The Biography of David Morgan

When my mentee showed me a massive 'Making History' homework assignment she had to do, I inwardly sighed.  It involved choosing a family member, sending letters to 4 people who knew the family member (and getting letters back!), an extensive interview, making a family tree, writing this person's biography, developing a timeline of the person's life, finding photos, and labeling a map of all the places the person lived.  It sounded challenging (unless you have a well connected family that likes letter writing). The anxiety of it all started to creep into my psyche.  I knew that she needed help for many reasons--computer, printer, organizing it all, letter-writing, stamps, email, family tree.......   Then, I learned that a mentor or her husband (like David) would make a suitable substitute for a family member.  Life then looked rosier!   The project was finished tonight, and is really cute.

Title page

David holding completed biography. 

 The front cover of the book is David about 1976 posing in front of his beloved MGB convertible.  Cute!
All of Culbreth will be reading his life story.

Little Things Matter (But are they really little?)

Tomorrow is the first teacher workday of the school year.  This is my 19th year at Ephesus--same job, same room.  Hard to believe....   My kids grew up at Ephesus (they are now adults), some of the former students there have come back as teachers.  Working there is more than a job but part of my life, and usually I come back excited and eager!  This year though is starting with a cloud of sadness--one of my students, Asiedya, died in a house fire two weeks ago.  Saturday was her funeral.  Although I've gotten over the shock of it all, and don't randomly wipe tears away at various times of the day (too much), I still think about her and the tragedy of it all quite a bit.   So, to ground myself in reality, I'm devoting this day's blog to very small moments documented in a few photos. 

Meet Lizard---taken on the deck by my daughter, Andorra, where she was housesitting last week.  Isn't he (or she) just beautiful!  Look at the little toes, eyes, nose, ear holes, and skin!  Great picture!

Another of nature's friends---dragonfly.  Can you believe the eyes?  and the delicate wing structure?  He kept coming back to us and sitting on whoever had their finger up like an antennae. Vicki took this picture.

Did you know that you can knit a seahorse?  Alana asked Andorra to do this, and she spent weeks making it just for her!





It is the little things---not really little, and not things--- but the qualities of being a friend, enjoying the outdoors, living life, and loving people that really matter.  So, I'll go in to school tomorrow remembering Asiedya, the angel that she always has been, and work on doing little things for the little kids that will still be there.  Hopefully, I can help make a difference in their lives, the way they make a difference in mine.

The Smurfs

Today was the last day here before heading up north for vacation.  It was also a very hot day.  So I had a choice--do I hang out at home worrying about global warming and all of the consequences (hurricanes, drought, crop failure, famine, starvation......) or do I take Alana to see the Smurfs?  We chose the latter---not my usual kind of movie, but it provided some very interesting dinner conversation.

---apparently Smurfs live in a Utopian, communistic society most of the time and wear only pajama bottoms and hats.  They seem to grow up with accents from other parts of the world, but not like each other.  (Similar to if someone grew up in North Carolina with a spontaneous Irish accent, but has never been around anyone Irish)
---there is only one female Smurf, and she bore an uncanny resemblance to a former student of mine, but her voice was none other than Katy Perry (I know about Katy Perry now thanks to Alana)!  I was actually excited to see her name in the credits.
---There was a very evil but rather dumb wizard--and the movie was filmed in New York City so the scenes brought back memories of Home Alone 2--same bumbling badguy persona.
---Smurfs never appear to get hurt, even when zapped really, really bad by the blue essence zinger laser.
---Joan Rivers showed up---she hasn't changed for about 30 years.
---Cats know how to talk, sort of.
---Leaf blowers suck in and blow out---the first I've ever seen!

I guess I'm trying to analyze this too much.  I would never have gone to this except that my mentee wanted to---and the laughter I heard made the movie going experience worth every penny!  I did enjoy the scenes from New York City, and want to go back soon!  with Alana!

Swimming Success!

Short and sweet---Alana swam three-fourths of the length of Meadowmont pool today without touching the bottom!!! 

Combining things I Love--iPads and mentoring through origami

You need to be an engineer to figure this out!

I picked up Alana today, and after enduring the heat and mosquitoes at the Botanical Garden, we relaxed at home---my daughter, Andorra, joined us for video games, dinner, and last--origami.  I've never been that good at origami.  The diagrams for making even a simple box look like the blueprint for a space shuttle.  After struggling a bit, Andorra taught the two of us to make paper cranes, but the challenge was making something from a written diagram.  Enter iPad and YouTube.  I discovered that there are about 20000 videos of origami instruction on YouTube, and following an actual visual demonstration was incredibly easier than the hieroglyphic-looking instructions. The iPad was conveniently placed exactly in front of the girls and the video could be stopped at crucial folding moments. The end results were a couple of cute envelopes! (Andorra then gave a lesson to Alana on addressing and stamping an envelope with plans to mail notes to each other later this week!)  We'll do some more origami tomorrow!

