2015 SOLSC 21/31 and Celebrate This Week!

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

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!

1.  Words!

There are certain words that I'll forever associate with certain friends:

Pause - Tara

Sweet - Elsie (aka LeAnn)

Shine - Ruth

I've joined friends at Spiritual Journey Thursday to blog about the spiritual focus of our One Little Words for 2015.  I'm surprised how often the word we are writing about pops up during the week we write.  I discovered this title on display at the library after Thursday's post on "brave." How serendipitous is that!

2.  Two boxes left!

I'm almost finished moving everything back into the kitchen, but I promised myself no pics of the the new kitchen until I finish.  I'm trying to declutter as I go, thus my slow progress.  The two remaining small boxes are filled with stuff/junk that requires a certain perky time of day and attitude for me to tackle.

3.  April is around the corner with two reasons to celebrate!

 1. Poetry Month!  I celebrate poetry all year, but I'm always excited for April to arrive.  A small envelope arrived this week - my free poster for National Poetry Month.  I love the poem "Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand, and I love Roz Chast.
 Double pleasure!

2.  Daughter Sara's visit!  She's coming to look for a place to live
(they arrive in June), to interview for some jobs,
and of course, to visit her mom and dad!

4.  The mess on the bed!

I like to write in my daughter's yellow bedroom.  Yesterday I turned around in the chair after finishing Friday's slice and saw:  a blue jacket, a blue sweater, a cordless phone, a stack of books and magazines I moved off the desk to work on a slice, an envelope of notes from NCTE (used for writing Friday's slice), my scriptures, a newspaper bag, unread newspapers from Wednesday, Becoming His (my current spiritual read), clean jeans needing to be hung up, an Ensign magazine, a Simple Living magazine, the Island Books Top 40 List of Bestsellers for 2014 (which I forgot to take to the retreat), a UW bookstore bag (a definite keeper, they are so sturdy), and a basket of clean clothes waiting to be folded.  I should be ashamed, but instead I'm celebrating these pieces of my life!  I grabbed my notebook to list the stuff and then cleaned off the bed,

except for one live object:

5.  My writing buddy, Hadley!

You may recognize her, she made the cover of Bonnie's video.  
She'll be 18 next  month. She knows that sometimes I write on the bed,
and she snuggles with me while I write.  

2015 SOLSC 20/31: I Lay My Stitches Down

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives. 

Didn't you just love putting a 

two in the tens place today 

and a zero in the ones place 

for twenty slices completed?

                                  

    I'm sharing a new-to-me book that I learned 

about in a session at NCTE in November.

Catherine at Reading to the Core is

hosting this week's poetry round-up.  

       Be sure to stop by for a taste of poetry love.

In January while reading the poetry shelves,

searching for inspiration 

for a Poetry Friday post,

I stumbled across this book.

I clutched it to my heart

and headed for the checkout desk.

It took me awhile to get around to reading it.

My WTR (want to read) stack always looms tall 

and sometimes spills over onto a second shelf.

Introduced to the author

and her research process for the book

in an incredible NCTE session, 

I was not disappointed!  

A perfect post for Poetry Friday during February, 

a great focus for National African American Read-In,

except that February found me working in our library, 

sprinting to finish writing a curriculum unit,

and overseeing a kitchen remodel.  

Meticulously researched by Cynthia Grady,

each poem is "... ten lines of ten syllables,

to mimic the square shape of a quilt block."  

Each poem has three references:  

"to reflect the three layers of a quilt:

...a biblical or spiritual reference,

a musical reference, and 

a sewing or fiber arts reference."

Beautifully illustrated by Michele Wood,

 the quilt squares at the bottom of each poem

appear somewhere in the illustration on the opposite page.

Additional text in the light brown border

gives historical background to enlighten the reader.

Each poem is written in the voice of a distinct person.

You will linger over the words and the paintings.  

I eagerly search for the words 

"I lay my stitches down," 

 that became the title of the book,

and find them in the final poem, "Basket." 

"...my thimble, thread, and needle comfort me,

I lay my stitches down and troubles fall

away.  Before too long, I'm breathing with

the rhythm of my quilting - listening

wide with every fiber of my soul:..."

