A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

If You Want Me, Come and Get Me   As a former teacher, I often share stories about the start of the new school year. It is indeed an exhilarating time for educators. It is a season of anticipation.    A few schools are already in session. A few will start this week or next. But the year I want to share in today’s post happened many years ago. The first day was on Wednesday, September 1 st .   I taught second grade at the time. I loved my job. This particular year would start a bit differently than others.    I was pregnant with my third child. The baby was due September 2 nd . Mrs. Boyer was to be the long-term substitute teacher in my class. I knew my students were in good hands. I went to the school a week or so before the first day of school to help Mrs. Boyer set up the classroom.    That same day of working in the classroom, I had an ultrasound. My husband and I marveled at the little hand and fingers of the baby as they opened and closed; a ...

A Date to Remember Yes. I had a wonderful lunch date with a most incredible man. He called last week and asked if I would be free on Monday for lunch. Of course I said, “Yes! I’d love that!” (I know... I sounded overly enthusiastic.) He is smart and kind and good looking. He took me to his favorite restaurant. It is a fun place in Cincinnati called The Silver Spring House. I had only been there one other time. They have a great atmosphere and yummy food but it was the company I cherished.   It was lunchtime, so he had a chicken sandwich. I ordered a hamburger. We both indulged in French fries.    We ate, talked, and looked at favorite pictures on our phones. He shared some of his favorite shots of Cozumel. I showed him pictures of my youngest grandchild on a recent “dinosaur dig” at Trammel Fossil Park in Cincinnati.     I’ve known this man for almost twenty years, though this may well be the first time we’ve gone to lunch together. Alone anyway. We talked ...

My middle daughter planted a garden this past spring at her home in Wisconsin. I was pleased. I tend to put out a few tomatoes and peppers each year. This year I planted a few cantaloupes as well, but between my aversion to cicadas, the weird weather patterns, and rabbits, my garden will likely yield very little.   Perhaps I’ll harvest a single grape tomato for a single salad.     I digress. This is about my daughter’s garden. This is the child I worried would grow up, marry, and take her family to McDonald’s for Thanksgiving. Now, here she is, a mother of four planting a garden and cooking delicious foods for her husband and kiddos.   She has canned produce, frozen veggies she raised, and even made bread and butter pickles.  And she shares. A few of the smaller squash awaiting processing. Along with the other vegetables, Danielle planted three yellow squash plants and three zucchini plants. Her yield? More than she could manage. She cooked, baked, and froze squ...

             Good Teachers Make Us Curious Ah…the smell of fresh crayons and the reams of stacked notebook paper in my local store create in me a sense of excitement. School is starting.    I loved school. I loved it so much I became a teacher. My oldest daughter also became a teacher. Later, I became a professor at a college so I could teach teachers. My daughter coaches teachers throughout the county and surrounding area. Teaching and learning must be in our DNA. We love what we were called to do.   I’ll get back to that. First, I need to share this picture I found in my album recently. It is a picture of my husband’s fifth grade class. Tom is the cutie standing far right in the second row with the yellow horizontal stripes on his shirt and the big grin on his face. His teacher was Mr. Koester.    Mr. Koester was Tom’s all-time favorite teacher.   We all have those teachers who influence us for life. Mine was Joanne Saly...

An Eat-Your-Vegetables Kind of Moment...With a Dose of Pure Honey I started this blog because “I had to.” It was an eat-your-vegetables-because-they’re-good-for-you kind of moment. It was a word of wisdom I gleaned from writers, editors, and publishers at my first writing conference.     “You need to start a blog.” “Learn how to blog.” “No matter what else you do…blog.”   And finally, from my first publisher, “How many followers do you have on your blog?”   I was honest. I told him I didn’t have a blog. Yet. He encouraged me to start one. “As soon as possible.” There was this one tiny problem: I had no clue what a blog was and was pretty sure I had never read one. Write one?    That was the first week of June, 2012.    I came home from the conference and looked up blogging. I read a few and honestly couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. I found a free course offered by Jeff Goins online and joined it. It was likely the best move I could...