Afternoon Ti

Season 2 Episode 72 Sunday Sip:  Here's to More Hello friends!  This is the final Sunday Sip episode for 2019.  These short podcast episodes on Sundays were meant to bring you encouragement, hope, and joy prior to entering the school week.  I hope that they did just that!   I went back and forth on different topics for this episode because I felt internal pressure to share something big and grand and exciting to end the year, but I was lacking in words to make a big bang ending so instead I’m going to end with something simple.  And sometimes simple is best. Many of us reflect on our year and what has happened - things we are proud of, things that didn’t go so well, relationships that have improved or become distanced, goals met or unmet.  I’ve spent time reflecting on the experience of putting myself out there to produce and create content for this podcast.  Last year I knew I wanted to create content for music educators in p...

Season Two Episode 70 Hurry Up and Wait Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you'll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching, or in this case a week off of teaching and hopefully a week of rest and time with family and friends. Our middle school theater students recently put on a play called Hurry Up and Wait.  It was a set of short skits where in every scenario someone is rushing to get to a certain outcome only to find that they have to wait and it never goes the way they hope.  This phrase "Hurry Up and Wait" is one that refers to a situation where you are forced to hurry in order to complete a certain task, or arrive at a certain destination, by a specified time only to find that nothing is happening - sometimes because other required tasks are still needed to be completed.  ...

Season Two Episode 66 Sunday Sip: Prayer Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  Something I’ve been more intentional about for the past month is my devotional and prayer time each morning.  It had become more of a thing to check off and a daily task than a meaningful time with God. I still learned more about Him, but it had a different feel to it.  It was mundane, usual, and just going through the motions rather than really taking time to listen, share prayer requests and thankfulness. I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been doing to help rekindle my relationship with God through a shift in my morning routine has given me more desire to spend time with God and more intentional time in making it meaningful.  The fi...

Season Two Episode 64 Last 30ish Days Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  We are heading into the final month of the year.  I’m very excited about this for many reasons. One, I love December.  I love celebrating Jesus’ birth. I love everything that surrounds the Christmas season - the lights, the music, the joy, and the family time.  And I’m excited to see the changes I’ve experienced as I’ve joined the Last 90 Days Challenge that began in October and finish this during the month of December.  I’m seeing great results from putting effort into the five parts of this challenge and I’d encourage you to try one of them - or two - or all five. I’ll post a link about it in case you want to join in for the final month. It’...

Season Two Episode 61 Sunday Sip: Thanksgiving Priorities Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  We’ve made it to Thanksgiving break!  Have you considered how you’re going to spend the next week?  I’d encourage you to write down or put together a few ideas of things that you want to make a priority this week. They can be as simple or detailed as you like.  Choose a few priorities and then plan time for them to happen.   My four priorities for my Thanksgiving break are: Take a nap a few days this week - I value my naps and I function well during the week because I take one every weekend.  Yes, every weekend. I push myself hard all week long and on the weekends my body still wakes me up early because it’s...

Season Two Episode 59 Sunday Sip: Three Words Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  I recently read the book ‘ The Originals : How Non-conformists move the World’ by Adam Grant .  Highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it yet. I love how Adam weaves stories into lessons and insights into human behavior and ideas.  It’s creative and a fast-paced read. The last chapter of the book is called “Rocking the Boat and Keeping it Steady: Managing anxiety, apathy, ambivalence, and anger.”   The section of this chapter that has stuck with me over the past few weeks after reading it was a story about a college professor who asked students to give a persuasive speech.  Before they gave the speech they were asked to ...

Season Two Episode 55 Sunday Sip: Gratitude Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  With Thanksgiving coming up in a few weeks, it seems only perfect to start the month considering gratitude.  Eckhart Tolle said that acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.  We all have so much to be grateful for and taking time to remember and reflect on what we are thankful for can make a difference in our daily lives. I recently read an article from collective evolution about how gratitude literally changes our physical hearts and our brains.  According to the article, research coming out of UCLA’s Mindfulness Awareness Research Center found that “having an attitude of gratitude chang...

Season Two Episode 53 Sunday Sip:  Patience Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you'll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next week of teaching. I'm not sure what your week looked like, but mine was disjointed.  Dallas was hit by tornadoes last Sunday night.  Our home was right at the top of the line of the storms as the tornado went by.  The sirens were going off - power went out - we spent time in the closet listening to strong winds.  We were mildly inconvenienced with no side effects to deal with except a few large branches.  If you drive a quarter to a half of a mile south in our neighborhood there is massive destruction - trees pulled from the roots laying on top of homes, entire roofs ripped off houses, shopping centers completely gutted.  It's really shocking to see the dev...