Five Minute Fridays: Happy

My husband and I have been part of a writer's group for years now.  The host family may be moving soon, and our group has to decide where and if we will continue.  One of our members faithfully contributes to Five Minute Fridays.  I would like to try to adopt this habit.  The idea is to write for five minutes on a word prompt that is released to participants on a Thursday at 10pm on the blog site:
Five Minute Fridays.  If I understand correctly, the prompt given on Thursday evening, August 4, 2016 is Happy.

Happy
Sometimes I just discover that I am happy.  It is just a peaceful contented feeling.  It surprises me when I am grateful or sometimes it just sneaks up on me and I realize that I am happy.  Circumstances may be part of happiness, but not always. Making a call to a friend that I haven't seen, reaching out, taking time to do something that I've wanted to do for a long time; these may be triggers. Faith gives me hope and has always reminded me of the comfort and safety that God the father provides, and even in bad times, knowing that He is is a source of happiness.  If I'm honest, I'm editing this post more than I'm supposed to.

Re-reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I just finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for the first time.  I don't believe in censoring literature, nonetheless, reading the "n" word would be difficult to do in a read aloud.  And how free those boys were!  Today, their island bonfires would be discovered by drones the first night they were missing, and there would have been two head counts before the bus ever pulled away from the caves.  These would have been meaningless comments to me, had I not read this a week ago.  I don't believe I've ever seen a good movie version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the whole story depicted.  I'm not sure that I ever knew that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are actually two separate books.  I think I always used the two names interchangably in one title.  Mark Twain was either a careful observer of boys, or he remembered his own childhood very well.  As a teacher, reading the book reminds me that kids have their minds on many things other than their schoolwork during a school day.  Their play and their relationships with each other can be so rough and so important. 

Huckleberry Finn starts out with a boys club devoted to robbing and killing.  The boys don't ever carry out their plans to be outlaws, but no wonder some have wanted to pull the books from school library bookshelves.  Like I said, I'm not a censor.  I like the honesty of books.  The world of boys just being boys doesn't read as playfully today in light of gangs, but it goes without saying, that people have to read these books in the context of when they were written; the books are windows to another time.  I have a whole set of Mark Twain's books, so I want to finish them all.

Sorting Buttons

I've been sorting my old buttons and sewing them onto white card stock.  Buttons accumulated in jars and sewing boxes have a lot of history. Some have threads of long ago dresses, shirts, pants, and skirts still attached.  I sort them by type.  I love the ones that are made from shells.  I found two that are made of rubber that are quite valuable.

Here is a button that was on a robe that I had as a girl.  I remember my father taking me shopping to Sears.  I must have known something was up. My dad never took me shopping before or since, not without my mother, and then he usually sat in the car reading the paper or washing his windows and whisking out the dirt in the car with his infamous whisk broom.  So, this little button reminds me of this shopping trip when we returned home and a surprise party awaited me.  I don't remember a thing about the party, but that button reminds me of picking out that robe with my dad.

Last night, I read a piece to my writer's group and I referred to myself as a compulsive button sorter; I have taken to keeping a tray on my lap and sewing away on my buttons while my family wonders if I'm really tracking the movie that we are watching together.  Hey, leave me alone.  I'm multi-tasking here.  But I digress.  When I mentioned buttons, a young woman member of our group lamented how expensive buttons are and how she needed a few.  Well, I took her to my tray and she went home with about four cards of buttons for her future projects for her little daughter's homemade wardrobe.  She encouraged me to write this post and reminisce about how people used to make their own clothing and darn and mend.

I'm having trouble letting go of my buttons.  When I saw them go last night I experienced a little pang, but it was nice to know these buttons will be used.  I've started to sell my buttons online, so I'll post a few of my links here.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130421685336&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_941

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130421399334&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_941

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130421679239&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_941

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130421748401&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_941

Literary Landmarks of Philadelphia

I've been selling very well on EBay.  I haven't made a lot of money, but getting something for my clutter is a good feeling.  I like that some of my things are making their way to homes where people are grateful to get my stuff at a good price and use it.  I've added the link to a book that I paid quite a bit for about twenty years ago.  I thought since it was the first in a run of some 1000 printed copies that it would be of some value.  It is Literary Landmarks of Philadelphia and was printed in 1939.  Here is part of my description on EBay for this item:

Joseph Jackson is the author of this fairly rare volume which is unique as it is volume number 1 of a limited edition run of only 1,050 extant copies.  It is in good condition. There are some rubs on boards, and some beginning signs of foxing on the end pages, otherwise the text and illustrations of former Philadelphia literary landmarks are in very good condition.

From the introduction, "....Eighteenth Century Philadelphia was Eighteenth Century London in miniature, it might be said; and it drew the writers of books and the painters of portraits, as well as engravers, from Europe, as well as from other parts of America, all of them providing legends and anecdotes, which are still recounted."

Chapters are devoted to the following book people:

Walt Whitman

Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale-author of "Mary's Lamb"

John Adams

Amos Bronson Alcott

Edgar Allen Poe

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Paine

William Penn

John Penn

Dr. Joseph Priestley-discoverer of oxygen and carbon monoxide

Noah Webster

George Washington

And many more...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130420676186&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_938

Letting Go of My Stuff

Though troubling to watch, television programs about hoarders challenge me to deal with my clutter.  I don't have a group of wonderful people to come along side me to clean out, but I’m beginning to look around and see that I have some problem areas to address.  I know that there are other people like me, in my situation. Perhaps I can help someone else while I am in the process of helping myself deal with my stuff.  My goal is to declutter my life, and have more spirituality in my life. 

Remember when the wealthy young man asked Jesus what he had to do to get to heaven? He didn’t like the answer he got and it never sat well with me either.  Jesus answered by telling the young man to give all of his possessions away.  As I read this story again, I see an amazing thing.  Jesus tells the rich young man to obey the commandments and the young man lights up like a candle saying, “Yes, Yes, I’ve done that all my life.”  The very next words in the Bible are these:  Jesus looked at him and loved him.  Don’t we all just want that, to be loved? I am glad to know that when we come to Jesus with all our frail intentions and actively seek him out, even when we don’t get it, he still just loves on us.  That makes me just want to weep.  Wait. I am weeping.  I notice, too, that Jesus didn’t tell the rich young man to give all his stuff away like I thought he did….Jesus said to sell it and give the money to the poor.  Now maybe as I’m de-cluttering I should be figuring out how to sell things on EBay at the same time.  It is a biblical directive.  I will do it.

Missing New Tripoli

Now that she has her driving license, I'm missing going to the stables with my daughter.  I used to take my paints and sit on a hill and watercolor a landscape.  I thought of this as I drove up route 100 yesterday, marveling at all the beautiful country that still exists in housing-less pockets. It was especially pretty at around 8:45pm.  There was a brightness right above the mountain tree line, and then a blanket of dark clouds above the brightness like the night was wringing out the day.

Reading Poetry Out Loud

I had a lovely experience with a poem this morning. I dusted off Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses and found the famous one about "The Swing" and his words put my mind in motion. Then I read one called "From a Railway Carriage" and I laughed out loud with joy which is something of a rarity (from poetry anyway.) His words are a train in motion flying past the scenery. I will Google a link....wait, here it is. Magic. http://www.bartleby.com/188/138.html

Maybe this poem is widely known, but I for one don't remember hearing a lot of poetry when I was young. I still have a set of books with verse, but it's the pictures I recall more than the words. I've been in a train, and I was again this morning as I read. I wonder how many of my students will hear the poem and be transported to a seat in one when they read it.....

I'm Feeling Much Better Now

It has taken me a year to recover from the abuses I endured as a first year, eighth-grade teacher in an urban district. Why this was not a good fit for me became a little clearer today during a conversation with a fellow reading specialist. Let's call her Dee Dee (this is not her name). I told Dee Dee that even though I can start my day 8 a.m., I choose to start at 7:30 like the rest of the staff because I "need to be loved." Dee Dee said she works for a principal that is nice to her one day and mean the next. Dee Dee told her supervisor that it was okay if she placed her in that particular school permanently because she "didn't need love." I, on the other hand, need to feel appreciated. For a year I was unappreciated. The kids knew what kind of operating system I had. It was the love type. This is an old outdated operating system. In my current position, I am able to love the kids I work with and they do appreciate me, so all is well. If I had been able to start fresh with a new class of kids and not be the teacher who replaced a well liked and well loved teacher, maybe things would have been different. For now, I know who I am and what I need, flawed as I am.