SOL 20/31: Debora's Disappeared!

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 confess to a compulsion to photography,

I love to document life with camera in hand.

So I wanted a pic of the five of us 

at Friday's quilt show.

And there was someone available

to take our photo,

but Debora was missing!

After several walk throughs,

I determined she absolutely

must be in the ladies room.

My search for her

led me to a short hallway

lined with more quilts.

I looked at each one.

I read the story for each one.

I wondered,

Was she in distress?

Should I go in?

No, I decided.

Just wait.

Finally, she emerged.

"Ramona, you have to come in

and see this bathroom!"

And so I did.

And then I invited the 

rest of our group 

to see the art 

in the ladies room.

Won't you join us?

And this is just a sampling

of what detained Debora

in the ladies room on Friday!

SOL 19/31: Unscheduled Time!

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.

When I rose at 5:30 am on Friday to get ready for our book club retreat, I must admit that I grumbled a bit, wondering why we were leaving so early. But as the early arrivals headed for the small town on Vashon Island, I was rewarded with the realization that we leave early so that we can enjoy unscheduled time together. We're open to whatever grabs our fancy! And after an early lunch,

 and a stop by a local landmark, the bicycle in the tree, 

we were enticed by a sign at the arts center

to meander through a quilt show. 

Here are a few pics from that show. We loved the stories behind the quilts almost as much as the quilts themselves.  

This is a community quilt created in 1994.

I love this quilt block of a 3-D raccoon!

You can see the bicycle in a tree on the 3rd row of this quilt.

Here are two of my favorite quilts with their stories:

Be sure to stop by tomorrow to discover 
what happened when Debora disappeared!

SOL 17/31 & Celebrate This Week: Book Club Retreat!

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.

Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.

When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

 

   A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember.

Bobbi calls and arranges to pick me up at 8:30 am on Friday morning. Then we'll head to Jen's house where we'll transfer my many bags (that's a post for another day) to Jen's car and head to our yearly book club retreat. 

I love a trip that begins with a ferry ride. This one is short, but we decide to head for the deck where I convince a fellow traveler to snap a pic of us.

After arriving at Debora's lovely home and pitching in a bit with a few last minute preparations, the five early arrivals pile into the car and we're off for fun! It's hard to describe the giddy excitement as we gather each year, but it's palpable and we all drink it in. 

Bobbi blurts out, "Hey, that sign mentioned chocolate!" (*)

Debora, who used to live here, replies that she doesn't know anything about a chocolate shop. Nevertheless, we can check it out. We're thinking that it's something we'll look for on our next run into town. But Debora pulls into town, turns around, and we head back, looking for the "chocolate" sign with craned heads. Once we've spotted the rustic sign, we turn around and head back to town. We laugh with glee when the rustic sign that Bobbi had noticed has no mention whatsoever of chocolate, but instead has the words "Co-op housing."

We park in front of the highly recommended Snapdragon cafe. As we start to get out of the car for lunch, we realize that's it's only 11:15. But we're all hungry, having started the day at an early hour, and we decide it's okay to eat lunch before noon. 

After lunch stops include a walk to the "bike in a tree," a stop by a quilt show (not planned, but noticed on the marquee of the local arts center), and slow meandering through the small shops in town. With nothing on schedule until our evening dinner, we savor every moment of shopping, browsing, and chatting together. We stop by the local Thriftway to pick up a few last minute items before heading back to Debora's place to await the arrival of the rest of our baker's dozen. 

Here's the pic of our group taken just before dinner. Thanks, Karl, for taking this pic of our group before you left. 

I'm thinking that this once a year event will provide several more blog posts for the upcoming week. Stay tuned. 

*Note about the two colors used on this post:  Okay, I usually do my celebrate posts in blue, but Blogger and I are fighting tonight. It refuses to do the rest of the post in blue and also refuses to make the entire post black. I surrender! 

Blogger: 1 Ramona: 0.

Slice of Life: Tuesday Afternoon Bliss!