Plunge into Grady's exquisite poems

 and Wood's rich, vibrant illustrations.

Listen to these voices from the past. 

You may reach for thimble, thread and needle,

or choose to arrange some words on the page.

2015 SOLSC 19/31: Brave is just acting in faith...

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

                                                   and for nurturing our writing lives.

The bloggers at Spiritual Journey Thursday are            

writing about the spiritual focus of our community's   

One Little Words.  This week, we are writing about 

Teresa Winterstein's OLW, BRAVE. 

I have always loved the story of Esther in the Old Testament.  Each day that we rely on faith, instead of fear is a day that we show our bravery as followers of Christ.  I usually don't allow myself to read anyone's Spiritual Journey post until I've written my own, but this week I read Holly's post before writing.  She reminded me of this favorite scripture in 2 Timothy 1:7.   "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."  Each time that we push aside our fear to act on inspiration from God, we are being brave.  I love the stories of modern-day faith exemplified along with Esther's story in this short three minute video.

"Being brave doesn't mean that I'm not afraid.  Brave is just acting in faith."

I'm also reminded of one of my favorite read aloud books that I frequently shared with my sixth graders.  It features a boy-girl friendship, it's historical fiction, it's about bullying and racism, it's humorous while dealing with serious themes, and Gabriel (the boy character) is afraid of many things.  The Liberation of Gabriel King by K.L. Going is a perfect read aloud for fifth and sixth graders.  The spider in the swamp scene is my all-time favorite passage to read aloud.  By the end of the book, Gabriel comes to the realization that courage is not the absence of fear, but that being brave means doing hard things even when one is afraid, and that love is what allows us to move forward in spite of our fears.

How is Teresa's OLW (one little word) "brave" manifested in your daily life?   Can you be afraid and brave at the same time?

2015 SOLSC 18/31: Summertime and the living is easy!

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

 and for nurturing our writing lives.

I know it's not summertime!

Elsie's post today sent me to my blog posts in a frenzy of deleting or saving previous drafts so that the # of posts at the top of the column would reflect the actual # of posts I've published and not all my false starts.  I'm close to a milestone blog post, and I wanted my numbers to be correct.  I saved most of the drafts (short beginnings) to a file on my desktop that I labeled Slicing Possibilities.  And each time I deleted a draft, the # at the top of the column was reduced by one.

In case you're wondering, I won't reach that milestone post for 20+ days!

I liked this summertime post with pictures and wanted to keep it, so I decided to publish it. Only it published in 2015 instead of 2012.   When I read it, I realized why it was never published.  My plan had been to add something fun for each week of the summer.  Oh well, best laid plans . . .

And maybe there's a way to have this post show up in chronological order, but it eludes me (like so many other technical issues about blogging).  I didn't want to lose these pics and tidbits of the first three weeks of my summer of 2012.  Just in case you're overtired of winter, here's a sliver of summer to tantalize and tease you.  It's only three months away!

Feel free to skip this July 2012 draft that I published in March 2015, 
but scroll down for the bolded update:

I'm continuing to check little "to do" items off the list, but for me summer (weather wise and mental state) finally arrived this past week.  I was inspired by other bloggers who made a bucket list for summer.   I haven't created an actual list, but I made a promise to do something fun every week of the summer.

First week out of school and the day after Blake's wedding, my brother and family took me out for a belated birthday lunch to Paradise, one of my favorite lunch spots.  They have great salads, soups, sandwiches, and cookies - definitely a winning combination.

The next week Kara and I were busy in my classroom.  After she helped me get ready for the open house, we spent the following week in room 104.  We took a day off from our Purging Party to run tons of errands, but managed to squeeze in lunch at Aqua Verde on Lake Union.  I'm blessed to have such a beautiful niece, also a teacher, who has come more than once to help me in the classroom.  We had a blast talking shop and sharing ideas!

