It seems somehow fitting that I end my month of Slicing with another list. This idea comes from Terje at Just for a month. I spent the month of February angsting about whether I would participate in the slicing challenge this year. I hadn’t blogged since August, and I wasn’t sure I had the time,…
photos of Chipotle that should be a meme flowering trees in Detroit (in the order they bloom) books I bought in March books I bought during the pandemic books I had every intention of reading but instead of reading I bought more books things to remember about March things to remember about today ten poems…
I got the idea for this post from arjeha’s slice about prices in the year he was born. His post got me wondering about books in my birth year. What was published? What were the most popular books? 1972 was a very good year for books. I can’t speak for the year’s bestseller, Jonathan Livingston…
“My Ten” is a New York Times column where creative types are asked to share “their top 10 cultural must-haves.” The Learning Network turned it into a lesson of the day, and Ms. Chen turned it into a Slice. Thanks, Ms. Chen, for the inspiration! Caternet. Ok, I made that word up, and I don’t…
I borrowed this format from Leigh Anne at A Day in the Life and Trina at Trinarrative. Thanks for the inspiration! What I’m reading: For bedtime comfort reading, I’m rereading all of Barbara Pym’s novels in mostly chronological order. I’m three-quarters through Excellent Women right now, and it’s superb (and quite a bit better than…
Right around the time we made the decision to move to Detroit, a Detroit dog rescue I’ve followed for many years posted a story about rescuing a cat. A kitten, stuck in the tree, had become so cold and dehydrated it had passed out and fallen–landing on the street right in front of a car.…
Thanks to Judy K at Joodles Now & Then and Caitlin at Love Always, Caitlin for the inspiration for this post! For the 25th day of the March Slicing Challenge, I’m making a list of 25 things that make me happy. vintage stamps washi tape extra ice in my iced coffee thrift stores sunrises my…
Today I’m borrowing an idea from A Time to Write. Thank you for the inspiration! My ideal dog is a pit bull. The concrete block head. The silly forehead wrinkles. The smushy cheeks. The soulful eyes. Even though we aren’t looking for a dog, I still like to admire the dogs at pit bull rescue…
I tried them too. I signed up for poetry writing and embroidery and zine-making classes over Zoom, and I wrote some poetry and embroidered a word and made 100 zines for a #100dayproject. But then I was on to the next thing–or rather, back to my usual things. Reading, writing in my notebook, walking, cat…
Maybe one reason my new classroom felt instantly like mine was because it has a bookshelf filled with books, left by the last twelfth-grade teacher. Technically, it has two bookshelves, but one was filled with classroom sets of The New Jim Crow and the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. Although I am glad to have…
I always read the tweets from the Don Graves Write Now Conference with longing–wishing I could be there. This year, thanks to a virtual conference, I was able to attend, and it was exactly what I needed. I took pages of notes, and my camera roll is now full of quotes and writing prompts. I…
Here’s the thing about book spine poetry: it’s impossible to create just one. Here’s the other thing about book spine poetry: it makes a big mess of your books. I now have half finished poems stacked all over my office! Oh, and one more thing about book spine poetry: cats are very curious about the…
My iPhone is a more reliable tool for capturing and retracing my mind’s wanderings than my writer’s notebook. Images are my favorite form of note-taking. Screenshots capture my learning, wonders, curiosities, and commitments. I snap places I want to travel and poems I need to share with my students. I snap other teacher’s whiteboards, other…
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing, when I didn’t have a narrator in my head turning my actions into sentences, when I wasn’t full of story ideas, when I didn’t itch to pick up a pencil and use my hand to form words on paper, when my favorite toy wasn’t my grandmother’s…
Energy vibrates through her wild eyes. This is Inky Pinky, when she was still feral, in the process of being tamed thanks to the magic of the very best cat toy, the Cat Dancer. No photo I’ve ever taken has captured the spirit of a cat quite so well. Inky still has very big round…
the dirigible plum 