My Cardboard Balcony

It's been a roller coaster week. Things on one hand are doing great, and progress is being made with my students. On the other hand, I'm making mistakes. Lots of them. I've saying stupid things and having a hard time kicking old habits. Why does improving on being a teacher have to be so damn hard? No real complex write-up this week because I'm pretty drained. But having my second graders perform a talent show to my boss with dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen and reading a poem together definitely is something to be proud of. Sleep beckons, though. I'm working extra hours tomorrow at my site. Fun stuff. But it's worth it for the end result. Writer's Quotation of the Night: If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. - Toni Morrison Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.

Cardboard Crosses by Belinda Roddie About four months ago, I moved into a one-story house on the corner of Simmons and Benton with my wife Lindsay and my daughter Sam.  It was one of the only one-stories on the street, repainted and revamped, and the mortgage was tolerable given our family’s double income.  Sam didn’t mind how big the house was as long as she had her own room to decorate.  She was bouncing on the balls of her feet when I showed her around the place.             “Can we paint it blue?” she asked me over dinner that night.  “I’ve always wanted a blue room.”             The three of us were eating pizza because we were too worn out from unloading the moving van to go grocery shopping.  Sam was stripping the cheese off her slice and shoving the gooey ribbons into her mouth.             “We can paint your room any color you want,” I told her, then jokingly added, “except black.”  That got me a coy look from Lindsay and a giggle from Sam.             It took us

Lily was at the scene in a sprint and a hop, looking for the outline drawn in stark white on the asphalt. She was the first to be there, before the detectives, snapping shots for the department as the greenhorn Kentucky Rodriguez approached her. "What've we got, girl?" he asked. "Double homicide," she replied.