrote that I'd watched