Check out the origami envelopes! We're mailing each other notes soon.

If I were to apply this to teaching and education, the application is obvious!   Hand-on, real life modeling is achievable these days with multimedia, and kids really learn from it.

We made penguins the next day!  And frogs.

 

Mentoring fun---Cookie Fine Art

cookie cutter phase

 What happens when you put a couple creative girls in the kitchen with no restrictions? They start with traditional rolled cookies, and then the 'art part' of their brains take over.  Cookie cutters are abandoned.  Results below.

Hand-sculpted phase

More sculpture

Mentoring fun

This is short---Both mentors (David and I) and mentees spent a couple hours at the pool.  Then with the twins help, there was heavy math going on as we made pizza, added toppings, and cooked it.  For those of you who are considering being a mentor, here is a little glimpse into one time of mentoring fun. No bells and whistles--we all just were making pizzas together. 

 

The end result was delicious and the meal was great!

Pomegranete Beef CrockPot Stew---another Vicki success! (Gluten-Free)

This time, she made Pomegranete Beef CrockPot Stew----delicious!    We had two dinner guests--Raul and Alana, and they both gobbled down the main dish, plus many of the sides, enthusiastically!

     The recipes were actually originally posted on two blogs that I read:
  First it was on The Gluten-Free Goddess website and then A Year of Slow Cooking reposted it. Even if you are not into gluten free cooking, check these out. 

Thanks again, Vicki!   Please don't go back to college in August!  I need you!

Vicki's creation---Looks pretty good to me!

A Celebration of Mentoring (BRMA Picnic)

Vicki (daughter), David and Raul

• huge pool filled with splashing laughing kids and adults
• a very patient adult teaching an 11 year old girl to float in the middle of the pool fun.
• a line of tables filled to overflowing with chicken, desserts and sides--with a long line of enthusiastic picnic-goers ready to dig in
• Graig Meyer announcing that this was the 16th picnic that's occurred, and most of the mentees were younger than the program
• Yli (Youth Leadership Institute) teens introducing themselves to nearly all the older-looking adults, explaining their strengths and goals.  I talked to one who wants to be a physical therapist, and another who wants to be an immigration lawyer. 
• family time and friend time; mentor and mentee time; 
• our two mentees developing fun relationships with our family and having a great time!

YLI kids

Graig Meyer talks to the group

These were some random images both mental and digital from the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate picnic that my family and our two mentees attended today at Camp New Hope.  BRMA is about the coolest thing going on in my life right now.  Today's event was the end of a great year.  Thanks!

Be Creative

I never took pottery.  My kids, though, started in the first grade taking classes from Carmen Elliott, later with Hollie Taylor, and finally at UNC Asheville.  There are creations in many nooks and crannies throughout our house, and rather than keeping the family china in our china cabinet, we filled it with priceless pieces made by all of the kids. Who needs family china, anyway?  My kids' masterpieces are too precious to give up!  I think that allowing time for creativity really helps people flourish in other ways, and makes you a more well-rounded, happier person. 

My china cabinet

For this reason, I enrolled Alana in a short pottery class at the Carrboro Arts Center.  The instructor was a young man named Jason, and the class spent an hour and a half for five Friday afternoons learning about hand molding, coil pottery, wheel throwing, and glazing.  Alana said that the class was worthwhile and fun  .....and she wants to do another one!  All kids (and grownups) need times for creativity!  Maybe Alana will fill her own house with her art!

Festival Time!

Andorra, Alana, and I went on a Saturday outing up to Hillsborough for their annual festival, Hog Days.
 Arts and crafts, food, music, friendly people, it's all there!  Not a whole lot to report, but I took some pictures of random crafts and such!  It was a great day to spend with the two young ladies!

Bottle top art

Beer can art.

We pondered future hair styles.

New sunglasses

The most bizarre part of the festival was the TV trailer.

"The Meadow"

This is my first post, and I don't know where to begin----life is so full and complex, so how do I narrow my thoughts down to a few paragraphs? I thought I would begin by saying that my own children are all adults, or so it seems by their birthdays, so to give back and make my life more fun, I do mentor a 10 year old girl through the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate program. We get together a couple of times a week. Yesterday, we went to 'The Meadow' which is a delightful place just a few blocks down from where we live. There is no longer a direct path there, so with the neighbors' permission, we walked through driveways, and under canopies of trees to arrive at the open field, wild flowers, birds, and bugs. Alana (my mentee), Andorra (my daughter) and I walked completely around the meadow, splashed in Morgan Creek, walked over the new greenway bridge, and studied the plant life carefully. It couldn't have been a nicer outing! I love Chapel Hill for its greenways and open spaces!  I didn't take my camera, so these photos are from Andorra's computer from a meadow visit a while back.