Treasured Monday Moments SOL 2013: 19 of 31

For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  

Moments of connection that made my Monday:

• An early morning phone call from son in DC
• An offer of help from son-in-law after school
• A hug from Nancy at physical therapy
• An afternoon phone call from hubby in Houston
• A letter (real mail) from Crystal in KS
• An evening chat with daughter in OR

It skipped a generation! SOL 2013: 18 of 31

For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  

This is Ella, my maternal grandmother.  She was a woman who sewed.  I have fond memories of her Singer treadle sewing machine.  She made quilts and dresses for herself and her four daughters.  My mother used to say that neighbors could bring a picture of a dress and my grandmother could create the pattern.

 

This is Lillian, my mother.  She was a woman who sewed.  She made my Easter dresses every year.  She also sewed bedspreads, curtains, and made wedding dresses for my oldest sister and me.  She was the fabric manager of a Ben Franklin store where she spent many years helping other women select fabric and create beautiful items for their homes. 

This is Ramona, that’s me.  I am not a woman who sews.  I made a pincushion in 4-H.  I made a jumper in Home Economics.  I once made a Chicken Little costume for my daughter for Halloween.  I started a quilt once that I plan to finish when I retire.  With a mother, two older sisters, and a best friend who sewed, I could always manage to get someone else to help me.  I am a woman who reads.

This is Sara, my daughter.  She is a woman who sews.  You see, the sewing gene skipped a generation.  When she began sewing  projects on her own as a young girl, I realized that she needed instruction from someone who sewed.  So one summer a dear friend taught sewing classes to several girls in our dining room.  Sara surprises me all the time with the projects she takes on.  This fall she picked up a quilting kit while she was completing a rotation in Oregon.  Over the holidays, she finished piecing the quilt top and began hand quilting it.  
Her grandmother and great grandmother would be so proud!  

She is also a woman who reads!

To sleep or not to sleep? SOL 2013: 17 of 31

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

It's March Madness at my house.  I know I'm borrowing the term, but it perfectly describes my month.  It started with three friends visiting my son-in-law (who currently lives with us) for Emerald City Comicon.  The following week my son came home for three days of his spring break in the middle of my teaching week!  That weekend my daughter arrived home for the weekend before heading off to her next rotation.  Then it was on to report cards for 2nd trimester and our book club retreat this weekend.  Monday I have a presentation to our PAC (parent advisory committee), Thursday is a field trip (always fun, but so exhausting), and on the weekend we'll be spending time with dear friends in town for a wedding (we haven't seen them in many years).  The next Monday we'll be doing a Skype visit (my first) and then at the end of the month Spring Break starts.  Hallelujah!

All of these things are wonderful events, but added to my already busy schedule and our month of slicing, I think I should change the title of this post to "I Need More Time!"  I'm sad that I never have enough time to read and respond to all the posts that are waiting for me at Two Writing Teachers. I'm reduced to skimming the list and setting the timer. Otherwise, I find myself spending far too much time with my blogging friends.  This morning I returned from dropping hubby at the airport for an early flight determined to snag some much needed sleeping time before church (still dealing with book retreat sleep deficit) .  Instead I plopped down at the computer to do a few comments and today's slice.  Here I am two hours later!  Now it's time to get dressed and head for church.  But, my friends, it's been a delightful morning and so fun to indulge in a few extra moments with some of you.  Happy Sunday!

Lovely sounds! SOL 2013: 16 of 31

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

Our book club started fifteen years ago.  We've seen friends come and go (move away) and some come back again, always an event to celebrate!  Our group covers a wide range of ages from women in their twenties to their seventies.  I just returned from our yearly retreat which is basically a quick overnight excursion to visit, eat, walk on the beach, laugh, and select our books for the upcoming year.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner, had a lively discussion about the Agatha Christie mystery that we read for March, and then it was on to the intense work of the evening - selecting books for the upcoming year.  Each person is allowed to promote three books for next year's list.  After listening to each person share why we should read her selected book(s), we vote for our top six titles.  We've tried many different methods to vote for books (moving from our earlier system of placing M&Ms on selected books to the private ballot we now use).  If you're in a book club, I'm curious about the system you use to select books.

