Blog
May 10, 2025
“You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
I wrote a book!
Today, I am completing the last two illustrations in a children’s book I’ve written, (and illustrated in collaboration with my youngest daughter) which should be published in the next few weeks. This has been a dream of mine for a very, VERY long time.
I grew up in a home where books were abundant. Some of my youngest memories are being in one of my parents’ laps, hearing a story alongside my older sister, listening to a story about a teachable moment, a Bible story or a fairy tale that we had heard a million times, yet not wanting the story to be over…needing to hear the ending, as if we didn’t know it. My mom was an educator throughout my entire childhood and for years beyond that too, so books were always valued in our home, and the collection grew and grew over time. Some of my childhood books my mom still has today. Treasures from the past.
When I got to high school, my junior year, I had a Language Arts teacher who started each class with a quote she had written on the chalkboard. Our job, for the first 15 minutes or so of class, was to write. We didn’t have rules. We didn’t have boundaries. We just had to write. Use the quote as a jumping-off point and simply write what it made us feel, what we thought it meant, what it was intended to teach, whatever it spoke to us. It was that year, at age 17, that I fell in love with writing.
Fast forward to my years as a elementary teacher, and that same principle was one I implemented in my own 1st grade classroom. As students came into class and settled into their morning routine, they took out their writing journals and they wrote a response to the prompt I had projected on the digital whiteboard. Every day was something new, yet routine, and they grew to LOVE this part of the day. So much so, that I often would get grumbles and “not yet!” when it was time to put writing journals away and truly begin the instructional day. It is one of the things I miss most about being a teacher.
It’s important to me that my writing has purpose, and my greatest hope is that my first book will be one that many children to will hear, while sitting on the lap of someone they love, ready to hear it, again and again, to the very end.
February 22, 2025
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” – Benjamin Franklin
Rules – for safety, for order, for fairness…for all.
Wherever you live, wherever you work, regardless of the spaces you occupy, there are rules. Some big, some small. Rules often dictate how we go about our day…what’s the bedtime for the kids, how late can the teenagers stay out, can we eat in the living room or not. We set rules for our families, our homes, in our places of work, to provide for safety, order and fairness. Without rules to provide for these things, our homes and our lives can become chaotic and can lead to disruption, anger, hurt, and injustice. Rules that do not provide for safety, order and fairness end up causing more harm than good.
I have always been a rule-follower, ESPECIALLY in places where authority was present. In school, during my elementary years, I was often referred to as the “teacher’s pet”, knowing how to ‘help’ my misbehaving friends stay in line and often the one used as a model of how to behave. And for a while, I liked it. I was happy that teachers saw me as an example of good behavior. I LOVED getting the Good Citizenship award. And if a teacher had to step out for a minute, I felt pride when I would be asked to keep an eye on the class. It felt really good…until it didn’t.
In 4th grade, the F.J. (Forget Julie) Club was created. All but 2 of my friends were members (and I had LOTS of friends), and I quickly became alienated from the rest of my classmates. They ignored me, wouldn’t sit by me, wouldn’t play with me at recess. I was the outcast, and the reason? Teacher’s pet. IT WAS AWFUL.
After a couple of days, I confided in our P.E. teacher and she quickly took action to halt the continuation of the F.J. Club. She gathered us on the playground, me standing next to her (looking back that likely didn’t help my cause), and she shared about the importance of friendship and treating one another kindly. She attempted to bring us back together as friends and classmates, because she took the time to invest in what was taking place. They apologized to me, and I was happy, yet it still didn’t feel quite right.
Some time later, during Music class, while we all sat on the stage in our cafe-gym-atorium, (me still placed next to a not-so-well-behaving boy), the teacher called him out for talking to me and ordered him to “go sit in the cafeteria!”. She proceeded with the lesson, but I interrupted by raising my hand. She called on me, and I told on myself, “I was talking too.”. She said she didn’t catch me talking and proceeded to teach. Raising my hand again, she called on me with a much more irritated tone in her voice, “What Julie?”. “I really was talking. It wasn’t just him”. In that instant I experienced something I never had before. “Then YOU can go sit in the cafeteria too!”, she shouted. With a big smile on my face, I slowly walked down the steps from the stage and joined my trouble-making classmate at a table in the cafeteria.
From that point on, I was never called “teacher’s pet” again, and it was the best feeling in the world!
1977 – Kindergarten, where it all started – front and center.
“The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.” – Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter died today at age 100.
I remember, as a child, not being very fond of Jimmy Carter. My age had not yet hit double-digits when he was President (1977-1981), so I’m not sure if it was the things I saw or heard in the media (I vividly recall a caricature illustrating his head shaped as a peanut), or things I heard people say that formed my opinion of him. Whatever the reason, I didn’t care for the guy.
Like many students in the U.S. public education system, history wasn’t my favorite subject, and often was a subject taught by athletic coaches. Chances were slim that history class would be very rigorous or engaging. I was good at reading and memorizing facts then passing tests that assessed my knowledge of those facts…then even better at forgetting what I had learned once the test was over. IF I learned about Jimmy Carter’s presidency in Junior High or High School, it unfortunately wasn’t committed to memory.
Fast forward to the time I’ve spent over the past few years, learning about our history and realizing that thoughts and ideas from my childhood do not have to remain, nor should they. In all I’ve learned – the good, the bad and the ugly – one thing is for sure. Jimmy Carter was a positive force in this world. A man of character and virtue, his desire to make the world a better place didn’t end when he left the White House. His and Rosalynn’s humanitarian work over the years with Habitat for Humanity and the long-established Carter Center, no doubt, will have positive, lasting impacts on this world for years and years to come.
Rest easy Mr. President. Thank you for dedicating your life to being a source for good.