Two years ago, the Covid 19 pandemic began, the stop of celebration and the daily reminders that we can never truly know what to expect, that we make plans and God laughs. Two years ago, I sat in my living room with a heavy heart crying over the losses of 6 weeks out of the classroom and a missing track season. Looking back upon this seems almost laughable now, but it is a gauge at how far I came during this journey. A year ago, things were still uncertain, we learned we would partially return to the classroom, but the division at that point still felt so real. Today finally has felt like the return to normal that we have been seeking. The two years spent reflecting upon the question “What part of normal is worth returning to?” Thank you to Dave Hollis for that question at the start that I keep returning to. Two years ago I was a frantic over-scheduler, I would put anything and everything on my calendar without actually slowing down enough to enjoy what I had put onto my calendar. Now I will put things on the calendar, but if it is not something that goes towards the vision of who I want to be, or who God calls me to be then it is not getting a feature in my life’s journey. Over these two years I learned what it means to slow down, what it means to listen and what is really important.

Each day is a chance to celebrate in gratitude whatever brings joy.

As a math teacher and a baker, I love March 14. An excuse for merging my love for mathematics and my love for sharing recipes and celebration. With those loves in mind, I found myself between two floors of my apartment building (plumbing situation involved) and a dream to share Pie as a delicious concept with the students who I so often am sharing Pi as a mathematical concept. In this moment a creative spark was ignited, a plan to bake 314 oatmeal cookies that would become 157 Oatmeal Cream Pies for my classes. Some might have said that I was ambitiously crazy for doing this, but truly in this moment I found the energy and joy I have been seeking for at least the past two years if not the past thirty-eight years. With every new batch of dough I found a batch of hope, with every mixing bowl of icing I found sweetness, and then with every student who smiled as they took a cookie from the batch a restored connection was forged. Today was a day that will go in my memory bank of reasons why.

Thank you to Magnolia Table for the incredible recipe.