• Today, we found out our pastor was being transfered to a town north of us. I’m not an especially religious person, and have connected with exactly three pastors in my life time: Pastor Jim, Pastor Arley, and now Pastor Mee. Pastor Jim was the “little red-headed pastor” (as my father called him) and he just had a way with kids. He once asked me if I would consider the ministry (nope) because I was good with words and built relationships with people. Teaching was a my calling! Pastor Arley was the pastor when we started at our current church. He was a mountain of a man, both physically and as a Pastor. He connected with children like no pastor I’ve seen, and our church was a dynamic place because of his personality and leadership. Pastor Mee tried to resurrect our church after is cratered because of two horrible pastors. She’s a Korean in her second career, having been a professor of engineering at Iowa State. She’s another dynamo, having no fear of anything as she saw the good in all. She’ll be transferring to Decorah, a town north of us, and all in our family are very sad.
  •  The Final Four is an interesting group of blue blue programs (Kansas, Michigan, Villanova) and Cinderella (Loyola-Chicago). I have no skin in the game, but I love how we’ve still got the underdog dancing with the big boys! 🙂
  • I’m hard core practicing avoidance right now. Avoiding grading papers, avoiding thinking about next year, avoiding dealing with my feeling about next year. Avoiding problems always makes them better, right? *rolling eyes*
  • While we didn’t get the huge amounts of snow they thought, we still got around 5″ of the white stuff. I refuse to get out my snowblower to deal with wet stuff, so I’m waiting for the rain tomorrow to help the melting process! 🙂
  • I’m coming down from my Washington trip high. I emailed the high school band teacher whom both my wife and I have become pretty good friends with, telling him that we’ll be “chaperones in reserve” if he needs us. He was very happy to get my email. 🙂 I miss the people on the trip, the camaraderie we had, and most of all, I miss the kids. I love my middle schoolers, but one of the biggest things I miss about having a high school in our building is seeing my students grow up. Once they walk out of the school that last day of 8th grade, they move into a new building, and we lose track of them. It was nice to see the last two years of kids I’ve taught, to laugh with them, to make fun of them. I’ve had a great time teaching 8th grade, and those two classes will hold a special place in my heart.
  • This is the first year a many that we didn’t have a baby calf. While I don’t miss the bottle feeding, I miss the excitement of new life, life renewed here on our place. I don’t think we’ll see another calf here, but who knows, I could talk my wife into one, for a final time! 🙂
  • Tomorrow is our one “regular” day of school. Tuesday, we have a reward party that we are going to combine with a mini-reading day. Wednesday, we work with high school schedules and get out early for Easter Break. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in school a full week, without testing, late starts, early outs, or Washington DC, for one week. What the heck?

And there’s some random slices for you! 🙂