Saturday, June 6, 2026

Mzteachuh's Five Minute Bible Study: Pushing Up like a Flower (Luke 21:28)

Photosynthesis of the spirit-that's what we need. Moving to the light, upward to the sun's power--where our life is restored and enhanced. In the cold and darkness, look up, your redemption--the Son--draweth nigh (Luke 21:28) with energy and life.

Weeping, like a freezing winter storm of loss,disappointment, immobilizing depression, may endure for a night. But the sunrise, joy, warmth, and growth, cometh in the morning, Psalm 30:50

Just as the struggle of a buried seed struggles and pushes the enormous weight of soil in the desperate need for the sun, we are covered with the weight of calamities we seemingly cannot get through, until we do, with God's help and we look up because our redemption HATH draweth nigh. We have a springtime of joy after what seemed like a never ending winter.

I'm reaching out to you, Lord, reaching out my hand for security and guidance. I believe this time will end and I have your promise of days of warmth and growth. In Jesus' Name. Amen

Friday, June 5, 2026

Mzteachuh's Five Minute Bible Study: Plans to Support You Jer. 29:11

What a peaceful feeling to know someone has good thoughts for you and is thinking about your well-being. Not someone critical, mocking, or planning to hurt or ridicule. Not someone who enjoys to point out failure or weakness. Not someone wanting to take advantage.

And the best part in this verse is that Someone is able to really bring safety and the best way forward. Life can be really tough. A supportive someone can help melt anxiety and systematically reveal the one-step-at-a-time way to unloose the knotty problems we're tied up in. Jesus does that. I don't know how, but His Spirit will inspire effective ways to bring an effective solution(s) to really difficult situations.

A hope, an expectation of good things from Jesus who has them in mind for you.

"Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near." Isaiah 55:6 Take a deep breath, speak to Him. Ask Him what's next. Look at your Bible app (or actual Bible, if you still use one.) There's that arm around your shoulder, the word of peace, the answer.

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday 4/30

Somehow Annabel Lee should be in the back pocket of a pair of Levis.
Poem in Your Pocket Day takes place every year on a day in National Poetry Month. The 2026 Poem in Your Pocket Day will take place on Thursday, April 30.

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Poem in Your Pocket Day

A Program of National Poetry Month

https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day

Participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day!

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/participate-poem-your-pocket-20720.html

Is that a poem in your pocket?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/04/is-that-a-poem-in-your-pocket

Here is my very first Poem in my Pocket: Longfellow's 'The Rainy Day.'

Friday, March 27, 2026

Cheesy Jokes and Serious Thoughts About Easter

Confession is good for the soul, it is said. And I confess I do love the 'chocolate' holiday season from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine's Day to Easter. Cadbury has the queen of treats, the Creme Egg, appearing only at Easter.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I'm not alone. It is just too much fun decorating baskets with that eternal Easter grass (it never goes away, it's like glitter), and coloring the eggs the old fashioned way with vinegar, etc. The images of bunnies and chicks and ducklings are cute, even better than Santa who has a list and checks it twice. No unconditional love from him! And this is an outside sport, temps in the 70s, with light breezes, egg hunting, spring clothes and bonnets, blooming Easter Lilies. Well, at least here in SoCal.

I did see a puddy tat!

Not one of Woodstock's, I'm guessing.

The secularization of this holiday makes it acceptable to everyone. Afterall, anthropologists say that all peoples celebrated the return of spring after the difficulties of winter.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/march-equinox-traditions.html

Coaxing a smile from Eeyore.

Familiar pop-culture figures dominate all
holidays now, and this is a word that used to mean 'holy-day.' Have we lost anything by this transformation? Is the concept of the sacred now forbidden? Teachers carefully appreciate the separation of church and state in a public school. But everywhere?

Easter is the most secularized of the holidays in the USA, and ironically, the most important for Christians acknowledging the death and resurrection of Jesus. Question: how can we honor the rights of all and permit our students to express their beliefs in public and private?

This is not a student of mine. He is a model.

Here in SoCal this year it has become a fashion statement for middle school boys to wear rosaries as necklaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary

And not only the latino kids. I've asked some of them what it means to them; sometimes they say it means they are Mexican, sometimes they tell me it is about their faith. Some say they just think it looks cool. So far, this practice has not been considered a dress code violation. In other places, it is dress code.

Amarillo ISD Student Wears Rosary Beads, Violates Dress Code, Arrested

http://www.everythinglubbock.com/story/d/story/-/2y_mYNc72ESSBDmVsYGvgA

Can I wear clothing that communicates a political or religious message?

http://www.riaclu.org/know-your-rights/pamphlets/know-your-rights-school-dress-codes

So why so serious, MzTeachuh, and where are the silly Garfield jokes? OK, here we go.

What do you need if your Cadbury Creme Eggs suddenly disappear?

You need an eggsplanation.

Where does the Easter Bunny get his eggs? From Eggplants.

How is the Easter Bunny like Kobe Bryant?

They're both famous for stuffing baskets.

Q: What does the Easter Bunny get for making a basket?

A: Two points, just like anyone else.

Q: How can you tell where the Easter Bunny has been?

A: Eggs mark the spot!

Did you hear the one about the fifty-pound jelly bean?

It was pretty hard to swallow

Why do we paint Easter eggs?

Because it is too hard to wallpaper them.

What does the White House do when there are too many undiscovered Easter eggs on the South Lawn?

Call an eggstermi-nator.

What is the title of the rabbit in charge of the distribution of Easter eggs?

Chief of Hoperations.

