HERE COMES THE SUN!

                                        

The Sunshine Award has been making its way through blogs and bringing sunshine to many in blogosphere.  As a fairly new blogger I have been honored to be nominated for this blog by Leigh Ann A Day in the Life at http://adayinthelifeof19b.blogspot.com/2014/01/receiving-lots-of-sunshine.html.  Thank you, Leigh Ann for thinking about me and giving me a chance to let myself be known and to honor others.  What a great thing to do to bring a little sunshine on a snow day!

It has been fun reading everyone's random facts and answers.  Here are the rules:

1. Acknowledge the nominating bloggers
2. Share 11 random facts about yourself
3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger creates for you
4. List 11 bloggers
5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they've been nominated.  (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.)

11 Random Facts about Me

1. I am the mother of two adult children that I adore.  They have been the center of my life and now are venturing out to find their own life and dreams.  In May we are celebrating our first wedding as my daughter gets married.  I am very proud of both of my children.

2. I love to travel.  My first vacation as a child was to Lake Celina with my family. My mom used to say that I have the travel bug.  I love seeing nature in all of its forms.  I love Italy and anything Italian.  I love the majesty of Alaska and Colorado.  I love the endless skies of New Mexico.  I will never get enough of the ocean.  I love cityscapes.  I want to travel the world.

3. I know that when life is stressful, you take one baby step toward your destination—this knowledge has served me well.

4. I learned to swim in a 24-foot circular pool in my childhood backyard.  I remember diving off the ladder and my dad’s shoulders (something you would never do in a 4-5 foot deep pool now) and many evenings of swimming, play and fireflies.   My love for the water started here.

5. My favorite book is The Book Thief.  I love the way the author uses the narrator’s voice as well as time sequence to make a compelling story.  I love being in my book club (where I read my favorite book as well as many other good books) because, besides good company, and interesting book and life conversation, it helps put time in a busy life to read.

6. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a child, I never thought I would leave.  I did, though.  I moved to Rochester with Steve when Rachel was three and Ben was three months.  Rochester has been a good place to raise a family.  It is now my home. 

7. Meditating in the morning and evening keeps me centered and balanced.

8. I love the natural lighting that occurs during dusk and dawn.  Sometimes the scenery of the countryside is so vivid during those times on my way to or from work that I have to pull off to the side of the road and just soak in the light and the scene for several minutes.  I also love wild gray skies.  They have a beauty unlike any other.

9. When I was in my early 30’s I stopped teaching to go to school to become a massage therapist.  I supported myself as a waitress and came inches away from having a new massage therapy career.  I loved that year, but I never regretted going back to teaching.  I gave a mean massage!

10. As a young teacher I was a founding member (with Schultz of course) of the Schultz and Lipp Detective Agency.   We left that parochial agency and have both had varied and rich careers—but nothing can beat those early days!

11. I attended the Bay Area Writing Project when writing projects were just beginning (early 80’s).  Changed my teaching career and gave me many pleasant memories. . . writing in Berkeley cafes, sailing around Alcatraz on a yacht, having mom call me franticly from Cincinnati, sure that something was wrong because I didn’t answer earlier calls.  I didn’t understand that reaction then—I was a 25 year old doing my happy thing.  I understand the reaction now that I have walked in my mom’s shoes with my own 20 something daughter!  Thanks, Mom!

11 Questions Asked of Me by Leigh Ann

1.  What is the best gift you have ever given?  Homemade gifts given to me by my children.  I have ornaments that decorated my just taken down tree.  I have a plaque by my son that he made when he was three that says “I love you.”  I have a drawing of my family made by my daughter when she was five.  These are my treasures.

2.  What is the one thing you would change about yourself?  I would be more silly and playful.  Good thing I think that because my word for 2014 is Playful!

3.  Which teacher had the biggest influence on you and why?  My kindergarten teacher.  I honestly don’t remember her name, but I knew the very first day I entered her class that I wanted to be a teacher and look at where my life’s journey has taken me.

4.  What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now?  Making a difference in the world with choices that come from retirement.

5.  What is your most favorite teaching moment?  If not a teacher, family moment? I was once a Reading Recovery teacher.  I worked with a child who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.   The day he actually began to read, I cried.  His growth was remarkable and continued into high school.  He always had some difficulty due to his disability but he learned to read and many thought that not possible. 

6.  Hot drink or cold drink?  Hot coffee in the winter.  Iced coffee the rest of the year.

7.  What are you passionate about? I am passionate about writing and the teaching of writing.  I am passionate about balance in schools and creating schools that nurture the whole of the child.  I am passionate about teaching and coaching teachers.

8.  What are you reading currently?  Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.  It is the book chosen by Writers and Books of Rochester’s “If All of Rochester Read the Same Book, 2014.”  My friend, Jen, recommended it to me and I am glad she did.

9.  Which season do you like the best and why?  Fall because of the colors.  And everything about it.  Sweater weather, pumpkins, harvest, hot chocolate for the first time, fires, bundles.  You name it.  Fall.

10.  Did you have a favorite outfit as a kid and what did it look like?  Not that I remember.  Now, my daughter was a fashion queen as a child and I bet she would remember…

11.  How/why did you start blogging?  I started to blog in the March 2013 Slice of Life.  50+ blogs later, I am glad I did.  I created the blog, because as a teacher of teachers of writing I wanted a place to write.  To be active in what I was asking others to do and to be public with it.  I have always been a journal writer but I didn’t have a forum to share.  I wanted to Show…Not only Tell…Thus the name of my blog Show…Not Tell.

My List of Bloggers

(Please do not feel obligated to participate!)

Some of you have already been nominated and have already responded.  Please don’t feel obligated to respond again.  I just wanted to let you know that your blog is important to me and brings me sunshine.  My list consists of bloggers who have inspired me this past year as I have put my toe into the world of blogging.  Please take time to visit them and help spread a little sunshine!

1.        Irene Latham, Live Your Poem http://irenelatham.blogspot.com/

2.       Amy VanderWater, Poem Farm http://www.poemfarm.amylv.com/

3.       Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Tech http://reflectionsontheteche.wordpress.com/

4.       Jama Rattigam, Jama’s Alphabet Soup http://jamarattigan.com/

5.       Linda Baie, Teacher Dance http://www.teacherdance.org/2014/01/okay-it-wandered-in.html (The woman who helped support me in beginning with the March Two Writing Teacher’s Challenge—thank you Linda!)

6.       Betsy H, Teaching Young Writers http://teachingyoungwriters.blogspot.com/

7.       Elsie, Elsie Tries Writing http://teachingyoungwriters.blogspot.com/  (Elsie responds to so many blogs and her responses to me have been very appreciated.  Thank you, Elsie!)

8.       Linda, Teacher Dance http://www.teacherdance.org/

9.       Bonnie, BLK Drama http://blkdrama.wordpress.com/about/

10.   Angela Stockman WNY Young Writers Studio http://www.wnyyws.org/

11.   Dan Erdmann, Another Perspective http://beyouproductions.com/dan-erdman/

My11 Questions

1.  What is something that has changed you for the better?

2.  What makes you smile?

3.  What food is unique to the city you now live?

4.  What book has had an impact on your life?

5.  Who is your hero/heroine?

6.  Fire or water?  

7.  Do you have a secret that you can share?

8.  What are you reading currently?

9.  How did you KNOW you were a writer?

10.  How did your home of origin shape you?

11.  What is your fantasy vacation?

Thank you so much for sharing yourself with us and please do not feel pressure to participate.  I started this blog entry with the snow and now it is sunny.  Bring on the sunshine!