CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Tea Leaf Branch at Flickr.com Morning routine. I finally broke the habit of starting the day with the Internet and my devices. I instituted a new morning routine: at least thirty minutes of reading before I can pick up my phone or laptop. I read many more books this year, and I…
I’ve done it. I’ve finally done it. I just signed up to participate in the Slice of Life Storytelling Challenge at Two Writing Teachers. I’ve thought about participating for years. Last year, I even signed up to be a Welcome Wagon volunteer and commented daily on several new slicers’ posts for the whole month. I…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration at her blog, Ruth Ayres Writes. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. This week, the juniors and seniors enrolled in my upper-division Creative Mind class received an unusual homework assignment: color. I try to make it feel a little more like college by…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration on her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. It’s been a messy week. Big feelings. Lots of sad. Even more mad. We didn’t even manage to get a family Christmas photo. When we’ve had moments of calm and even happiness, I haven’t wanted…
Visit Ruth Ayres Writes to participate in this weekly celebration. Yesterday, I was ruminating on one of my perennial favorite topics for rumination and parental self-flagellation: too much screen time. I’m not going to confess how many hours every week my son spends watching TV and playing video games, but let’s just say it’s a…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration on her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. And what positives there are! I’m in Minneapolis at #NCTE15, and here are just a few of the good things I’m celebrating. Conversation. The drive from western South Dakota was long (nearly 11 hours!),…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration at her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. I spent a couple of very happy hours at two different branches of The Tattered Cover in Denver this week. I can never decide if I love the Colfax or the Lodo location best,…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration at her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. This week I’m celebrating my very favorite therapeutic parenting technique, outcrazying the crazy. It’s a technique I used a lot two or three years ago, but I haven’t used it recently. To be honest,…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration on her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. I used to think parenting trauma was like playing Whack-a-Mole, the carnival game where moles pop up through holes and you’re supposed to pound them with a club. You frantically pound and pound as…
Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration on her blog. I appreciate this invitation to reflect on the positives of my week. I have many fine and necessary qualities as a parent, but fun isn’t one of them. I have to strive for fun. Strive to the point where I’m not fun anymore. Partly it’s a…
the dirigible plum 