The world looks brighter from behind a smile.

The warm-up today for my students was to reflect on and write about an MLK quote I had on the board.  I had also written "Happy (belated) MLK Day!" because this was our first day back since Monday.  A student raised his hand and asked, "What's milk day?"  I played along with the joke and made some kind of remark about how we should all bring in a quarter for our little cartons of milk, and we could have snack time, and... ... and then I realized that he wasn't joking.  Like, not at all.  Le sigh.  Really?  I mean, really?  Milk Day?   To be fair, he also thinks that Americans speak American and Canadians speak Canadian, so his lack of common sense is not limited to history.  He's equal opportunity in these types of questions, and the rest of us do the best we can to handle answering them with humor and grace... and maybe a dash or two of sarcasm. When someone else asked later in the day why we didn't celebrate MLK Day duri...

When we lived in Seattle, we paid top dollar to be able to watch the sun rise over Lake Union from our tiny one bedroom apartment.  It really was breathtakingly beautiful and one of those kinds of views you don't take for granted, even seeing it day after day. It turns out that the best things in life are free, though.  One of my favorite things in life is the view I now get of some tiny little butt cheeks sprinting from the nursery to the tub when it's bath time. "My blessings are in front of me, it's not about the land I'll never beat the view from my front porch looking in I see what beautiful is about When I'm looking in, not when I'm looking out 'Cause anywhere I'll ever go and everywhere I've been Nothing takes my breath away like my front porch looking in." Lonestar From the Seattle sunrises to the St. Louis moons, we have been so richly blessed. Thank you, baby butt cheeks, you made my day.

I should be excited that I had a Snow Day today instead of having to go back from break.  The truth is that I have four hours worth of professional development to facilitate tomorrow and a penchant for Lifetime movies when I'm at home sitting on the couch, so I ended up going into work for a few hours anyway. When I got home, I decided that the driveway wasn't going to shovel itself.  I also thought Tom would be pleasantly surprised if I took care of it, and he might even make me some hot chocolate with little marshmallows as a reward (he did, by the way, after I asked him nicely). I made the mistake of not wearing any head covering, as my hair was piled up in a rushed hot mess from this morning.  As I was nearing the end of the driveway and the conclusion that my ears would freeze off and I would have to live without them, my neighbor from across the road came out.  He hollered a hello, and I quickly greeted him with a frozen smile.  He pulled up to our dri...