Category: Creativity

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Goal Update for October

At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of November, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of October, here’s my goal reflection:

CategoryGoalsMy Progress
Literature



Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group


Send out Postcards


Blog Daily




I participated in the October book discussion with Sarah’s reading group for Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in the book discussion for Assessment 3.0 this month. Time for reading has been scarce lately, but Audible is a good way to try to keep up the pace when all I can do is multi-task.



I sent no postcards this month.

I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.

I had a Zoom meeting with Ruth Ayers of Choice Literacy about writing for her website. I look forward to spending some time writing about local literacy events.
Creativity

*Decorate for fall





*Create Shutterfly Route 66
I created a surprise ducking of our office. I used tiny ducks left over from my brother in law’s birthday ducking and put them to use in the office, even adding Halloween ducks to the lineup.

I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one. Update: I’m giving up on this goal.
SpiritualityTune in to church



Pray!



Keep OLW priority		We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.

My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.

I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
Reflection
Spend time tracking goals each month

I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement*Reach top of weight rangeThis is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back. I’m keeping this goal. I need to get on track. Tomorrow.
GratitudeDevote blog days to counting blessingsI begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well.
ExperienceEmbrace Slow Travel







Focus on the Outdoors


I’ve taken a trip in October to F D R State Park for a Little Guy Southern States Meet Up. We met people who have the same kind of camper we have, and we even signed up for next year’s meet up in Tennessee at Roan Mountain State Park. My brother and his fiancee came for a visit during Fall Break, and it was wonderful having some time together with them.

I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. We also built our own fire pit foundation for the fire pit my son gave us for Christmas last year.



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Project S’mores Pie

cool night for s’mores pie

after our chili supper

next to the campfire

family dinner

Sunday evening gathering

sharing old stories

new memories made

conversations under a

starry nighttime sky

Graham cracker crust with marshmallow and chocolate
Baked and then browned on top
Rich and sweet but everyone liked it
Dinner and dessert by the fire
We added Campfire Colors for a dazzling show!
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Autumn Walk

I had a meeting in our local coffee shop yesterday and treated myself to a Hex Latte while projecting next year’s budget and goals with a community partner. From inside, the vintage paned windows make the outside world look a little bit like a dripping realistic painting – the kind of windows that have candles and snowdrifts in the winter and don’t have 20/20 sharp focus. It’s like I’m in a world of my own in there.

I confess: I was.

I had a moment, looking across the town square, when a brilliant flash of fall colors caught my eye. “I’m walking this square when I leave here. I’m sharing these pictures with others – this Hallmark Movie charm this time of year is too beautiful to keep all to myself,” I decided, right then and there in the middle of a business meeting.

We finished. I walked along, thinking in Haiku, as I mostly do. Here is part of my walk that I’m sharing with you:

charming small town vibes

fall displays on courthouse square

spiced chills in crisp air

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Taking a Boon Canine for a Walk

Today’s host for our final day of the October Open Write is Anna Roseboro of Michigan, who inspires us to write Take a Word for a Walk poems. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others and the responses to writers.

Anna writes: Take a word for a walk.  Students might choose a word from the class generated vocabulary list or from a list of concepts or abstract terms. Move this word through the poem so that it appears in each “X” position.  There can be six words in each line.  Use color, abstraction, or other poetic devices in your poem. Use this formation:

X – – – – –

– X- – – –

– -X- – –

– – – X – –

– – – – X –

– – – – – X

Master of the House, Doling Out the Charm, Ready with a Handshake and an Open Paw

Boon – blessing, benefit, favorable, friendly, chipper

Everybody’s boon companion – one convivial mister

Les Miserables boon lyrics loop de-loo

We have a boon canine: Boo,

who sleeps under the boon moon

awakening soon, our Boo boy boon

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Crossings

Erica Johnson, our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the first day of our five-day October Open Write, wrote one of my favorite forms of poetry – found poetry – in an art museum using the artists’ statements about the works! You can read her poem here – it surely captures the essence of departure by someone, leaving us to feel the loneliness that comes, almost missing them before they get fully out of sight. I feel I have been on an art exhibit tour today. Erica invited us to find poems in artists’ statements about paintings as well. I have a framed print of a painting that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1984, after I fell in love with the landscapes of the English countryside painted by John Constable following a visit to the National Gallery in London. My favorite Constable work: The White Horse, kept at the Frick Collection in New York. Here is the art link: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1146.html

The White Horse

six-foot wide space
a new technique
spanning canvas
no longer overshadowed

The White Horse
crosses
the River Stour
to the other side
on a barge

full-size sketch
with broad brushstrokes
thus crossing a new
career threshold

The White Horse painting appears at 2:37 and at 2:49 in the video
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Goal Update for September

I usually post my goal update at the end of each month, but September’s is running late. October was sneaky and arrived before I knew it. I even forgot to say Rabbit, Rabbit.

