~and it would be something to be proud of~

My older sister and I have spent a great deal of time together since Mike and I moved here to this part of the world last summer.  As a matter of fact, we probably have been able to see one another more times in the last 15 months than we have in the last 30+ years  that have passed since she and her family relocated to southwestern Oklahoma.  

It's been pretty nice to get to spend time with her once again.  

Often when we are together, both of us pause for a moment and take a picture of ourselves.  My phone is filled with photos such as those and for every picture that we have taken, there is always a story behind it.  Like last Sunday, just the day before yesterday, for example.

Sherry had come over for the day to help me at school as I began to make preparations for the week ahead.  She was a tremendous help to me and provided great company on a Sunday afternoon. We realized the value of the old saying, "Many hands make light work."  What you don't know about this picture is that it was the last one of about a gazillion that we tried to take.  Every time we would attempt a photo, one of us would look goofy, or stare away looking the other direction, or we'd just plain be cutting up laughing over it all.  Finally I told her that we had to settle down and get a picture taken before the battery went dead on my phone.  

And so we did.

I have very much appreciated my sister's advice in things, especially when it comes to the subject of my classrooms over the year.  Sherry is a master teacher, one who gave well over half of her life to the field of education and the well being of young children everywhere.  I've said so many times that it was because of her that I was able to be the teacher that I am today, simply because of the fact that she taught me most of what I know as an educator.  Oh sure, I have a couple of college degrees to my credit but those degrees didn't near prepare me for the job I would face each day as her personal example has.  

For that, I will always be glad and most thankful.  

Sherry may have really retired at this point in time, but she still offers me sound advice and years worth of wisdom when it comes to being an educator.  She can still take a look at a lesson manual and point out the things that are most important to teach.  I can be having a concern about the way something is going in the classroom and without thinking, she can come up with a strategy for me to try that I never even considered.  And oh yes, there's one other thing that she does very well.

Sherry takes care of my children.

She likes to buy snacks for the kids in my classroom and on her visit to Big Pasture on Sunday, she brought over several bags of them for us to enjoy in our third grade classroom.  Sherry is just like me.  We know that kids get hungry during the course of a school day.  It's pretty hard to fill their brains with knowledge if their bellies are empty and growling at them in distress. The boxes of cereal and graham crackers that she brought over were her gift to the kids in my room.  She wouldn't even think of letting me pay for them, saying that they were her treat to us. In the past couple of days, we have enjoyed some of them already and it's been nice to have them to share.

Everyone needs a role model to emulate, even 60-year old women.  As far as being an educator goes, I make it my goal to model my style of teaching after that of my sister.  I'm so proud of her for the many lives that she had an impact on in the city of Altus, Oklahoma as a teacher there for so many years.  In the end when my time in teaching finally comes to completion, I can only hope for one thing.

May I be half the teacher that Sherry was.  
Now that would give me something to be proud of.

6 years ago in the spring of 2010~
We actually retired at the same time.  Both of us went right back into the classroom.  

From a long, long time ago~May of 1958
I'm the little girl sitting on my big sister's lap at our grandparents' 50th wedding anniverary.  Those two little Kansas farm girls were destined to become career teachers.  We just didn't know it at the time.