Teaching Swimming and Speaking

My students are beautiful courageous and motivated. I am learning to break down both sentences and swim strokes. It's all about encouraging the pieces and then reassembling them.

Potatoes Sprouting

I panicked when I saw my potatoes sprouting. I cut off the bad spots and soaked them in cold water overnight in the fridge while I thought of a plan. Then I remembered my German potato salad which is basically cubed potatoes with a vinaigrette and chopped onions pressure cooked for 4 or 5 minutes. When I saw there was extra liquid with the potatoes I added some chopped frozen spinach. It immediately  defrosted in the hot liquid and it was delicious. I might do this again on purpose!

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.

― William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew 

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 

You speak an infinite deal of nothing.

 ― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.

― William Shakespeare, As You Like It 

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

― William Shakespeare, As You Like It 

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest 

We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. Robert Jones Jr. essayist and novelist

author's website

If a sentence were a picket fence, the serial commas would be posts at regular intervals. Mary Norris

The fact that a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing . . . He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths. Carl Jung

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. Marcel Proust

Ask Dr. Potato

Tips on potato storage

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

― Theodore Roosevelt

God spoke today in flowers, and I, who was waiting on words, almost missed the conversation.

 Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.

Turkish proverb

The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them. Turkish proverb

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus.

  Turkish proverb

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead