Memoir Monday - Week 11

How was your weekend?

I’m starting to get in the mood to bake. Good thing I don’t have the typical “lose weight” New Year’s resolution this year, or I’d feel guilty about it . Whenever it starts getting nice and cold, I start thinking baking and hot drinks. I’m hoping to find some Chai Tea to enjoy this season.

But I digress, here are my responses to the Monday Memoir questions – link up yours so we can all read and enjoy! Have a wonderful and blessed week!

1. What was winter like where you grew up? What kinds of activities did you and your family do during the winter?

2. What is the best piece of advice you ever received and why?



1. What was winter like where you grew up? What kinds of activities did you and your family do during the winter?

I grew up in Wyoming and Colorado. Winter was always a fun, but COLD time there. I remember having to crawl out a window to shovel out the front door so we could leave the house one morning. My sister and I walked home from school. I used to love to walk on the ice that lined the gutters of the road. Frequently, I’d break through. It used to drive my dad crazy when I’d come home with wet shoes and feet. When I was in Wyoming, my sister and I attended a private campus school. During the winter, we went skiing on Fridays. What a blast! That was always something to look forward to. Funny, when we moved back to Colorado (grade 5), we didn’t ski. That’s like growing up in Hawaii and not surfing, I guess. We did sled with each snow, though. I’m excited to take my kids skiing for the first time this winter – yay for homeschool discount! And, of course, as teens, we loved to do donuts in the ice covered parking lots. Once I was old enough to have my own place, winter wasn’t as much fun. Shoveling your own walks and paying the heating bill put a damper on the thrill of a blizzard. :-)

2. What is the best piece of advice you ever received and why?

The best piece of advice I ever received was from a professor. I had written a paper and gotten a 93. I wrote to him asking for improvement tips and understanding of what I did wrong. He could tell I was hyper-Type A. His response was – “April, you didn’t take the class to prove you don’t need it.” It was said in a positive context. That statement really made me stop and think. The experience was about the knowledge I would gain from it, not the points or the grade. Of course, I didn’t relent and earned my A, but I did have a different perspective on education. I often tell my students today about that experience to help them gain that perspective as well.