ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Family and faith are my top-most priorities in the life I am blessed to share with my beautiful and dedicated bride; we're the proud parents of two brilliant, caring and creative adult children, and enjoy the companionship and antics of our three furry, purry pets. We live amid the nature and majestic scenery of the Rocky Mountain region, but love adventuring to explore the many other creative wonders and captivating cultures on God's beautiful Earth.
I've arrived at the descriptor of "nurturer" for myself because it crisply captures the important purpose of the two "jobs" I've kept myself busy with over the past couple of decades. I work at a middle school with struggling readers during the school year, and overlap that at a greenhouse/garden center taking care of flowers (and customers) for a few intense months in the spring and summer. Both jobs bring me joy, inspiration, and cool opportunities. Although they differ widely in their execution, the compelling commonality of both jobs is the emphasis on "nurturing." I endeavor to create the ideal environment for optimum development and growth for both budding young readers and seedling flowers. Witnessing the blossoming of a beautiful flower or the beautiful mind of a child is a glorious reward!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Lessons and Observations From My Corner of the World

* Having a "root canal" is not as horrendous or dramatic as many years of life have lead you to believe.  But, possibly as big an "Ouch!" to the checking account.
* Taking a day off from school to have a root canal, coming home after the hour and a half in the dentist office, getting back in bed and sleeping for a lot of the afternoon feels a bit like cheating, but -- boy, was it nice!
* Life in the classroom really can go on perfectly normally, even in your absence.
*  No matter how many semesters that your children bring home 4.0 on their report cards, it still makes a father PROUD!
* Watching movies of Shakespeare plays as a family with your teenage kids --who are as equally engrossed and enjoying it as you are-- on a weekend night is a very cool blessing.
* I really DO treasure the very rare sunshiny days in winter here.
* Having good attendance and therefore getting to skip taking semester finals is a cool treat for high school kids.
*Using your children's earned "days off" as an excuse to take a day off yourself in order to do a family getaway to soak in a hotspring really isn't a bad idea.
*  Facebook can take up a lot of time, but it is fun to "feel connected" to many people you otherwise wouldn't.
* I feel like a snob when --in a public setting, like soaking in a hotsprings-- I almost prefer I was back in Japan, so it would be easier to ignore all the conversations happening around us.
* It is an unexplainable feeling to see high school drama productions come off very powerfully knowing it was totally created, written, directed, tech-ed, and performed by the students.
* Watching your son have lots of fun acting the craziest role in the play is rather emotional too.
*  Every song sounds better when it is sung by your daughter, or wife!
*  Celebrating good report cards with a quite pricey meal at a tasty "Korean Barbecue" restaurant that we all enjoyed is not a waste of $.
*  Most phone calls these days are colleges wanting to talk to your soon to be graduating son, or are "courtesy calls" that have "no message" to leave.
*  I really would like to spend more time with extended family more often than life currently allows.
*  No matter how old or how innocent and trustworthy your kids and their friends and families are, a father still feels a tinge of "concern" when the kids are at overnight birthday parties. 
*  Managing and prioritizing my time wisely enough to make the time to post on this blog as frequently as I'd hoped to is much harder than I anticipated.
 *  Knowing whether anyone is even reading this, and therefore whether it is a valuable use of my time, is impossible to discern.  Any comments anyone wishes to post will be appreciated, and will be responded to.
*  I always wish the most blessed of times to all my friends out there.  Blessings, friends!  

2 comments:

  1. Howdy, 'Renzo!

    Great to hear from you and to catch up on your blog. You're lucky that your root canal was only an hour and a half.

    While it's certainly no surprise that your kids have turned out well, it's still great to hear details.

    I hope to be in touch soon.

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  2. Thank you,sir. Yes, I'm still praising God over the "ease" of the dreaded root canal. Don't care if I never have to do it again, but all was much less dramatic than I had anticipated. Thank you for commenting here; leastwise I know someone is reading. Having an unexpected day off today, as early rain and late night/morning freeze made highways and such too dangerous to travel; district declared an "ice day," so was very happy to let the kids sleep, and have a relaxing morning myself. 3 day weekend--always good! Blessings to you. Look forward to an e-mail update soon.

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