Deck the Halls

December 2, 2012

First snowfall

November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving weekend in Door County

We woke this morning to our first snow fall of the season

Warming up with Swedish pancakes at Al Johnson's

So thankful!

November 22, 2012

Screen Shot 2021-04-07 at 12.42.11 PM.png

Last year, I spent Thanksgiving in France with my husband. It was his first time in Paris, and I was so thankful to share this beautiful city with him! We enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast worthy of Americans in Paris, complete with a fresh turkey and vegetables from the Marché de l'Alma on the avenue de Président Wilson, a lovely bottle of Bordeaux, and a view of the Eiffel Tower! We even found a place to watch the Packers game (at Woz in the Latin Quarter).

This year, I am spending Thanksgiving at home with my family, and I consider myself equally blessed. I am thankful that my family is together for the holidays. My home is comfortable, warm, and inviting. My mom is healthy & happy after a year in and out of the hospital. My nephews are growing up (despite Auntie's plea that they stay little). My job is challenging & allows me to be innovative while serving others. I live in a beautiful place, but am fortunate to travel & explore the world.

Thanks, Dad!

November 11, 2012

November 11th commemorates the signing of the cease fire that ended the fighting on the Western Front on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. A year after World War I ended, Armistice Day was established by President Woodrow Wilson to pay homage to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who gave their lives in service of their country. In 1954, President Eisenhower changed the name to Veterans Day to honor all service men and women, to thank them for their bravery and their dedication to defending our freedom.

So today, I honor all of those brave individuals who have served, and I think about my dad. In fact, I think about him everyday as I stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I am humbled by the courage it must have taken to enlist in the Navy when he was only seventeen years old, to leave his family, and to travel around the world to fight for his country.

Sadly, I lost my dad to mesothelioma, a vicious lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. At Christmastime in 1995, Dad was a very young 71-year-old. Nine months later, he was gone. Fifty years after serving as ship’s electrician on the USS Salt Lake City, the war claimed my dad's life. To his dying day, he never regretted his service and he taught me to honor all who serve. I miss my dad everyday and I feel so blessed to be his daughter. He taught me to love and respect nature and to rejoice in each new season — its beauty, its weather, its harvest. He also taught me that age is just a number by marrying my mom when she was 21 and he was 35, by becoming a father when he was 45. I, in turn, didn’t get married until I was in my thirties; my husband is eight years younger than me. Most of all, Dad taught me to love the water — to fish and waterski and sail. He was so proud when I became the first woman on the Marquette University Sailing Team and I am so proud to share his lifelong passion for the sport.

Although I am adopted, I am blessed to have “inherited” my dad’s blue eyes and his curly hair, his simple faith and his gift for storytelling. I also inherited his WWII medals and scrapbooks that include the letters he wrote home to my grandparents. Although the letters have been physically altered (holes were cut into the paper by navy censors to remove information that may have revealed his ship's location), my dad's voice is clear and playful.

Everyday but especially today I say, thank you, Dad, from the bottom of my heart! I miss you and I love you. XO

iRead

October 6, 2012

iRead A LOT! Ernest Hemingway said, "There is no friend as loyal as a book" and some of Hemingway's novels have been my closest companions since I studied literature in college. Yet my devotion to books began much earlier. I was blessed to grow up in a house where bedtime always included a story. One evening when I was three years old, my dad, having grown tired of reading the same books over and over, jokingly suggested that I read to him instead. Much to his surprise, I said, "OK, Daddy!" and proceeded to "read" a favorite nightly story word for word, even turning the pages at the right times. Of course, I had memorized the book, the first of many. I went on to devour the Anne of Green Gables and Little House series before reading all fifty-eight Hardy Boys mysteries (By that time I was 10 and in love with Joe Hardy aka Shaun Cassidy). When I was thirteen, I discovered Seventeenth Summer, a lovely story about a young girl coming of age in nearby Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Around the same time, I started reading Little Women, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Pride and Prejudice. I can't tell you how many times I've poured over those pages.

After changing my major from engineering to English and French, reading and writing became the focus of my nine years at Marquette University. I read poetry and prose in Old French, Middle English, regional American dialects, and even Anthony Burgess' Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange). I memorized soliloquies, sonnets, odes, and even the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. I poured over every line of The Waste Land, trying to make sense of the footnotes that were even longer than the poem itself. I marveled at Ernest Hemingway's brilliant simplicity, as well as the cryptic creativity of James Joyce and J.R.R. Tolkien, whose original, handwritten manuscripts of The Hobbit are housed in the Marquette archives. I became obsessed with the expatriate writers who lived in Paris in the 1920s, long before Woody Allen's fabulous movie, Midnight in Paris. I, too, traveled to The City of Light to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway, Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, et al. I spent countless hours in the second incarnation of Shakespeare and Company, wishing that it were actually Sylvia Beach's famous book shop frequented by my favorite writers (see previous blog post: Shakespeare and Company). I sat at Les Deux Magots, Le Café de Flore, La Closerie des Lilas, and Le Select, writing down thoughts and observations, just as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and countless others did before me. In fact, I have frequented Hemingway's favorite spots in Paris, Biarritz, the French Riviera, Spain, Key West...the list is endless! In graduate school, I traveled to Florence, Italy to research and actually experience the "view" before writing my master's thesis: An Impressionist Interpretation of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View.

After college, I temporarily abandoned the classics for contemporary novels and travel memoires, feeling relieved to be able read for pleasure without the burden of constant analysis and interpretation. Yet who can read Dan Brown's DaVinci Code, without falling back into those familiar habits?

As a teacher, I feel compelled to keep up with the books my students enjoy. I read all of the Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games series with Divergent and Insurgent waiting in the wings. I feel privileged to work in an environment where a life-long love of reading is a top priority. In fact, thanks to David Zindler, our wonderful new Literacy Coach, the teachers and students of Pewaukee High School are proving that reading is cool! Last week, I enjoyed participating in PHS's second annual summer reading book club. Last year, we all read The Hunger Games, but this summer, students and staff had a choice of over a dozen books. I was so impressed by the insight and passion expressed by the readers in my book group! The literacy committee at PHS surveyed nearly one hundred students and faculty members about our favorite books and what we are currently reading. Our selections are featured on the iRead Pewaukee website, as well as on posters outside of our classrooms. It was nearly impossible for me to choose my five favorite books, but I thought about Hemingway's idea that books are the most loyal of friends. I finally chose those who have been there for me the most, the friends I visit over and over again, never tiring of their company: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince, Forster's A Room with a View, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea.