Friends! I have not written something for Gratitude Gal for awhile, so I’m glad we’re here, catching up! I was talking with a friend who works with new teachers and she laughingly joked about not reminding them to have boundaries until November. “You have to go crazy for a bit as a new teacher,” she…

I’ll always remember my first NETA conference in 2007. . . the buzz, the people, the energy. All these years later, I’ve changed, but those good NETA vibes haven’t. My school paid for me to attend the last two days, and I can’t help paying it forward and sharing some goodness. So in that spirit,…

“The Grateful Flow is not the things you’re thankful for. The Grateful Flow is the process of creating these things.” – Stutz, in Jonah Hill’s new documentary film This photo is my favorite Christmas pic. It’s a picture of joy. Nine years ago, both Charli and Ralph are smiling, in the flow of gratefulness. I…

Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. . . Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here, which is gratitude, to be a given a mind and heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of…

One of my favorite words is the Japanese word komorebi, which refers to the interplay of light and leaves as sunlight shines through trees. It has other meanings too. It can refer to a melancholic longing for a person, place, or thing that is far away. Or it can refer to impermanence. Dappled light shows…

I’ve already written about Collegeville twice. I always tell my writing students to avoid being repetitive, and yet I feel like a year’s worth of learning was packed into this one trip. I read this week that the fall is for soaking in the lessons and experiences that we had this summer. Collegeville is still…

What I know for sure is this: we come from mystery, and we return to mystery.” Parker Palmer, On the Brink of Everything p. 16 I sit here in a place I love, a place that only nine days ago was foreign to me. I look out the window here, feeling strangely at home at…

As I sit here in the afternoon sunroom stillness, the green leaves filling all the windows outside, I’m filled-up with everything summer. It’s been bananas, like drinking from a firehose! But when a friend asked me recently if it’s stressed me out, I just smiled, “Nope. I’ve just been riding the wave.” Collegeville Institute! A…

“We can find evidence for whatever mindset we choose.” – James Clear A while ago, my book club read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.  It’s been awhile ago, so I don’t remember a lot of the story, but one image sticks with me.  It’s of a soccer player.  The player is described as…

The first book I ever read in one day was The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I am still enchanted by the idea from the book that our daily lives could have small windows into a different world.  No, we can’t escape to Narnia through a freestanding closet door, but we can be reminded…