The third week out of school we celebrated the Fourth with a purging party in the garage.  (Lance has strange ways to celebrate holidays.)  To his credit, we dined out at Qdoba, but this was not the fun event of the week.  With the arrival of  gorgeous sunny weather, I indulged in my favorite summertime activity - lunch and a book on the deck.  In case you can't tell, the lunch consists of a pretzel roll from Alpenland with delicious dipping sauce, a cheese stick, and blueberries.  The book was South of Superior, a very fun read!  

Update:  I just discovered that there is a SIDEBAR that lists Posts.  Under that heading is (All with a #), Drafts (with a #), and (Published with a #).   So I could have known the actual # of published posts without moving all my drafts to the folder on my desktop.  Oh well, at least they are all in one place now.  I sometimes wonder about my mental state.  Everyone wants to know if I'm bored in retirement.  Nope, not even once.  Busy as a bee and challenged at times, but always laughing at my own mistakes!

2015 SOLSC 17/31: A Mouse Story

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

                                                   and for nurturing our writing lives.

As I leave the public library, I make a quick stop by "The Friends of the Library" shelves with books for sale.  I quickly scan the children's picture books and notice a familiar author.  I've never read this book before.  I quickly flip through its pages and know that this is a must have for my home collection.  That evening, I read the book to my husband.

He insists that we purchase the book for our children since there's a definite text to family connection with this story.  Only problem - it's out of print.  We locate two copies from 3rd party sellers and wait for their arrival.  I mail Sara's copy to her and Will for Valentine's Day.  I keep Blake's copy for his and Stefi's visit later in February.  

Take a peek at the titles from this bookshelf and try to guess the book I purchased for $2 from the Friends' bookshelf.

Here are some clues:  Nothing flashy about the spine, it's a two word title, and author and illustrator are the same person.  I'm not sure how I missed this book since it was published in 1988 when my own children were two and four years old.  We read lots of picture books then, but as an empty nester and lover of picture books, I STILL read lots of picture books.  


My book cover is on the left.  My children's book cover is on the right.  Here's the one sentence summary from the verso page:  "Little Mouse is befriended by a stone carver at a cathedral."  Are you wondering what happens in this story?  Then you'll have to read the book.  Hopefully your library still has a copy.   Or you can make your best prediction from this 

final illustration in the book.  

                             
Are you wondering about our text to family connection?  That's a slice for another day!

2015 SOLSC 16/31: Inspired by Kim and Elsie

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

                                                      and for nurturing our writing lives.

I was in search of a slice when I stumbled across Kim's cinquain at Learning Tour Writing Stop with three simple rules for writing cinquains from Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4Kids:

1.  Cinquains are five lines long.
2.  They have 2 syllables in the first line, 4 in the second, 6 in the third, 8 in the fourth line, and just 2 in the last line.3.  Cinquains do not need to rhyme, but you can include rhymes if you want to.

Here's my cinquain (thanks, Kim) inspired by the vagaries of our weather with a photo (thanks, Elsie) from today's walk.

Springtime

Gloomy weekend

Windy, cloudy, rainy.

Monday broadcasts blue skies, sunshine,

Blossoms.

2015 SOLSC 15/31: Telling our Story in Pics

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

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

                                                      and for nurturing our writing lives.

Sharing some pics from our book club retreat on Friday and Saturday:

Friends in search of a lighthouse!

A walk along the beach yields no lighthouse, instead
the ranger tells of us about a "lightbox" on the bluff and
declines to give us a $99 ticket for exhibiting
the wrong pass (thank goodness)!

A fellow bibliophile on a sidewalk
outside a business

My traveling buddies - big smiles to match the sunshine

Someone offers to take a pic of yours truly!

Serious discussions over next year's book calendar

So many good books and only 12 can make the cut!

Almost time for Lisa's lemon cheesecake!

Ten of our lively group of twelve,
one left early to attend a wedding
and one took the picture.

Three book club friends, each expecting child #3,
Due dates in May, July, and September (pictured left to right)

Reluctant to leave, we chat outside for awhile!

We love visiting with members of our club who
have moved away, but still join us for the retreat!

Back from the retreat - my minimalist friend shows
me how to travel light (note her book themed bags).
Not divulging the # of bags I took, but it exceeded two!