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Showing posts from August, 2026

Leftovers and Release

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Leftovers and Release The Friday sun was brutal, the kind of August heat that turned my Rav 4 into a sauna even with the window shade up. I'd parked in the faculty lot that morning with the windows cracked, but by 4:30 the interior was an oven for the hot Texas sun. The steering wheel burned my palms. The seatbelt buckle could have branded skin. I didn't care. School was out. The 2nd week of school was behind me—meetings and training modules and the slow, grinding realization that school was in full swing. My classroom looks good and the students are setting into the routine I set for them. The only problem is I have too many students for the computers I have. Stress level 1000.  But tonight was mine. I prepared my car for getting on the road while the air conditioning struggled to cool the cab. I pulled down the sunshade folded it and got my water put in the cup holder and I typed the message I'd been thinking about since lunch. On my way home. His reply came before the li...

Saturday Instead

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  Saturday Instead Aug 15, 2026 The Friday afternoon sun slanted through the windshield as I pulled into the garage, and as I exited the car I could see Emma's beat-up Honda Civic parked crooked by the barn, The girls were home. I killed the engine and sat there for a moment, my hands still on the wheel. The week had been long. The classroom size are crazy right now and I have to many students. Thursday had been crazy— already first meeting with parent, and then grading papers at the kitchen table while he worked late. And now Friday. The garage door swung open before I reached it. Sophie barreled out, her curly brown hair wild, her arms already reaching for a hug. "Mom! Em and I were thinking homemade pizza? Like the individual ones? Please please please?" Emma appeared behind her, brown ponytail swinging, phone in hand. "She's been talking about it for an hour. I told her to wait till you got home." I laughed, letting Sophie's hug absorb me. "Pizz...

A Week of Training

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  A Week of Training 7 Aug 2026 The garage door rumbled up, and I was shocked. His truck sat in its spot, hood still warm, angled just enough that he could open the door and swing his legs out without banging his knee on the shelf of paint cans. I stood there in the doorway, the late afternoon sun at my back, my brain taking an extra beat to catch up. He was home. Not supposed to be home. Not for another half hour at least. But there the truck was, and there the empty hooks by the door were, his boots already kicked off and lined up neat and waiting. My heart did something complicated—a flutter and a drop and a twist all at once. The week had been brutal. The district had rolled out a new mandatory training series on Monday, three straight days of compliance modules and meetings and PowerPoint slides that could have been emails. Everything had to be documented. Everything had to be submitted through a portal that kept crashing. The engineering lab I was supposed to be setting up—th...