Living Out My Own Advice

Well, here I am, back in the Blogging world. I have encouraged my students to write more often, to share what they write, and to be an encouragement to others to write. I need to live out my own advice, or what am I? So, this will be my encouragement and my *mark*--for a while at least. I want to share thoughts and ideas and natural-living and paper-crafting stuff, but also life and love and a bit of insight (whenever that happens).

I am also on Twitter (@sandykaydolan) and facebook, so if you're interested, you can find me there.

Today is a big-hairy-lupus day, and since all my grades for VCA are due tomorrow by nine, I am grading and sleeping by turns to try to get this all done and still be able to go to Parent-Teacher conferences and UCO tomorrow (and more P-T conferences on Tuesday). You can pray for me :)

My most-pressing thought today is how to manage my health issues and still give my best to my (very diverse group of) students. I don't want to be one of those *teachers* who use yellowed and cracking notes for their classes because they can't be bothered to renew their own minds or tailor their work for a new group of students. But I can't begin to get the rest I need if I'm constantly re-making every piece of my plans and curriculum. Finding the balance has been hard. Staying on top of my grading takes time, as does preparing lesson plans and doing the reading, so figuring out what technology to use to enhance each day takes a back seat. I'd like to have a series of visual for my history classes (Ancient Wonders, city-scapes, and portraits would be so helpful for my visual learners. A few recordings of music from the ages would enhance the experience for the auditories, and some hands-on texts: replicas of various touchstone books (like something in Sanskrit and Cuneiform, and Hieroglyphics . . . (you get the picture). Again, time and energy (and production during class) get in the way. I do have a few amazing picture-books to share, so that makes me feel a little better about what I have for my students :)

I'm going through Kathleen Nielson's Bible Study on Isaiah, so that will come up here quite a bit. If you haven't seen or used her workbooks, I highly recommend them. They are a good balance of background and insight, and they work best when you have someone to process them with (I have used them in formal Bible Studies in the past, and they have been excellent for discussion).

There will also be quite a bit of talk here about card-making and other paper crafts because I am a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. I LOVE to make and send cards, so this is my fun-creative outlet. Next weekend is our annual *Holiday Hoopla* so I might even have some pictures to share (IF I get that part figured out) :)

I'm also working on remaking my diet and the way I approach the world to be more natural, healthy, and purposeful. I love to cook, garden, and find ways to re-use things. I follow quite a few blogs for this, so you'll probably see some of that here in days to come.

Well, I hope this whets your interest a little, and I hope you will follow and comment here as often as you can. I would LIVE for this to be a virtual conversation.
grace and peace,
:)
sd