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Noticing

Noticing

Slice of Life. I couldn’t resist. No matter how much I had on my desk, I just couldn’t resist. The morning was so beautiful, I had to go outside. So I took a noticing walk around my back yard. Hushed beauty under the warmth of filtered sunlight. The light...
Mom

Mom

Poetry Friday : Mom Happy Mother’s Day! Last year for Mother’s Day, I wrote of my mother — a five-minute stream-of-consciousness piece that became the draft of a poem. This week, I revised those lines, and with them I honor the memory of my mother,...
This Kind of Evening

This Kind of Evening

Slice of Life   At two in the afternoon we backed out of our driveway and headed to the coast for two relaxing days.   This kind of evening I’ve dreamed about the sea before us sand beneath our feet dragons flying in the sky tethered to earth with a...
Magnolia Table

Magnolia Table

Celebrate Life. On Friday I became one of 169,000 special people. The morning was routine. I checked out of the Radisson, caught the shuttle to ELP International Airport, checked two bags at the ticket counter, completed the TSA ritual, and walked to the end of...
Poets Paint

Poets Paint

Poetry Friday. Poets paint with words Words form images my eyes can’t see breathe my thoughts to life and nourish my soul Words sing tunes I’ve not learned dance strange rhythms in my feet and pierce ignorance with light Words wrap ’round me like a...
A Special Day

A Special Day

Spiritual Journey: Special Days Sunday. The first day of the week. Always a new beginning. Sundays always have been and always will be a special day for me. A day different from all the other days of the week. A day to join with others in song and prayer and scripture...
A Busy Monday

A Busy Monday

Slice of Life Monday is fading, and there is only one word for this one. Busy. I’m catching a morning flight tomorrow and will be out of my office all week. I will be away from home all week. It is the last day of the month. First quarter reports had to be...
Celebrating #NPM2018

Celebrating #NPM2018

Poetry Friday.   Today… I sat at my desk wond’ring What happened to spring? Winter claimed a late fling And… Just when I thought spring had arrived, with a bling summer came on its wing Or has it? -Alice Nine   .       I have been...
Finding Captain Jeremiah Stiles

Finding Captain Jeremiah Stiles

Slice of Life. I have been pairing quotes about poetry with images to celebrate poetry for the month of April. #NPM2018. Today’s quote is “Poetry is what we do to break bread with the dead.” When I read Seamus Heaney’s words, I immediately...
Araminta

Araminta

Poetry Friday. Before you read my poem “Araminta,” I must tell you the amazing story of my characters’ names . . . I needed a name. In fact, I needed two names. Not just any names. One had to begin with the sound /n/ and have three syllables. The...
Two-4-One Special

Two-4-One Special

End-of-Year Internet Special   *   Two-4-One   * El Paso Workshops Enroll 2 for the price of one, or enroll 4 for the price of 2 , etc. . . . Here is how . . . 1.  View / Print Flyer / Registration Form. 2.  Pre-register one of the following ways to assure your...
Teach Writing Well

Teach Writing Well

Slice of Life. It was Friday, February 13th, and I was thinking about lots of things and trying to wrap up a lot of loose ends. I spent some delightful time with the #PoetryFriday community at the Happy Birthday party for Lee Bennett Hopkins over at Robyn’s...
Daniel’s God

Daniel’s God

Celebrate the Week Daniel in the Lions’ Den is one of my forever favorite stories. When I was little, the lions captivated my attention. When I grew older, I found strength in Daniel’s faithfulness, choosing to keep God’s law no matter the...
Crows and a DEET-ed Tick

Crows and a DEET-ed Tick

Poetry Friday I’m so glad you stop by to join me and the #PoetryFriday community with Robyn Hood Black over at Life on the Deckle Edge to wish a Happy Birthday to Lee Bennett Hopkins — award-winning children’s author, poet, anthologist, and editor, and a...
The Comparative Sentence

The Comparative Sentence

Slice of Life. There are days when the whole doesn’t divide easily. It seems impossible to cut neatly between the minutes and slide out a slice. Like a yeast roll it tears apart, or like a flaky biscuit it crumbles.  My present days are like that. I’m in...
Balance

Balance

Poetry Friday  *  Celebrate This Week I am celebrating National Poetry Month by reading poetry, writing poetry, and reflecting on poetry. Reading Poetry. Each morning this past week I’ve opened my screen to read a poem by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm...
A Special Day

My Journey

Spiritual Journey: Poetry Words mark the path of my journey. They guide me. They remind me. They encourage me. They fall from poems and songs and sermons and conversations. They tumble from the pages of books and from Scriptures. I began my journey at a very young...
Birthdays

Birthdays

Slice of Life By the end of April we will have celebrated ten 2018 birthdays in this family. That leaves us sixteen still to go. Of those sixteen, seven will be in the month of July. Once upon a time, we celebrated each individual birthday. However, in recent years,...
Celebrate

Celebrate

March Slice of Life No. 31  *  Celebrate This Week   I have two celebrations today. Celebration I: #SOL March 2018 With a 34-word story, I am celebrating writing. I have written every day for thirty-one days — my daily slice and daily comments on other...
The Resurrection

The Resurrection

March Slice of Life No. 30.   *   Poetry Friday     This week as I read  “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?” — an essay from God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis, words and phrases expressing uniquely Lewis’s thoughts about Jesus’...
Antithesis of Holy Week

Antithesis of Holy Week

March Slice of Life No 23.   *   Poetry Friday With a haunting beauty, Marie Post captures the antithesis between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his arrest, trial, and crucifixion later in the week. Palm Sunday Astride the colt and...
My PD Journals, Part 2

My PD Journals, Part 2

March Slice of Life No. 29. In My PD Journals, Part 1, I share about the notebook I create when planning a workshop and another notebook I create during and after the workshop.  In the comments of that post, I was asked, “How do you use them once the workshops...
My PD Journals, Part 2

My PD Journals, Part 1

March Slice of Life No. 28. This morning, I was searching my PD journals for… Hmmm? What was I searching for?  At this very moment, I don’t recall what I was searching for, and since it isn’t pertinent to what I am now thinking about, I  won’t...
Snacks, Anyone?

Snacks, Anyone?

March Slice of Life No. 27. “If food doesn’t go bad, it’s not good for you.” That is what the Sejoyia Foods people say. They also say they have “real cookies for real humans.”  That their cookies are “not your grandma’s...

EN Anecdotes

March Slice of Life No. 26. Thumbing my journals today, I ran across a few EN anecdotes from his preschool years. Anecdote 1. EN had been trailing me around the house all afternoon. EN: What are you doing, Gramma? Me: Brushing my teeth. EN places his hand on his hip...