Fallin' Up

 My second post for the #23MinuteChallenge, I think I would be the most grateful today for having some purpose in my life beyond being a mother. I have a pretty interesting job and I have been lucky enough to spend this most recent season of my life learning and gathering feedback for a community that means the most to me. I have been able to mature in my approach to issues and to learn to be more diplomatic in how I respond to issues. So with this post, my top ten things related to, or within my learning curve of higher education are as follows: Every Student Succeeds Act , 2015 Title IX Title VII Johnson O'Malley American Indian Higher Education Consortium Tribal Colleges & Universities P.L. 280  Tribal Law and Order Codes Fort Laramie Treaty, 1868 My mother, for supporting every strong willed goal and aspiration I wanted to reach but had to build the scaffold for. Unwavering love.

The first minute of magic, or self discovery, or growth. I'm ready for any of it at this point. I love challenges, I go into the concept very hopeful and excited for the outcome, then I lose steam. What I have learned with this project, and with such a deep team of colleagues and life experience-I won't fail.  I may lose track of posts and opportunities to practice, but I will not fail myself, or my friends in writing about and sharing my experiences that I learn to acknowledge within the next thirty days. Learning to cope, to accept, and to have faith have been my life lessons so far, I want to see what else I can offer or reflect on. Wish me luck. Here are the ten of twenty-three: cool air  laughter of my children running water a warm bed to sleep in love of my family capacity to budget equinox cycle development of self acceptance discomfort community

  Hey there! So I've been sleeping and eating and reading and somewhat writing ideas and hopes and dreams hoping to restart some creative processing for the next round of learning and dreaming. My children and I have eaten some amazing meals and prepared some traditional plants and ingredients that I would have never had the time or opportunity to know if we had not had to feed our spirits while in quarantine. We learned about the strength of our family and the effort it takes to become an intelligent person, as the world continues to move in a more productive path after quarantine, we have made changes to support our spiritual growth and make our path within ceremony to re-focus of our lives for the time being.  We have watched the sun set in Ute country and were amazed at the ingenuity and historical knowledge needed to thrive in their high arid environment. So much love and so many beautiful prayerful people have made such a good impression on my children, I will be gratefu...

One of the best days of my life in being able to support someone who has the capacity to help so many others. I had some amazing life lines I utilized and had the opportunity to support women showing up for other women in a way that we never have the time or opportunity to do as much as I would like to see...but for one day some beautiful and important relationships were made to help see someone through a transitional time in life that I still struggle with.  I am so grateful for the ability to find support and direction in what it is that I'm doing and what it is that I can do better not only for myself but for my family.

I love this visual, it gives a little bit more insight to the depth and explosiveness of the human emotional range that we seem to overlook when working in the field of juvenile justice and probation. Sharing my life experience with my clients and students has helped me to grow for the past twenty months in a way I didn't know I needed to expand. I was able to delve into the emotional realm and I learned how to mediate difficult conversations and find the silver lining that I didn't know others struggled to find, I can do this and I am confident in assisting the conversation to a safer place and honestly believing in another human to make their way in the world for another day.

Here we go again, spring time is in the air and so is the excitement of trying to figure out how the summer will proceed. For the field of work that I now find myself it is a number of questions with the most pressing being: how to develop safe environments. There are so many factors but Maslow had some divine intervention to develop such a clear and concise theory. The coming week will be transforming and revealing for what we can accomplish or the coming quarter and year.

In my mother's final days we were able to listen to some songs that were meaningful to her and allowed us a look into her life as a younger woman and the importance of mercy and closure in finding peace at the end of life. My seven siblings and I laid our wonderful mother to rest on March 7th and I have waited sixteen days to process and allow myself to get my footing and release some of the grief and loneliness I have been keeping to myself. I am grateful for the gift of time and I do not resent or hold any negative feelings toward the situation because it will be something in my life I will never be able to fully process or accept. So I choose to be grateful for time, for the will, and for the empathy and grace of peace that was granted to my mother. I am very fortunate to have been born in the middle of two brothers and have the gift of being the youngest daughter my mother raised. I had the gift of time and experience to allow me to become a well-rounded woman, not lady, ...

So I have a road trip to make with someone near and dear to my heart. My goal in providing a music and movie filled ride is to gather information. Not only about the person I believe I know, but the woman she was before I came into her world.  This trip will also begin a new chapter in my life because I want to learn the intimate 'why' and 'how' cancer develops and how in the hell our people can develop and grow so many unique types and stages of this ravenous marauder.  It is a marauder, but there are so many traits of the cells that mirror our own journey into 2017, we've adapted, we have learned to assimilate, and we too, have always been here. Is there a way to make amends or reignite the DNA our indigenous bones carry to remind the carcinoma how to create a biosphere? No, okay it was worth a try. I watched, "High Fidelity" Directed by John Frears and I am sorting through playlists on #Spotify trying to determine what makes a perfect playlis...

