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Aug
“You were unsure which pain is worse – the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will.” […]
Category Archives: Cleo Thoughts
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Aug
Aug
“Headlines don’t sell papes. Newsies sell papes.” -Jack Kelly Newsies were the toughest kids on the streets of New York City during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Their plucky, can-do, ambitious attitudes have gained these newspaper hawks respect in today’s pop culture. But those kids on the street corners in knickers and slouch caps […]
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“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.” -Mary McLeod Bethune, educator Artist Unknown It started with my first born, Jessalyn, wrapped papoose-style in her cotton candy pink quilt, and tucked in my elbow. With my other hand, I held a magazine with lots of pictures and slowly turned the pages […]
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“As a creative person, you are especially sensitive to the world around you.” -Matt Tommey The word makes me uncomfortable. It conjures up projects that are too grandiose for a person like me to create. Using the word stops progress on my work. Even today, it is difficult to for me to say that I […]
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Aug
“To be invited within the circle of handiwork is one of the oldest forms of female acceptance and companionship.” – Patricia C. McKissack When I was teaching school, my personal life morphed into a crazy quilt pattern, with some heavily embellished patches, but no organized pattern. The “in the ditch” grind of curricular demands left […]
Ever read a book that changed the way you viewed lif? The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton was that book when I was a college student in 1967. I was ready to start student teaching in a school set in a culturally deprived neighborhood. The prospect of assuming responsibility for 42 fourth grade students squeezed into […]
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Aug
“A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me.” -Jody Landers Another parent-teacher conference ended with the stars twinkling in the night sky, and me scuttling to my Saturn in a nearly empty school parking lot. Invariably, the […]
Late into the night, Marjorie Nagel writes in a journal listing feeding and sleeping schedules, as well as cuddle times. She has done this for each of the eighty-two babies that Marjorie has fostered. A diary of the daily love and care they received intermingles with the frequent photos Marjorie snaps and labels. Of course, […]
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Aug
Aug
“He’s twenty years old, and my wife still tucks him in at night, offering a little prayer, making sure that a comforting weighted blanket covers him, and always getting his biggest smile for her effort.” -Timothy Fountain, Raising a Child with Autism At age twenty-five, it should have been easy. But it wasn’t. When the nurse […]
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Childhood memories Living in Greeley, Colorado, as a child, water conservation made perfect sense. My mother used a wringer washing machine with two tubs of rinse water. After hanging the wet clothes on the lines, she emptied the tubs by carrying buckets of the water to the strawberry bed, the potato patch and the pea […]