SOL 7/31: Seven Things About Me on the Seventh!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the March Slice of Life Story Challenge community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny

 for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives.

I love borrowing ideas for writing from fellow bloggers. Today's post was inspired by LeAnn's first post to kick off our month of slicing. Since this is my seventh year to participate, I decided to write my seven things about me post on the seventh. 

1.  I started slicing seven years ago with an incredible class of sixth graders who encouraged me to post my daily slices on my own blog. Our district featured my students in an e-connections article.

2.  I'm passionate about poetry and happy to have participated in bringing three poets (Janet Wong, Irene Latham, and Charles Waters) to visit our middle school.

3.  After meeting Irene Latham at my first NCTE conference (thanks Kim Doole), Irene invited me to join the Kitlitosphere Progressive Poem. It terrifies me, yet I find myself signing up for a slot year after year.

4.  I love to bake, but I'm not a good cook. Good cooks prepare meals, bakers prepare treats. This lifelong passion for baking was launched when Kay Benham and I won a blue ribbon for our 4-H  demonstration lesson on how to bake chocolate chip cookies when we were in third grade. 

5.  I've been a book club member for thirty years. As a young mother, I started my first book club in Houston, TX in the 80s. I was afraid of becoming one of those women who quit reading once they become a mom. I was in that book club for ten years when we moved to the Pacific NW. My current book club is celebrating twenty years of reading together this year.

6.  After retirement, I started an after school book club at my middle school that met weekly for three years. I credit those young people with helping me ease into retirement. My inaugural members headed to high school this past fall, so I stepped back in order to spend three days a week with grandson Jack. I still drop in on the monthly book club meeting when I can squeeze it in.

7.  I love alliteration. The three cornerstones in my life are family, friends, and faith. I like to tell people that if you are ever in my life, you are always in my life (and that includes my blogging friends).