I am a huge fan of the Cadbury Creme Egg Bunny, and was charmed when I found one I could buy as an Easter Bunny. A stuffed one that cackles like a chicken, not a real one.

So, enjoy these animal actors. Why is there no Emmy or Oscar for animal actors?

Cadbury Bunny Ad - Chocolate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2eOXtDN6g

Saturday, February 28, 2026

Cheesy Jokes and Serious Thoughts for St. Patrick's Day

We're all Irish on St. Patrick's Day--and since the Irish diaspora was over 600 years long, and the Irish lived long and prospered wherever there was a Catholic church worldwide--it's probably true we're all Irish. Geneticists say that Genghis Khan was the foremost contributor to Y chromosomes worldwide, followed by O' Neill of the Nine Hostages (Irish).
My grandmother was completely Irish, her mother immigrating from the Old Sod, so I have been successfully indoctrinated about the Isle of Saints and Scholars. Trust me, no demeaning stereotypical jokes about the Irish in my growing up. Sister Francis Eileen, O.P., was the principal of St. Louis Bertrand's School in Oakland, California, and her lilting Irish brogue came over the P.A. system every morning. She was cool, all the nuns I had were cool; I never had a negative experience in parochial school. Many were from Ireland, many were Irish Americans like my sainted grandmother. And I was in that school both when John F. Kennedy ran for president, was elected, and was assassinated. Powerful stuff.

I am so thankful I didn't have to unlearn prejudice and bias--my Oakland elementary school was perfect. The only almost-bias I had to unlearn was that not everyone was from my church.

http://www.tolerance.org/hiddenbias

I was stunned when I heard my first negative joke about the Irish. Didn't they realize we saved western civilization?
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/cahill/irish.html

The Isle of Saints and Scholars-to be sure

And I didn't even say, "Pog Mo Thoin." Which shows a lot of maturity and restraint.

Ethnic jokes and teasing are a form of bullying--so kids and adults really need to knock it off. Are we that desperate to feel superior? The quiet kid in the back of the room won't be able to stand up for herself in the midst of biased-based laughter. Bullying includes those jokes about physical appearance, churches, where you're from, and let's throw in sports teams since kids are so sensitive about them. Kids should have the right to be in school without bullying or humiliation of any type. Grown-ups, too.

So, anyway, here are the jokes. (That's pretty Irish of me: stick up for the underdog and then tell jokes.)

Green, and Garfield provides the orange

How did the leprechaun get to the moon?

In a shamrocket.

Why is Ireland like a bottle of wine?

Because it has a Cork in it.

What would you get if you crossed a leprechaun with a Texan?

A pot of chili at the end of the rainbow.

No relation to Bono. Or the Edge.

What kind of music does a leprechaun band play?
Shamrock and roll.

What do you call a leprechaun's vacation home in Fort Lauderdale?

A lepre-condo.

Love Irish music. O'Sullivan's March, The Chieftans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkrr0-qut4
My gggrandmother (later immigrated to Kansas) was a Sullivan leaving from Cork in 1844, and who survived a coffin ship to Grosse Isle Quebec.

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Cheesy Jokes and Serious Thoughts for Valentine's Day

What did the boy bird say to the girl bird?

Garfield is one of my closest friends. The alarm goes off around 4:30 am, I reach for the laptop and see what Garfield is up to. As a substitute teacher, I would bribe the class with his jokes. I'd draw his picture on the board, put the questions to the riddle up and tell the kids I wouldn't give them the punchline unless...the whole class could be complete 15 minutes of work, or be good until recess, or clean up the class. Whatever needed to be done. The rascalliest students really wanted the joke, so everyone would cooperate. I told them I wasn't sure if it was even legal to keep a punchline from them, it seemed like cruel and unusual punishment (but I never had to withhold a punchline ever.) Humor is a great break in the authoritarian regimen; and puns do teach language arts in their multiple meaning words. Oh, the punchline: let me call you Tweetheart. Maybe to be current I should change the riddle to, 'What did the boy bird text to the girl bird?'

Let me call you Tweetheart.

http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2012/january/reiss.html
“Humor is a very important component of emotional health, maintaining relationships, developing cognitive function and perhaps even medical health,” said Allan Reiss, MD, who directs the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research at Stanford. Most of us know the ancient proverb, 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Leave it to Stanford to use an MRI to prove it! They hooked up kids and showed them funny and nonfunny material. I wonder how these jokes would do.

If you don't like cheese, don't read these!

Here is some more silly:

Did you hear about the romance in the tropical fish tank?
It was a case of guppy love.

Why was the rabbit so happy on Valentine's Day?

Because some bunny loved him.

What did one piece of string say to the other piece of string?
Please be my valentwine!

What did one volcano say to another on Valentine's Day?

I lava you.

What did the French chef give his wife for Valentine's Day?
A hug and a quiche.

What did the farmer give his wife for Valentine's Day?
Hogs and kisses.

What did Frankenstein ask his girlfriend?
Won't you be my Valenstein?

What is serious about this holiday is that some of our students are in difficult circumstances due to stressors in their families. They can't write a valentine to mom or dad or other relatives. They may be in the middle of a family break up, in foster care, or suffered a great loss. Our job is to be aware of this, first of all, and maybe have an additional activity to take the edge off the intensity of the student's actual life. Maybe valentines to mail to troops overseas, or to a local nursing home or hospital. Maybe a writing project to write an anecdote of a time someone showed kindness and love to the student. This could be emotional, but also cathartic. Life is tough, and the facade of the perfect family life is very difficult at times for many kids. Recalling a time of warmth and stability can be a positive moment on a dark day. I've had unique class situations where we could share such a writing project in discussion, and the other students were very supportive.