I have been writing on this blog since 2011… I had an earlier blog that I lost when I changed jobs. I still have the rough drafts of that earlier blog and I thought it would be fun to share some of those posts as a series over the next couple of weeks.
At the moment I don’t know if I will present them as is or edit them in some way. I am leaning toward just adding some thoughts about the blog afterwards. Kind of then and now post.
So, for fun I decided to find the first video I watched on YouTube.
Like lots of tech tools I have used over the decades, this company is no longer operating.
I can’t count how many apps and tools I have used in my classroom that are now gone. Part of the change life brings.
The latest YouTube video was used in class last week.
This is a great TEDTalk. And it also reflects a change in what I do. I use TEDTalks for a number of lessons. They are great ways to show how content in the classroom is reflected in the real world or in a person’s story.
I’m not sure how many past blog post I will share, but this should be a fun series!
Believe Verb: to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
“Believe” is my word for 2025.
There are so many reasons for choosing this word, most of them based on the different ways the world tried to break my faith in anything good. And has almost succeeded.
This is the eleventh year of choosing a word to focus on. Some years have been filled with great stories (Living by One Word), other words helped me stay focused on my goals, but this year I am trying to ignite an aspect of my life that feels tired, hopeless, and dark.
There is so much to believe in… and staying focused on seeing those elements in the everyday is important to keeping a clear view of what life is about. It is important for filling the heart, and helping maintain the energy to pursue goals, handle stressful moments, and build a joyful life.
2024 has been a hard year, for a number of reasons. Which I will not elaborate on because Christmas letters are not supposed to be sad and depressing. They are truthful, but should bring some happiness to the readers. So, I will just say 2024 has been a hard year, and leave it at that.
A Christmas letter has a number of purposes. The first is to highlight important events from the past year.
And I know everyone wants to know what my Spotify Wrapped entailed. Prince was my number one artist, again. But thanks to my youngest daughter, Taylor Swift landed in second place! Plus, she had three songs make my top 100 for the year.
My number one song of 2024 was actually a surprise. It is “Satellite” by Harry Styles.
I do like this song… just didn’t know I played it so much. The rest of my top 10 was not surprising.
I spent a lot of time on the road attending different author events (I blogged about some of those events, A Poet Travels 1550 Miles). Those events really kept my spirit filled.
So did producing The Creative Moment podcast with my son. We have recorded 8 seasons so far. And have no plans on stopping anytime soon.
One of the most bitter sweet aspects of life is family. As a dad it is amazing to see each of my children grow and build their lives, but it is also a reminder that time is moving forward. Change happens. New hardships appear, but so do new joys and experiences. Being a dad is enduring the most joyful heartbreak everyday.
I will not complete my reading challenge this year. I try to read 60 books each year. I am projected (got three books I’m reading right now) to finish at 47 books. But that’s OK, I have read some cool books this year. Here are five of my favorite (in no particular order):
1. Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
2. What Happens in Nebraska by Cat Dixon
3. Impossible Knots by K.P. DeLaney (a guest on The Creative Moment)
4. Denison Avenue by Christina Wong
5. Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius by Nick Hornby
And last a Christmas letter is meant to stay connected with family and friends, to share joy… and so I wish you a joyful holiday season!
And I’ll end this letter with my 100th song from my most played list:
Friday afternoon my youngest daughter and I played “How Close to the Ceiling Can You Throw the Ball?” A childhood classic!
As we dealt with errant throws and bad attempts at catching the ball when it ricocheted off the ceiling, we made up a crazy theory game, “Theory has it…”
“Theory has it you already missed the catch.”
“Theory has it that you are an elephant on another planet.”
“Theory has it you met Taylor Swift in elementary school.” (She’s a Swifty.)
The theory game got super silly, there were a few good throws at the ceiling, but we spent a lot of time getting up from the floor to retrieve the purple Pizza Ranch ball. There were no phones or screens (we would play Minecraft later). We wasted a lot of time that afternoon. Wasted time on us. Wasted time feeling joy.
It has been a busy summer. We have missed making blueberry muffins a number of times, but this morning we were in our normal routine. It was a quiet morning as all my daughters were still sleeping as my wife and I made breakfast.
As happens with me, my mind wandered through some random thoughts, but then dived deep as I smashed the blueberries into the batter.
Backstory: about a year ago my third daughter asked if there was a way to have the blueberries throughout the muffin. Blueberries are one of her favorite foods. So the next time we made blueberry muffins I smashed some of the blueberries and continued to mix in the blueberries instead of folding them into the batter. The batter was almost purple when I spooned it into the paper cups. My daughter loved them and since then I smash the blueberries for our Sunday muffins.
This morning my mind made an interesting connection to life; smashing blueberries became a metaphor to a deep thought. School is about to start, so let’s look at this metaphor.