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

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                   for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

When I saw Betsy's post yesterday about her OLW (One Little Word), I was reminded that today is a 5th Tuesday - my own designated time to reflect on my OLW.  This year I'm having a bit of a tough journey with my OLW, abide.  So today, I'm postponing that post and sharing instead a bit about our after school book club.  It's that time of year when we're a little less organized.  We're post-test season, and finishing up our last round of book clubs.  It's tough to get everyone focused on discussing a specific book after a full day at school, but when we do, I'm amazed at the insight exhibited by my book-loving friends.  Last week we discussed Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer, and this week we discussed Rules by Cynthia Lord.

We started our discussion of Rules by exploring the Schneider Family Book Award.  Some of the winning titles that members of our club have read and enjoyed include:  Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullally Hunt, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Rain, Reign by Ann Martin, Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, Small Steps by Louis Sachar, Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan, and  A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass.  It's affirming to see the empathy and compassion that students feel as they read these books that feature characters with special needs. 

Several students had read Opehlia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee.  Their interesting discussion has me adding this title to my summer reading list.  I'm intrigued by the image of the girl peeking through a keyhole who sees another eye looking back at her.   And this review from Goodreads should pique your interest:  "It really is a modern-day fairy tale, reminiscent of Roald Dahl, with a touch of Grimm Brothers, engaging like the Narnia books." 

We only have three remaining Tuesdays of this school year to meet and share book bliss.  We plan to  visit our elementary schools to distribute flyers to 5th graders about two summer meetings in July and August, and to invite the rising 6th graders to join us next year for Tuesday afternoon bliss as we share book love and sometimes an occasional brownie or cookie bar.  

Celebrate This Week: A Week's Vacation!

 Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres. 

                                                             When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember. 

1.  Sunshine

We've enjoyed days and days of sunshine.

It's glorious to wake to the sun streaming

through the window, to walk with friends,

and to notice the beauty in our world.  

This crying tree was discovered

by Jan on one of our recent walks. 

2.  Clouds

We've lived in the Northwest for almost twenty years.

I'm thrilled that our extended ten day forecast shows

clouds and rain for every single day with only two 

days when the sun might peek through the clouds.

And no more days of 80+ degree weather.

(That's worrisome in May.)

I guess celebrating rain and clouds makes

me a true citizen of the Northwest.

3.  Poetry Reading

I was invited by a local poet to participate in 

an evening at Island Books.  I agonized over what to share

in my allotted ten minutes on the program.

My daughter said to focus on just three books -

an impossible task.  So I took a bin of books (36)

and shared poems from some of my favorite children's authors.

What I didn't anticipate was how much I would enjoy

the rest of the evening after being asked to go first.

We heard from Christopher Jamick, author of Not Aloud;

Laura Totten, teacher and founder of the high school Poetry Club;

and David D. Horowitz, author of Cathedral and Highrise.

(Laura, Christopher, David, and me)

I'm looking forward to connecting Laura's high school

Poetry Club to our middle school book club.

4.  Embracing the Slow at Books, Brownies, and Beyond

Maybe it's the call of the sun, maybe it's the time of the 

school year, maybe it's due to the past two weeks of state testing,

but our numbers at book club have dwindled recently.  

Our attendees have been in single digits and we've enjoyed

our time together in new ways - reading alone, sharing titles,

chatting with friends, and looking at poetry books together. 

This past week, Elsa, Katie, and I explored my blog

trying to figure out how to add "tags" to my entries

(something I've wanted to do for a long time).  

It turns out they're called "labels" in blogspot. 

Elsa kept a running list of labels we created and

even sent me a list of entries with original poetry. 

5.  A Week's Vacation!

Yes, I'm taking a week off from subbing.  It's been a busy spring

and I'm looking forward to diving back into some 

neglected projects at home and enjoying a bit more time to read. 

I'm reading Rules for Books, Brownies, and Beyond,

My Brilliant Friend for our quarterly google chat book club

(with two friends who've moved away),

The Shepherd's Life for my monthly book club,

and Bettyville just for fun.  

Celebrate This Week: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!

 Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres. 

                                                             When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember. 

1.  One new calendar page with a great quote for May:

"The whole world is a series of miracles, but 

we're so used to them we call them ordinary things."

-Hans Christian Anderson

2.  Two gals (daughter and me) beside the blooming rhoddie outside the laundry room

3. Three days of state testing down, with two to go (but only one for me) 

4.  Four titles selected for new book groups at Books, Brownies, and Beyond 

5.  Five friends at our Cinco de Mayo celebration