Clear Your Space to Clear Your Mind
Newsletter #75
Without Clutter, The Best Parts of Life Emerge
I’ve already written twice about decluttering the house. It’s a recurring goal of mine and there are times I keep up with it pretty well. When I do, I always feel good about it. But every year when spring hits, that’s when a lot of my systems tend to break down.
When my kids were younger, this was the time that baseball season started. We found ourselves at the field several times a week for hours at a time. I see you, Baseball Mom! At the beginning, I’d be really good about packing healthy snacks and dinner to eat during games. But as the season went on, we ate dinner at the snack shack multiple times a week. It became such a part of our routine, that I still crave hot dogs and pretzels in March. You better believe that I still do stop by our Little League snack shack to have dinner occasionally too.
At that time of the school year, my energy starts to wane. I come home more tired and less motivated. So those great routines I had in place start to slip. Procrastination sets in. I get accustomed to the stuff that haunts me from their piles around the house. And I figure I’ll have summer to deal with it. Which brings us to now: summer.
Every school break seems to include some sort of home reset, and summer time is when the big one takes place. I have more energy to tackle larger tasks and keep up with all the small ones. I get to focus on only a small set of decisions compared to the thousands I make in the classroom each week.
Once I make the decision to start decluttering and then get in motion, it’s easy to show progress in a short amount of time. Walking into a room with clear horizontal surfaces and every item in its home is so satisfying to me.
I do believe that if you clear your space you clear your mind. And then more of what you want to do can come true.
Book Report: LIFT
Written by Minh Lê
Illustrated by Dan Santat
Is there anything more quintessential in a childhood than the pure joy of getting to push the button on an elevator? The author Minh writes only a few words in this story, leaving the illustrator Dan to fill in all the experiences of a family of four in a away that kids and adults can easily relate. Through comic panels we learn how a little frustration and a lot imagination from the main character Iris can ignite such adventures that she can overcome her jealous feelings and create an unforgettable bond with her little brother. Dan’s limited color palatee of brown and green earth tones framed with solid black lines throughout give us the continual feel of watching a frame-by-frame film of this brilliant story.
Themes: siblings, love and acceptance, imagination
Discussion Ideas:
What in your life has made you as frustrated as Iris felt before she pushed all the buttons, and how did you express your emotions at that time?
What lessons does Iris learn from the beginning to the end of this book?
Mentor Text For:
reading the pictures
using images as story starters or inspiration for students to write the words to the story being told
analyzing point of view from each character
onomatopoeia
speech bubbles for dialogue
Buy the book!
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Weekly Progress Report
This is a section for “stuff I did” that relates to my writing career. I believe in celebrating all wins, big and small alike.
revised a manuscript for voice and brevity
connected with a self-published author about a future event for our region
played with possible different story arcs of a fun new idea
met with SF/South Regional Team about upcoming events
Sending you courage and grace in all you choose to do,
Susan
I love Lift!!