La Pájaro: Puts the Bird in Birdie

Movin'

Hey, gang. I'm closing down shop - here and at all my other blogs. I've moved to birdiejaworski.com for good, and after this weekend, it will be my only blog and website. I'll be deleting all my other sites, including this one, by Monday. It's time for a change, for simplicity, for reflection. I don't have time to be a good networker or blogger. I would rather be slow and create something meaningful than try to continue to catch up. I never can catch up. Thanks for being my friend along the path. I look forward to being a better friend in the future.

Please stop by when you get a chance and join the slow and thoughtful conversation. I'm feeling relieved and refreshed by this decision.

Check out my latest auctions!

I am selling some incredible things this week in my eBay store, Western Civilization by Birdie.

Don't miss:

An oil painting of the Forked Lightning Ranch painted by Greer Garson's personal maid
A mysterious and spiritually protective White Buffalo Warrior Kachina
A natural-earth painting (circa 1972) of a Crown Dancer by a Mescalero Apache
Two vintage cast iron miniature duck decoys
A neighing horse cookie jar - yes, he really makes noise!

Plus first editions of a pile of wonderful books, cow horns, authentic western decor and much, much more....

Four simple words.

TGIF.

I'm extending the contest! And assorted tidbits...

I'm extending the deadline for the Navajo Rock Art Contest! New deadline is Friday, August 24th, one minute 'til midnight.

Help me fill my virtual iPod. I've loaded in a few songs about.... school! (Anyone remember the Dead Kennedys? I feel old.) What other songs should I add to the list?

I'm home after a long, hot retreat. I'll think of something else to say once some of the educational jargon sifts into the lower layers of the brain...

Prolifica

I can think of worse places to work...

My new job begins a week from Monday. I will be team-teaching the 7th and 8th grade (a combined class) at an Expeditionary Learning charter school in my little New Mexican heaven. I'll teach full-time, along with Mr. J. Another teacher, Mrs. G, will join us four afternoons a week.

My class consists of 28 wild and crazy New Mexicans. One of these rugrats is my own boy, Louis, age 12. I can't beat the setting - the incredible castle of the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico. We have two sizable rooms on the bottom floor with our own courtyard. My students will eat lunches with the World College Students. I know there are stories hiding in the old stair banister, in the carved wood living room where Jesse James once hid for months. We'll have access to the hot springs, to the pool and gym and Dawn Light Sanctuary.

I'm trying to think up something poetic, something beautiful to say about the change of season, the way my boys and I will walk to school together next week, how this new job means I'll spend more time with them than last year when I worked from home. But I'm scared. The change frightens me, and I worry that I won't measure up, that I won't have time to write. That's the biggie, you know. That I won't have time to write.