Blueberries are love.
Muffins are a day… or a year, or a lifetime, really they are a symbol for time.
The instructions on the box say to fold the blueberries into the batter. This allows the blueberries to stay whole, but are spread out through the muffins. So, technically you can bite into a muffin and not get a blueberry. Now, once you eat all of the muffin you will have enjoyed some blueberries.
Flip to the other part of the metaphor. On any given day we give and receive moments of love. Some days there are a lot of blueberries – moments of love. But other days, there are not many moments of feeling love or giving love. The baker didn’t fold the blueberries well and the muffin is bare of blueberries. Sadly, I think too many people live through days like this.
For the last year or so, I have smashed the blueberries so that every bite has at least a taste of blueberryness. Now, we cannot ‘smash’ love, but what if we made sure we spread out moments of love throughout every day, especially with our family and friends? In a sense making sure that each day there is a taste of love. Can you imagine how good that muffin would taste?
When I make blueberry muffins, I smash the blueberries into the batter so that every bite has a taste of love. I want my days to taste just as good.
Today (Aug 1) is our 26 year wedding anniversary. My word for this year is ‘real’. As I walked early this morning, I spent time reflecting on what these 26 years have taught me. What it has taught me about life and myself. So I’m going to be real about the last 26 years.
Choice
I know it is cliche, in fact I could provide you with thousands of powerful quotes about how our lives are affected by choice. But a cliche has a level of truth to it, and sometimes we shouldn’t ignore that truth of a cliche.
Our lives are our choices.
I’ve written about this before. I have made some important choices in my life, but the last 26 years have taught me some interesting aspects of choice, especially as my family grew. My choices affected more than just me.
The most important aspect of choice I’ve learned is the power of my response to ANYTHING that happens. And this is hard because at any moment I can tear down or build up someone with my response. Most importantly my wife and kids. It is too easy to just be on auto pilot with the routine of life, and that is where I’ve messed up at times, be it an exasperated sigh or a harsh word spoken without me thinking.
It is hard, but not impossible to be aware of our choice in how we respond to events and people.
Another aspect of choice is another cliche in a way, but choose to do what you love. This doesn’t mean you abandon all responsibilities, that will lead you away from happiness. Choosing to do what you love will affect all aspects of your life. Understand the power of that choice. It will influence your job or career. It will change the way you live each day. The way you interact with people. And if you can do what you love as a career, awesome for you! But if you can’t, still do what you love. I don’t make a single cent on my blog, no ads, no subscriptions, but I love writing and sharing. The happiness I get from my writing filters into all the other parts of my life.
But, choosing to do what you love is important on a smaller scale. I’m talking about doing the everyday things you love. If you love watching horror movies, make sure you watch them. If you like ice cream, enjoy a bowl every once and awhile (yes, it’s important to be healthy but being happy affects your health, too). I love playing Minecraft with my daughters. We play at least a couple times a week. Live life by choosing to do what you love.
Life
And then there is the other side of the coin… no choice at all. At times life hits us with events that we are helpless to change. My mom dying of cancer was out of my control. I did and do have control over how I respond. But life will present us with situations that make us feel helpless and lost.
Then there is the connection of life where we have to deal with other people’s choices. The best principal I ever worked with left the school we were working at together. His decision affected more than just my professional life, but I did not have control of his career choices. All I could do was choose how I responded.
This is a factor present in my home everyday! Even now with two of my children building their own lives, the house is still filled with six people and the decisions, both big and small, that we all have to respond to. It could be the simple moment of not liking a favorite food. (Which happens all the time. I swear I need a daily memo of these changes… the fun of #dadlife.) My house is a microcosm of dealing with how intertwined our lives are and the effects of choices that ripple through a single day for each of us.
Life is a complex balance of choice and unexpected moments, both joyful and heartbreaking.
Questions
You would think I had all the answers after 26 years. I don’t. But I have learned to appreciate the questions and find joy in searching for the answers.
Yes, there are still big questions. This past year hit me hard regarding death and in turn the reason for this life. I don’t have a definite answer, but even through the heartache I have been able to connect with people. I have written powerful poetry, while spending time growing spiritually. That is the part of trying to answer the questions that bring depth to our life.
But even the small questions: Can I make an omelet? Leads to learning new skills and fun moments.
I still have big questions that I am working on. Life questions that I have blogged about before. And even though some of them are painful, there is joy in searching for the answers because I discover more about this life.
The last 26 years have shown me that most of my life is in my choices, from career changes to responding to a teenager waking up in a bad mood. And even when life hits with challenging moments that make us feel lost, we have the choice on how we respond. That choice is even present in the questions we seek to answer about ourselves and this life we are given.
On our podcast, The Creative Moment, my son introduced this saying. I don’t remember where he learned it from, and I paraphrased the quote, but we use the idea as motivation, as an idea to get through tough times, and to highlight a simple aspect of this life. There is a lot of living that happens in 365 days.
