Category: Experience

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An October Reminder

get your mammogram

{{Breast Cancer Awareness Month}}

~reminding my friends~

I finally got my cycle of mammograms to October, the most popular month to get a mammogram! I took a half day, and at first didn’t make the connection – – I wondered why the lobby was more crowded than I’d ever seen it. Then I remembered: it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Everybody’s here for the squeeze.

But I’m completing the whole triathlon. I’m getting bloodwork, having the mammogram, and having a colonoscopy all in the first two weeks of the last quarter of the year.

When I finished my annual screening with close to 30 pounds of pressure on each side top to bottom and sideways (according to the digital readout), I had the strangest urge to go celebrate with a pancake breakfast. Instead, I thought about my recent bloodwork and the results that my sugar should be considered before making any spontaneous breakfast moves. Once I’d removed the gown and gotten my girls repositioned and safely strapped back into their carseats under my shirt for their travels through the day, the mammographer thanked me for coming, giving me a pink cup to help me carry the message.

This coming week, I’ll take the table for the other end and take a nice nap while the nature walk for polyps commences. I’ll try not to dwell on last year’s trip along Route 66, where we stopped in Missouri at the Uranus Fudge Factory. I’ll think instead on the first time I had a colonoscopy and decorated my @$$. And at all costs, I’ll resist the urge to stop for fudge on the way home. (And for the record, I do not want a brown mug from the Colonoscopy Department to match the pink one from the Mammography Department in the picture above).

To all my friends and readers: get your tests done, and try to find a way to make the dreaded medical visits we put off a sparkly checklist accomplishment.

Onward!

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Tails on Trails Weekend Walks

they love to take walks

to go “tailing on trailing,”

as state parks call it

Fitz, Ollie, and Boo Radley take to the trails and paths of state parks

Our three Schnoodles enjoy taking to the trails. In Georgia, the state parks have a program called Tails on Trails, and you can even get a t-shirt for yourself and your pups to identify yourself as a Tailer-on-Trailer.

Our boys may look all nonchalant about it, but don’t let them fool you. They live for this. Boo Radley could not settle himself down for all the things he was trying to take in, and Fitz had to pee on every upturned leaf and then kick dirt and pine straw up in a confetti nature parade behind him as he scratched off. He and Ollie tried to scale a vertical cliff like they were mountain goats or something.

Come with us for a few moments as we walk. The band of brothers will lead the way.

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inspiration ~

I saw this social media post with a haiku plus 3 syllables, and it inspired me to take action:

Photo taken from a social media post about writing poems

My Response to the Leaf Writer

I did what you said

I found leaves and rocks, penned verse,

left for others to

discover….

We were camping at FD Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia, and the leaves are starting to change. I found an assortment of leaves and rocks and took the advice from the

post.

Mary Oliver verse on a rock

This writing on the rocks makes me think of my time in Asheville at the Grove Park Inn, which has been fiercely and steadily on my mind over the past week. I’ve heard much about Biltmore House, but very little is out there except for a statement that I could find on the Grove Park Inn’s website. Besides the old caged elevator and the mega-sized fireplaces with rocking chairs lined up in front of them, one of my favorite things to do at the Grove Park Inn during my visit there was walking around and reading the quotes from books etched into the rocks in the lobby. Perhaps this rock with its lines of poetry is one small way to keep the city of Asheville and its devout love of the arts close to my heart as they heal.

I do hope that The Grove Park Inn finds a way to temporarily host the National Gingerbread House Contest in November this year to another location if they are unable to have it there – which I’m sure may be next to impossible. My vote is for Atlanta, and I’d love to buy 15 tickets and bring the children and grandchildren!

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Book Talk Continued, an Illustrated Reverse Haibun

I shared, they listened

we engaged in the need for

more writing to heal

My haibun today is in reverse – my haiku is first, my narrative is second, but I’m also adding pictures to make it an illustrated haibun.

The evening kicked off with Craig Logan’s welcome to TUAC and introduction, and then I was honored to share the journey of my writing group’s most recent books after the publication of Bridge the Distance and Rhyme and Rhythm: Sports Poems for Athletes. I printed these notes and placed a copy on the podium to guide me through the evening.

Book Talk Agenda and Talking Points – October 3, 2025 6:30 p.m. TUAC – Thomaston, GA

Agenda Timeline

6:30 – Welcome/introduction/talk

7:00 – Stop talking and take Q and A, Drawing for free books from David’s Bust Vase

7:30 – Reception, Meet and Greet, Book signing

Talking Points

Thank you for coming!

Land Honorarium of Place, Native Tribes, People, Our Stories (keyword for the evening)

In The Beginning: 

Write before Read   – – the photograph of Dad’s stacks of books/me as a baby seated among them/ him studying/ firm roots in books and language

Crayons – writing in the books, or how I to read and write using Crayola names of colors

Childcraft – Harold Monro “Overheard on a Salt Marsh” Poem fixation, and….

a Child’s Garden of Verses – two copies by age 6

Checklist Book:  Memoir, my first book – Father, Forgive Me: Confessions of a Southern Baptist Preacher’s Kid

The Middle: 

Mother’s death, NCTE Convention, and Sarah Donovan with The Groups at www.ethicalela.com that emerged ~

Bridge the Distance (Oral History Project through Oklahoma State University)

                        Rhyme and Rhythm (an invitation to an anthology – read Golden Shovel)

And then……we coded prompts since 2016.  Predominant themes emerged:  Healing, Assessment, Community Spirit, Technology uses, and Teachers’ needs for shorter texts and stories

Who wants to work on which books?  We made groups.  