At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of October, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of September here’s my goal reflection:

CategoryGoalsMy Progress
LiteratureRead for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group








Send out Postcards


Blog Daily




Write a proposal for
writing group’s book		I participated in the September book discussion with Sarah’s reading group and look forward to reading October’s book – Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in this book discussion this month. Fellow blogger Tammi Evans recommended a book by Elizabeth McCracken entitled The Souvenir Museum, and I hope to explore this collection of short stories as well this month. I need a spooky book, too, to bring on the chills of October.



I mailed 10 postcards this month from Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.

I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.

My writing group is writing a series of new books, and I will spend time editing the chapters we have written. I will continue to add chapters as we receive feedback from our proposals. We are each sending our proposal out to some publishing companies.
Creativity

*Decorate the house for fall





*Create Shutterfly Route 66

I am working on decorating. It’s a slow process this year. I picked up an orange and a bronze mum today from Home Depot, and I’ve also made the instant hot spiced tea and put it in Mason jars for the fall. I have added a couple of new pillows and a throw for the living room. Our decorations are simple around here in the country – – we have a lot of natural foliage, and I like using it in some wine bottles I’ve wrapped with twine using double-sided tape as vases.

I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one.
SpiritualityTune in to church



Pray!



Keep OLW priority		We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.

My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.

I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
ReflectionWrite family stories

Spend time tracking goals each month		I have shared family stories through my blog this month and will continue this month to do the same.

I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement*Reach top of weight rangeThis is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back.
GratitudeDevote blog days to counting blessingsI begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well. I enjoy tea on the porch, taking time to meditate on all that I have been given. And all that I have not been given, too. I’m grateful both ways.
ExperienceEmbrace Slow Travel




Focus on the Outdoors


I’ve taken a trip in September to Augusta for a work meeting and to Kentucky to visit family. We visited Mammoth Cave National Park and the Bell Witch Cave – two caves in two days.






I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. It’s the best time of the day to sit outside on the porch (in the shade) and just listen and watch what is going on around me. I have also come to an interesting resolution: I like my own backyard for birdwatching. Over time, I begin to know where each bird lives, its hours of activity, and its preferred seeds and feeders – and there is a powerful science to the perch on a feeder. Take cardinals, for example. They will come to a hanging feeder, but they prefer platform feeders just like mourning doves do. I’m learning by slow birding.
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Princess and Hero Night on the Zebulon Square

As the District Literacy Specialist for Pike County Schools in Zebulon, Georgia, I get to be a part of some amazing events put on by businesses in this county by offering L4GA grant partnerships to provide books and other literacy materials to put into the hands of families who attend the events.

One such event is the Princess and Superhero Night on the Zebulon Square, which happens on a Saturday evening at the end of September. Our Chamber of Commerce organizes the event and gets permission from the City Council to block off the road directly in front of the courthouse to make a safe zone for families to visit the characters that are each sponsored by businesses and stationed all around the square. This brings people into our local businesses and provides opportunities for people to meet new friends and get new books! 2,000 books, to be exact.

This is where my passion and my career intersect for the most fun I could possibly ever have in my work! I meet with our local businesses in the spring of each year to design a Community Partner Literacy Plan. Instead of coming up with new ideas, I ask each business to share with me the events that are already happening as part of what they do – whether they are providing workshops, celebrating certain holidays, holding festivals or hosting events that bring people together. Once we have their events listed, we imagine all the ways that grant funding through L4GA can be used to bring books, reading clubs, writing workshops, poetry readings, or other literacy-related benefits to our community. Then we put the dream on paper and make it happen. The cherry on top is when we network between and amongst community partners themselves. This particular event showcases how all the dots connect to create a magical night!

I often think of my work as a year-round Hallmark Literacy Movie, because if I took any Hallmark Christmas movie and substituted the festival that always seems to be part of the plot for any of the events held in our county, with the constant smiles and joyful spirit of all the characters, that’s the setting where I live and work – – in a dozen or more Hallmark Literacy Movies, where people fall head over heels in love with books.

But please don’t tell anyone. I need everyone to think that no one would want this job (I have a few fake complaints stored up just in case anyone realizes I’m getting paid to do what I would, most days, do for free). The truth is that I work with amazing people every single day, from the state department of education and the broader network of schools throughout the state, to the local schools and businesses throughout my own county. The Princess and Hero Night is one of my favorite events, but it is only one of many that draws families and gives us opportunities to distribute books.

Just look at all these smiles! In the words of Judith Viorst and her adorable Alexander, these moments make this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad job the most rewarding work I do!

All photographs are used with permission of families!