Here's a picture of this lovely group of friends, along with our youngest attendee, swaddled in white. 

My favorite sounds of the retreat - the gentle murmur and laughter of friends sharing their lives and the lap of ocean waves on two quick walks along the beach.  Both are sounds that feed my soul.

I have a video with the sound of the ocean waves, but can't get it to upload to Blogger.  Any tips?

A frenetic slice! SOL 2013: 15 0f 31

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

 

Grades due today

Comments in progress

Bags to pack 

Leaving school early

Joining dear friends

Book club retreat!

Something in My Pocket! SOL: 14 of 31

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

 

Here's a tune I composed to celebrate a surprise gift (with apologies to my Brownie troop from many years ago).  It's to the tune of "The Brownie Smile."  Once you memorize these tunes, they're stuck in your mind forever. 

 

There's something in my pocket

It belongs in my classroom

I keep it very close at hand

For it warms my teacher's heart!

I'm sure you couldn't guess it 

If you guessed a long, long while

So I'll take it out and show you

It's two new black markers!

I think you'll need the backstory to completely appreciate this song.  On Tuesday I went in search of black markers, but to no avail.  None in the storage drawers in our teacher work room, none lying around the library (I considered petty thievery, though I would have left a colored marker in exchange), and none in my next door neighbor's classroom (I asked).  I resigned myself to another purchase from my own pocket the next time I went to Office Depot.  Sure, I have plenty of other colors, but I like basic black for most of the writing I do on the whiteboards.

 

On Wednesday, guess who appeared in my classroom waving two black dry erase markers?  Yes, my good friend and next door neighbor, Karen!  I don't know if she found them or bought them, but her appearance with markers in hand made my day.  I stuck one in each pocket and spent the rest of the day humming this old song from my Brownie days - "There's something in my pocket..." and composing lyrics to match today's surprise gift.  What fun to count this fellow teacher and next door neighbor as my good friend.   Such a small thing to warm my teacher heart!

Mrs. B's famous cookie bars SOL: 13 of 31

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.  For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a slice every day. 

It's a WOW party today in Room 104 during lunch.  Attendance is by invitation only.  How do you get this exclusive invitation?  You find one of our WOW (Words of the Week) in print.  You should encounter it accidentally, not by design.  No "googling" the word and bringing me an example you "found" on the internet.  Nope, this has to be authentic encounter with our weekly word of the week.  Once you encounter the word, you go public by posting the example on our discussion thread.  Posting words provides practice for citing sources.  You have to punctuate the example correctly (quotation marks around the sentence you found), and cite the source correctly (spelling and capitalization count).  If you make mistakes, you keep trying until you have an impeccable entry.

The party consists of playing games such as Catch Phrase or Bananagrams while eating lunch.   At the end of our game time, everyone gets one of my famous cookie bars.  Their fame lies in the fact that it's what I always serve to entice my students to search for our weekly words in the books, magazines, and newspapers they read.  You have to encounter a word many times before you "own" it.  Ownership is what I'm looking for as we explore these words all year long.  So as the year unfolds and our list of words grows, the list of eligible participants increases and the length between WOW parties decreases.  Parties are scheduled when the list on the board reaches critical mass, and I have time to make the cookie bars.

Now on to my famous cookie bars - it's a rather pedestrian recipe, and the preparation is never arduous.  I can recite the recipe verbatim.  Here's a step-by-step photo session from last night.

 Cream the butter and sugars together. 

Beat in the eggs and vanilla.

Fold in the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Add the bits of chocolate goodness. 

 All done, except for spreading in the pan, the hardest part.  

 Ready to pop in the oven for 20 minutes.

Cut into squares for the party!

Note to students:  No, you may not use any of the bolded words as "finds" for our next WOW party!