The Sunrise Story

Thank you to Ruth for this amazing  community to share our celebrations! This week ended with a couple of sick days. It never fails, when I'm sick my mind becomes a central hub of worrying. Nevertheless, I come here today to celebrate the good this week... 1. Friends who SEE me and LISTEN and hear what I'm saying and what I'm not saying. It's such a blessing to have friends like these in my life. 2. 695...that's the nickname of the graduate class I'm teaching. We had our first week this week and it was great! The teachers in this class show up after teaching all day to learn and practice more. It's a writing class that's co-sponsored by George Mason University and the Northern Virginia Writing Project. It's an honor to lead these teachers through the next semester of learning and growing and writing. 3. My OLW (one little word) FLY. It's such an interesting word for me and it's working itself into my life in such interes...

Thank you to Holly for this amazing opportunity to explore my Spiritual Journey every week! I love the opportunity to try on each other's OLWs. This week I've been contemplating Leigh Anne's word TURN.  TURN. I looked up the definition. It means to move or to change. TURN is one of those words that means so many different things and I think that's why I love it so much. Ever since Leigh Ann picked it, I've noticed it popping up.  I heard the President start the State of the Union with it, "...tonight, we TURN the page." It's a word I never paid attention to and now I think about it a lot.  "TURN to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other." Isaiah 45:22 TURNing toward is opening up and asking for help. My favorite meaning of the word TURN is TURNing it over to God. Here's a great verse that addresses that! "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplica...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers .  I am a writer. The more I say that sentence, the easier it gets...well, not easier to do, but easier to accept. This past week two of my favorite writers documented their own struggles with their craft. I like that. It's honest. It's authentic. I'm in good company. Feeling like a fake. Feeling not good enough is something that every writer faces. In reading the rest of Anne Lamott's post she writes about not knowing what her next book will be about. Initially I thought, "How could ANNE LAMOTT not know what to write?!?!" And then I smiled. I get it! I just didn't think she felt that struggle.  I want my students to feel this struggle and know it's worth it. We are writing and sharing our writing with writing...

Thank you Ruth for providing this safe space to celebrate each week!  This week filled me with love and gratitude. Even the knocks that came this week, came with the strength to handle them and for that I'm grateful. I'm going to share my week of celebration in pictures.  A favorite author took the time to wish me a happy birthday?!?! WOW!! Really?!?! Sharon Creech too?!?!  Oh...there are no words for this! I am overwhelmed! WOW! Thank you!! These facebook messages took my breath away!  Thoughtful surprises to make me feel loved!  Starbucks treat to start the day right!!  A painting from a thoughtful student! This one is getting framed!! Birthday dinner with friends! An unexpected picture of my grammy who has been gone for more than twenty years!  WOW! A thank you! AND she's following me on Twitter?!?!? WOW! This week gave me special birthday wishes and wonderfully thoughtful...

Thank you to Holly for this reason to write every Thursday! I'm honored to be part of this amazing group. Writing about my OLW today helped me stretch and grow and learn so much. Please join us at Holly's blog for this Spiritual Journey link up! My OLW has been around for almost a month and sometimes I feel like I am still searching for it's meaning in my life. I trust in it. I believe in it. I have faith that it's the right word for me, I just don't understand. Sounds like a metaphor, doesn't it?!?! FLY. It means to move through the air. I don't want to literally, "move through the air". So the question is what does FLY mean to me? It means faith. It means living my faith.  Faith and FLY. Hmmm...Whether it's a bird flying or a person skydiving, flying takes faith. You have to make the decision to fly and once you do, you have to take that step off the ledge or let go of that tree branch. You have to have faith that your wings will...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers . I woke up at four AM with my mind whirring.  This week. Busy. So busy. Don't want to forget anything. Grades close on Friday. Two projects due. Formal observation on Friday. First grad class meets Wednesday. Syllabus is ready. I have to gather books to bring with me to school. Blog. My OLW blog post for Spiritual Journey Thursday. Birthday Dinner on Thursday. Dinner out Friday. Snow?!?! There could be SNOW?!?! Don't think about it. I turn forty-three this week. Snacks for Wednesday? Should I get more? Formal lesson plan written for Friday? I should wait and see if there's a snow day between now and then. I can't think of what to write for Thursday!!! Did I pick the wrong OLW? What should I say?!?! (I love the interrobang!) Nothing...

Have you ever read a book and felt like it was written just for you? I love reading memoirs. It's like getting a chance to climb into someone else's life for a moment. As I reflect on books that have touched me and stayed with me, many of them are memoirs.  Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea Martha Beck's Expecting Adam Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies and Grace Eventually and Bird by Bird... Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal Regina Brett's God Never Blinks Dani Shapiro's Still Writing The newest book that I'm adding to this list is Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed written by Glennon Doyle Melton.  The author writes the blog Momastery . My journey to this book is where this all begins. I'd seen many links to the blog Momastery on Facebook and Twitter for months and ignored all of them. Why would I read a blog called Momastery? I'm not a mom. Finally a post about teachers grabbed my attention and ...

Thank you to Ruth for this community of celebration. Please  join  us! Do weeks have a "feeling"? You know, like how Mondays often feel slow-moving and Fridays feel exciting because we anticipate the weekend...can weeks have feelings like that? The week before felt slow and sad to me. I felt disconnected and I struggled to celebrate, but this week felt different. This week felt hopeful and happy. The celebrations abound! Here we go... I celebrate organizing. Cleaned out my work email. Having hundreds of emails hanging out in my inbox stresses me out! I needed to organize and purge. It gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and freedom to see this! LOOK! Here's a picture:  I celebrate my new cozy sweatshirt ! It makes me smile every time I see it. I love that it supports DFTBA !  I celebrate my photo a day project! It's been so much fun seeing exactly where I am at 5:22pm everyday. I am documenting this project over at Instagram . I'd love...

I love writing about the One Little Words chosen by fellow bloggers and applying that word to our Spiritual Journey! Today we are writing about LISTEN, Carol's word.  Please join us at Holly's blog .  I love the opportunity to write about the words that others have chosen. It makes me feel like I get a chance to borrow that word for awhile...I get to try it on and see how it fits. Today I'm trying on Carol's word, LISTEN.  If I'm being completely LISTEN challenges me. I'm a talker! The words come easily (most of the time) for me and sometimes I forget to LISTEN. I have to work harder to LISTEN. What I know is this: LISTENing is where I learn. It's where I learn who I am.  Praying has never been a problem for me. I pray. What I forget to do is to LISTEN! I need to stop and LISTEN for God. Praying is a conversation with God and I have lots to say, but how often do I hear? Do I LISTEN? One of my favorite verses in Scripture is Psalm 46:10... ...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers . Snow day number three today...my phone rang about noon. It was my assistant principal asking me if my students were getting any work done during the snow days. We chatted and I told him that I have a bunch of students blogging and working on their independent writing projects and even more are reading! I asked why he wanted to know. It turns out the public information officer had contacted him and with my permission, he would be contacting me. Sure!! I love when my students get authentic audience beyond me. I emailed links to a bunch of blogs and waited for the next call.  Fifteen minutes later the phone rang again but this time it was a television news reporter from the ABC station in Washington DC, Suzanne Kennedy. Huh? She wanted to interview one of...

Thank you to Ruth for this community of celebration. Please join us! Much of this week was spent indoors hibernating from the cold and the snow. Our county made a bad call earlier this week and didn't delay or cancel on a morning when the commute became extremely dangerous.  I saw so many examples of rude comments on social media, from adults...name calling and just plain meanness. It made me sad.  I quickly adjusted my plans and taught a mini-lesson about using social media to vent frustrations.   We discussed this and then listed appropriate and inappropriate choices to make when writing and then we blogged.   They expressed their views and opinions without calling names! They showed respect while disagreeing with the decision that was made. I celebrate the maturity I saw in my sixth graders! Much of celebrating is about perspective, about how to look at life...so I celebrate my single-ness. The freedom I have to sleep in or wake up early...to stay in o...

Poetry Friday is being hosted by Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite Indifference . Please join us! My OLW for 2015 is Fly !  The first book I read this year was Nikki Grimes book Word With Wings . A book filled with lovely poems about a girl named Gabby. This poem is one of my favorites from that book because it speaks of my OLW and words. Here's a photo of it from the back cover... The images of words flying and holding and carrying and tickling take my breath away! I love the lines, "...other words have wings/ that wake my daydreams. They fly in, silent as sunrise..."  I can see the words hovering and coasting in the morning sky above me. I can see the words nudging my dreams awake. I can hear the silence of the words as they works. Oh...the beauty of this poem! Poetry gives me the opportunity to look at things I love in a new way. Nikki Grimes accomplished this with the poems in this book. Words with Wings carried me away to a place I'd bee...

How's this for irony...I'm having a hard time FOCUSing this morning, which is why this blog post is later than I planned.  FOCUS. To me focus means discipline, commitment, follow through, attention. When I find focus, it's amazing and powerful...it's the act of finding it that's so challenging for me. We live in a world filled with distractions. It's rare that I find myself doing one thing at a time (even now, I have the tv on, muted, while I'm writing this and I'm sure I'll toggle over to Facebook once or twice). Focus is hard. Focus is work.  There are a few activities in my life where I stop and give my complete focus.  1. Driving...although I listen to music or audiobooks, driving is dangerous and really requires my complete attention.  2. Reading...I am not able to read when there's noise around me. I need complete silence to get into that zone.  3. Writing...again, when I am creating a piece of writing I need the words ...

Our next #LCPSedChat will be January 8th at 8 pm.  We are discussing assessment! Can't wait to chat with you! Hashtag: #lcpsedchat When: Thursday night 1/8/15 8pm EST Who: EVERYONE! Looking for LCPS teachers...ALL are welcome! Topic: Assessment Why is assessment important to your teaching? What is your favorite way to conduct formative assessment? How do you make assessment authentic? What is the most affective way to provide students feedback on assessments? What are some ways that you do summative assessment? What are resources/tools that you use for assessment? FAQ Sign into either tweetchat.com or twubs.com to follow the conversation. Sign in USING your twitter username & password. Type in #lcpsedchat. Now, the sites will automatically put the #lcpsedchat into every tweet for you. EVERY tweet must include the #lcpsedchat to be seen by the group. Introduce yourself and jump into the chat. Ask questions, answer questions. This...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  As 2015 approached, so did my seventh word of the year...or One Little Word. Previous words include: METTLE, ENGAGE, BUILD, EMBRACE, AUTHOR, and RISK. In my seventh year choosing a word I realized that I don't choose the word, the word really chooses me. My pondering for the OLW2015 began in October and I had really wanted INVITATION as my word. It seemed right...but alas, it didn't stick. The days leading up to the new year, I'd settled on OPEN for my word. That was it. It felt right...until the day before. It wasn't settling anymore. I was uneasy that I was making the wrong choice. A friend had been looking for her word and while glancing at a list I have, she mentioned FLY. As she said it I thought, "No. That's not a g...