This & That and a HoCo Holler

Thanks for all the responses to yesterday's blog post. It’s going to take me a while to get through them! I must say I’m disappointed that no one had any information/opinions about septic in Western HoCo. Oh well.

The transition between summer vacation and full time preschool teaching is a struggle. Nope, let’s be honest: it’s kicking my butt. I should be fine in a couple of weeks but, right now, when my alarm goes off, my first thought is “when can I go back to sleep?”

I want to give a shout out and a full-scale HoCo Holler to everyone who has chipped in to help
this family in Western Howard County who lost their home in a gas explosion Friday night. Members of the community have reached out to donate money and gift cards to help replace what was lost. Books With A Past has served as a drop-off hub to assist in the process. It’s pretty amazing what the community has done in such a short amount of time. A special tip of the hat to the folks who run the Facebook Group “Western Howard County Shares” for getting the ball rolling and coordinating efforts on this.

One more thing before I close today, I’m remembering the kindergarten children I was teaching on 9-11 and realizing they are all adults. I wonder how that experience has shaped their world?

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Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

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Columbia Chance Connection

Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!” We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...

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