  • 90 Ways of Community by Sarah Donovan, Maureen Ingram, and Mo Daley (Read poems from here) – Mo Daley’s poem – “She Told Me Many Months Later”
  • Just YA an anthology of over 15 writers
  • Words that Mend: The Transformative Power of Writing Poetry for Students, Teachers, and Community Wellbeing and The Authors
  • ePoetry by Sarah Donovan and Stefani Boutelier was picked up by a a major education publisher and will come out in 2025
  • Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas: Humanizing Formative Assessment for Grades 6-12 by Sarah Donovan, Barb Edler, Kim Johnson, Anna Roseboro, and Gayle Sands is under contract with Routledge and will come out in 2025

The Conclusion:

Keep writing – set a timer – tell your story. Write it down. SHARE it. Your story matters.

Q&A

*Photos shared with me by Bethany Johnson and Briar Johnson, and I am ever appreciative of my sister-in-law and my husband for their outpouring of love and support!

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Book Talk

August was a month of preparations for the launch of three of the five books that my writing group has written over the past couple of years. Words That Mend: The Transformative Power of Writing Poetry for Teachers, Students, and Community Wellbeing, 90 Ways of Community, and Just YA launched on September 2, and we celebrated the birth of these books via Zoom and Facebook Live a few weeks later.

August was also preparation time for local book events, the first of which was held last night pretty much in the middle of the Upson Lee Homecoming Parade in Thomaston, Georgia on the courthouse square. One week after Hurricane Helene’s blustering of wind and heavy rain that necessitated our one week delay, I arrived on the square two hours ahead of time to seek parking among the throngs of people and the flurry of floats.

Earlier in the day, I’d considered leaving my car parked on the square and getting a ride back, but I’d stopped by Ace Hardware in town looking for a foldable wagon to pull my baskets of books in, even if I ended up having to walk a few blocks. The salesman had one little red wagon left, and he took it to the back, unboxed it, and installed the wheels for me, pulling it right back up to the checkout and wishing me well. (Local small-town shopping is a thing of the past in most places, and I was grateful for his stellar customer service).

Little Red Wagon in my back seat, ready to load up books

The Thomaston Upson Arts Council (TUAC) is an active, thriving group who bring cultural arts and literary events to the forefront of the city of Thomaston. I entered the place I’d been several times before, offering a land honorarium not only for the Native Americans who’d once called it home but also for all people who had ever lived in Thomaston and their stories. This arts council is a model for keeping arts in the spotlight, and I perused the photography exhibit on the walls, spotlighting landscapes of America.

Tomorrow’s blog will feature more of the actual book talk now that the stage of place and arrival has been set. Today, I stand back and take in the whirlwind of life: returning to normal after a storm, traffic, a friendly Ace salesman pulling a little red wagon to me and wishing me well, a passing parade with spectators and a line of Homecoming Court high schoolers waving from the backs of convertibles, the tops of cars, and the beds of trucks. All of this feels like the twirling leaves of fall descending upon us as we think of the cozier days ahead – – hopefully, filled with mugs of cider, cozy blankets, and reading fireside in the early mornings.

Autumn Change Nonet

the time of the fall of leaves has come

twirling, spinning, lining the curbs

pops of orange, red, yellow

decorating the town

crunching under foot

heralding change

as summer

packs its

bags

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Sparkling Windchimes



a gift from my grandchildren, who know

their nana enjoys birdwatching:

sparkling hummingbird windchimes

to hang on my front porch

to make me smile each

time they clink-chime

and shimmer

at day’s

dusk

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Hurricane Reading Haibun

Photo by Allan Carvalho on Pexels.com

My book news flashed across my screen at work, proclaiming Olive Kitteridge a fantastic fall read, set in Maine. As a District Literacy Specialist, I get plenty of book reviews for all ages, and years ago I’d purchased Olive Kitteridge with every intention of reading it. But life got busy, and I passed it on when I’d kept it for several years without touching it.

School was being cancelled for the following day, so I took the opportunity to drive over to the library on my lunch break and see if they had a copy available for checkout. My plan was to incorporate some reading time by candlelight during the storm and predicted power outage that might last a few days. So I whipped out my library card and turned left onto Highway 19 South out of the parking lot, then drove a quarter mile and turned right into the J. Joel Edwards Library parking lot in Zebulon, Georgia. Already, the clouds were dark and menacing overhead to my south, but sunlight streamed through on the north side of town. It was that eerie feeling when you know something’s stirring and the sky is trying to tell you to get ready.

I strolled in and found Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout and checked both hardbound copies out to savor as the storm approaches. The reviews are mixed on Goodreads, but I can see my friend Mo Daley of Michigan gave it a good rating, so I have hopes and dreams of snuggling into my comfy chair with my stretchy pajamas that could pass as a dress and leggings if anyone stops by, and gathering the dogs and reading by the window until I have to light a candle if the lights go out.

There is always a silver lining somewhere, even in a storm, and mine is reading.

Olive Kitteridge

a fall story set in Maine

Ready. Chapter 1.

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Written during our Book Launch Celebration on Sunday

On Sunday, we had our book launch celebration, and we began with……well, what else? Writing! I wrote a 20 Questions Poem, falling short by about 9 questions. Our first 23 minutes includes a writing prompt, and then there is discussion about our books. Enjoy!

How do we celebrate this excitement of our book?

How do we scream and yell loud enough?

How do we jump high enough? Run in place fast enough? 

Smile big enough? Laugh loud enough?

How do we let the joy out slowly enough without bursting wide open?

How do we keep our feet on the ground?

How do we remember our names and where we live?

How do we keep our faces from hurting, with these smiles too big

To fit on our faces?

How do we contain all the sugarplums that danced in our heads,

Now here on the pages of our book, our words, our joy, our being?