Lately, I've been thinking a lot about being gracious and how important that is and that often brings me to a poem I learned as a child.  My mom had it up in her kitchen and as I would do dishes for our large family, I would read it.  I think I had it memorized by the time I was in middle school.  The author of this poem is unknown, but it sure has meant a lot to me through the years.  Here it is:

Thank God for dirty dishes.

They have a tale to tell.

While others may go hungry,

We are eating very well!

With home and health

and happiness.

We shouldn't want to fuss

for by the 

stack of evidence

God has been good to us!!!

I'm really bummed because I missed the 1st ever IATEFL BESIG online conference!  The conference was held this last Saturday and I was really looking forward to going in order to network and get back in touch with people I have met through the face-to-face conference I went to back in 2009. On Saturday, it totally slipped my mind and I did not turn on my computer--I believe I even had it scheduled in my calendar.   I'm really thankful, though, that I'll be able to watch the recordings as time permits. The one thing I really enjoy about online conferences, though, is that I can meet up with like-minded language teachers from around the world and still be in rural Idaho!  Back in 2009, I co-initiated another conference and  was part of getting it going.  I then stepped back due to lack of time and  the conference really has a life of its own and is doing really well--the conference is for language teachers in the use of technology in the classroom and is every spring.  I attended part of it this last month after several years of missing it and was very pleased to see how well it was going.  So, if you haven't had a chance to join a live online conference or webinar in your discipline, I would encourage you to enroll in one as you have the time!

Right now, I'm sitting in a house with a very cute boxer and two skittish cats housesitting for a friend of my mom's.  I'll be here for about two weeks and I'm considering it a mini vacation although I'm only about 20 minutes from where I live.  Normally, Alpo joins me when I housesit/petsit, but since the cats were rescue cats, they wouldn't come into the house when Alpo was here and Alpo was being a bully to the boxer and being a general pain in the neck so I took him home.

Here is a picture of two of the three charges during the first afternoon:

I'm starting to think that this might be a great way to travel and I have done some internet research and have found some interesting sites for housesitters.  The two organizations I have found that seem trustworthy are Trustedhousesitters.com  and Luxuryhousesitting.com where they match housesitters with people who need someone to housesit and/or petsit.  There are opportunities around the world and it looks like a fun way to learn an area since you would be living in a house and taking care of pets.  Although you have responsibilities while there, it saves a lot on hotels.  The housesitters do have to pay a fee to get the contact information and set up a profile, but it isn't all that much considering how much one can potentially save on hotels.  Some of the housesitting jobs are a weekend and some are for as long as a year--seems a lot are from two to six weeks.  The jobs are all over the world.  I haven't seen any yet for Finland, but did see a few postings for housesitting in Sweden so this will grow as people learn about the site.  I think I will start doing this with opportunities in the USA and then eventually go abroad as I get older and have more freedom.  This is definitely something I want to do during retirement!  If anyone has worked with either of these organizations, I would love to hear from you!