June was the anniversary of the death of my mom (you can read about that here: Meeting Death). There are so many ways that I am reminded of her, but there is simply still the void created by her passing. No text messages, or sending her photos of her grandkids. No visits planned (my parents would always visit us each summer).
And even though these last 365 days did not bring her back, life continued. Continued through rough days, suddenly being flooded with emotions, happy memories from a photograph.
I’ve written a few poems over the last year and published a collection of poetry, While Death Waits, that dealt with her passing. One of the most wonderful aspects of sharing the poems has been the connections and moments of honest human exchanges of stories. Every time I share some of the poetry based on the death of my mom, people have wanted to share their stories, their pain, the love they had for husbands, mothers, and siblings.
This past year has highlighted the most important aspect of each day; living is embracing the full range of emotions we may encounter at any moment. If you can keep your heart open and loving, even as heartbreaking moments happen, you will strengthen your spirit. You will know you have lived. Each day lived will add up to a year of life, and that adds up to a wonderful life lived…
I’ve got a deal for you… with only three easy payments you can have… (fill in the blank).
I take cash, credit card, or PayPal.
If you order now, I will throw in, for free – you pay the extra shipping and handling – (fill in the blank).
If it was only that easy. If we could simply buy whatever we are looking for, for whatever fills our souls, makes us smile, or allows us to live without a care in the world, we all would buy it.
But nothing, not even sadness, is that easy to acquire in this life.
Even an ordinary day has a steep price to pay if you really think about it. It cost us time, relationships, goals, and the beat of our hearts. At the end of the day, we have spent our life living it. And there are no refunds, no do-overs, only a chance to spend your life living another day.
So, embrace the cost of loving someone (yes, even the heartbreak). Spend the time chasing small and grand dreams. Throw a few dollars for a coffee, or sit, for free, on your front step and enjoy the sunrise. Spend your life living the best you can.
This offer will only last for (however many days any of us have), so call that friend right now, their heart is waiting for your call. Lines are open.
Ok, I don’t actually have a focus… I am in the midst of the need to write but have too many ideas rolling around in my head. Most of the ideas are recorded on my notes app or in a real notebook. I have been on a writing spree of late, four new short stories, a number of poems, and blog posts.
But right now, I have three short story ideas, a number of poem fragments, podcast ideas, and a presentation I need to have done for an educational conference next week.
The urge to write is strong… but my focus is not. And that is one of the top issues for success for any goal.
I recently watched the TEDTalk “The importance of focus” by Richard St. John. He shares a number of different stories of how focus was a factor in the success of different projects. And I agree. We get more done and with better results when we narrow our work and thoughts on a single idea.
But right now, I’m giving in to the urge to write, but without any focus.
I recently learned how jewelers handle the scraps and dust from the precious metals and stones they work with. How they sweep their workspace, clean their clothes, and collect as much as they can of the gold dust and diamond shards in their shops. There are a number of different ways they extract the different metals, but it is worth the effort. They can reuse some scraps, but mostly they can exchange the gold dust for money.
There is even a story of a person buying a floor mat from a jewelry workshop then made a thousand dollars by cleaning and collecting the scraps and dust from it. (Might be an urban legend. I could not verify the story, but many articles referenced the story.)
As I listened about this process (and then researched it), an idea came to mind…
Do we live our lives as if it is as valuable as gold dust?
Let’s see if I can connect these dots to highlight the importance of this question.
First, our lives are filled with big moments, like a piece of jewelry, a diamond ring, or gold necklace. We value those moments just like we value the jewelry. But what about all the small bits of our life, the small amounts of time? Time in the car, waiting for the oven to preheat, the last five minutes of class?
How valuable is that time for you? If it was gold dust you would take the time and energy to collect it, to save it. Jewelers spend a lot of energy collecting these small scraps from their work. But what do you do with yours? What do I do with mine? Do I check my phone, play some match-3 game while ignoring people around me? I have. Even with my daughters sitting next to me. So instead of talking, or having Attitude T-rex show up (dad thing… hard to explain), I waste eight minutes waiting till the oven beeps, indicating it is now 400 degrees.
Here’s the other dot, and maybe the most important aspect of my thoughts… a jeweler collects the smallest particles, saves them until there is enough to exchange the dust for money or uses the different scraps later for another piece of jewelry.
The smallest moments of our lives work the same way. What does playing a match-3 game do for me later, beside leveling up? For most of the time we spend on our phones, what do we get from it? Seriously? If we spend the small amounts of time talking, thinking, drawing, something, anything more human oriented, we build quality into our lives. We build better relationships, create depth and meaning in our lives.
What would life be like if we treated our time as if it was gold dust?
It is all Connected 