Yesterday, my best furrbuddy Sampson turned ten. To celebrate, we went and did the thing we love to do most together – fishing.

Sampson had a pretty challenging 10th year. In June he had, what we thought was first a fatty deposit but turned out to be a tumor, removed from the left side of his body. The mass was about the size of a softball, and the recovery was challenging due to the size of the incision.

We decided to follow that up with an experimental cancer vaccine that was made using his tumor in hopes that it would not return. His hair is finally fully grown back in, and so far, no bumps are present.

I found a dog toy in the river ( hey people of Bend, don’t throw dog toys into the river, your pups don’t always retrieve them! ) so he even had a “new” toy to play with on his special day.

I love you Sampson – you’ve been by my side through so much in the last ten years.

973

I’m still fishing. It is challenging with the limited daylight hours and finding time before or after work. Cold temps and snow have also started to make the daily trip to the river a wee bit more challenging.

One of my lessons from this journey though is that the most memorable experiences often come during the most challenging of times. Most days I only find about fifteen minutes in my day to sneak down to the river, and sometimes I do find some friends during those short sessions.

Classroom

And things are going great in Mr. Timmy’s classroom. I finished up my first quarter of the year, and have welcomed in a fresh batch of three different sixth grade cohorts to my AVID classes.

It is great to be able to teach the same set of lessons 3 times during the year – it allows me to iterate and improve upon my prior work, and see how students respond. At times I still simply can not believe that I am a teacher, but it also feels like there is no other place I should be.

Just like all things in life, there are strikes and gutters. But mostly my days in the classroom are a positive experience. There is quite a bit of negativity in general shrouding public education these days though. Being new to the scene, this is especially challenging for me to navigate – so I try to stay focused on why I am there – and that is to support the children and families of our community.

And the students are RAD! One of my advisory kiddos drew this banger portrait of me on the white board. I also have had the joy of being able to share my hobbies of fly fishing and making stickers with the students. On Friday’s during home room / advisory – teachers get to teach a fun class of their choice and students choose where to go.

The first two sessions of this Desert Time I hosted classes on Fly Fishing. During one of them, students made fly boxes out of altoid tins. The past two weeks I have held “Design a Sticker” workshops where students make their own bespoke sticker designs which I then print up for them. Good times, and great memories.

Volleyball

And the rest of the Crawford crew is doing great. Kaydee is doing great as a freshman, as is Teagan in 6th grade at my school. Becky is teaching 3rd grade, and we all play volleyball together quite often.

Both the girls are on club teams this winter, so the next few months will be filled with gym time, and not as much snow time. That’s okay by me, it is fun to see everyone stoked on the same sport.

To 1k

I have removed all the social medias from my phone, and hope to begin blogging more again. Some recent messages from friends on this corner of the web have reminded me how much more impactful writing is then ephemeral videos of memes.

And I want to try and capture some more thoughts as I approach my 1,000th day of fishing in a row. I didn’t anticipate this thing lasting so long, but the journey has been transformational for me.

Take care friends. Be kind to yourself, and to others. Keep fishing!