T here are a number of changes and life events effecting a lot of people around me and individuals who have impacted my life both positively and in a negative nature. I wanted to take a few minutes to put this into some sort of perspective. I am an older woman now and it's finally dawned on me what it means to pray for someone. Offering prayers or good thoughts for people has been a form of expressing love-because it is all you have to give. I don't have much to offer others and what I have in abundance is love. There were years I worked very hard and long hours to provide and I was successful and since I have changed gears and begin at the bottom of my field I have humbled myself enough to know that all I have to offer is a positive outlook and support the best way I can provide it. 

My happy  things are very simple. Today the things that make me happy are the same things that have made me happy for most of my life and I cannot ask for any more than that. I am on the final stretch of the holiday break and I have yet to study and complete a few observations and planning for the spring of 2017. I hope to finish by this afternoon and have the rest of the day to complete tasks around our home. The list, I love lists, I haven't taken as much initiative in the past to stick to but the past year has been very busy so I have had to rely on pen and paper a lot more to get all aspects of the day complete in a reasonable amount of time. I can explain my list briefly.      1. My children love to giggle and laugh and when it happens with two of them, everyone else has a tendency to want to see what is so funny so we all end up having a good time. 2. I have spent some time doing a lot of self assessment and trying to fill in the gaps...

I applied and was chosen to participate in the 34 CFR Section 263 grant implemented by the Office of Indian Education and I am currently completing a twelve month repayment period and had to take a minute to look at the year and see if I was able to exceed and apply my training to the best of my ability. I am currently in an early head start on my reservation in a community down the road from my mom's house and I am having a good time and I love the challenge of integrating assessment and forethought into our monthly activity. LOVE IT, and I was able to attend a meeting last month with the Wyoming Department of Education to gather input on the Every Student Succeeds Act and I was very excited for two reasons; the first was that I was in a room of adults and had the opportunity to interact with people outside of my work and child care environments. The second reason I was very excited to attend and spent two days prior to the meeting organizing my children and double checking wi...

So I am consistently broke. I use to feel silly for hoarding so much stuff and for once in my life I am actually prepared to be living under income for a family of five. I am trying to keep a positive attitude and open mind when working through issues as they arise. I am back to reading and research of Dave Ramsey's philosophy and whats in my best interest and how I can continue to conserve and spend money wisely. So if you are a coupon clipper like I am let me know if you come across any amazing deals, on the look out for winter coats for the girls and plan to invest in a jacket for myself for once. Back to reading for me.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I have had a lot of starting and stopping along the way. I am waist deep in relearning how to assess and teach reading. I can read, love it, been a big fan since I was 6 and do not see myself slowing down anytime soon. I have had to have a nice long talk with my brain and ask it to free up some memory and dump a whole file cabinet of literacy that is no longer supporting our network of learning.  I believe I have had a number of educators who loved me and taught me how to read and write that was less than stellar. I have the will, I have the desire to learn and I love to gain new information, apply, assess, and look at alternatives and adaptions of the material or higher and lower learners. I have gone through a large part of my life on a foundation that wasn't sound. I am rebuilding and I know that if I put it on the internet, it will manifest into a part of who I want to become as an educator. I have questions, I am looking for ...

Hello readers of this defunct free blog! Sorry for losing track of the semester but a lot has changed. My goals and ideals have shifted. I am still alive, probably more than I have ever been in a long time and didn't have the opportunity or energy to write about it. I've found it, I have taken a deep breath and I am enjoying the moment. So I am in the final week of my placement and I have learned a gang of stuff that I  need to write about or I will lose the momentum. I need momentum and I realized after 34 years on earth that it depends on me.  Yes, I know. Very, "After School Special," but it is true. Hard lesson for me to learn and even harder to take full responsibility for. I was lacking follow-through because my accountability of myself and my work ethic have been idle for so long that I forgot what it felt like to be challenged and work hard to get to this place. I want to tell you it's euphoric but the reality of daily life cut the feeling a littl...

Working through our third class of the summer and an in depth review of the Native, African, and European impact on the development of the Americas is depressing but the review of what we've all learned in junior high is a lot easier to understand. I love it despite the horror of it all. What I'm slowly learning-people will do anything to get what they want when they want it,sad but true.

An article about the WRTC Cohort was published in the local Wyoming File news program. Its a great snapshot of the work we've been doing and the intensity of what we are working toward. I love it it and more importantly, I am greatful for it. I like the work I am doing and I love the community it's creating. I don't think there are are other community based education programs that offer something similar in our area.

http://wyofile.com/ron_feemster/federal-grants-help-native-teacher-aides/ It's legitimate. I made it in the newspaper!

My work space, my place of concentration and love, and diligence at what I do. My job doesn't take up my life like it use to. But it does feel good to know that I do something I love and I love what I do. Every day isn't awesome but it's a good place to start. I like the work that I do and the people I'm able to interact with. My goal in college was to become an elementary school teacher so I could go back to the town I use to live in and find a decent enough job while starting a family. When the life I envisioned and the person I envisioned everything with started to wear thin, I realized teaching wasn't my dream or goal-it was the easiest and most available option.  I didn't want to become a miserable teacher. I had enough of those and when goals fall short I believe it's heartbreak that you really can't hide. I didn't want to hide. I put myself through three years of college/technical school and realized that I wasn't sure what my goal...