BulgingButtons

Not bad for a fat girl


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Five Years of Blogging

The other day WordPress was kind enough to let me know that it was my five year anniversary of blogging. Happy Anniversary to me and BulgingButtons! And thank you, to each and every one of you who has read anything I have written. The kind feedback this blog has generated has been quite amazing to me.

When I begin, I thought I would be writing about my weight loss and fitness struggles. Here we are, five years later, and I am still struggling. In fact, I might be struggling more now than ever. Still, many of you have been with me since the early days, and have shown nothing but kindness, encouragement, and support.

No longer is this simply a blog about weight loss and the struggle it entails. It has become a reflection of my life in general. Family, relationships, teaching, and my world outlook have all found their way onto this website. My little corner of the Internet is where I plop things down for all of you to see. Sometimes I’m proud of what I’ve written, and other times I cringe a little when I hit the publish button, but it’s all authentic. It’s all from the heart.

Thank you for hanging out with me at Bulgingbuttons. Let’s keep supporting one another, and keep on keeping on.


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Online Summer Writing Camp for Teachers

I’ve written about summer writing camp for kids, and how much I love being involved with it, but today I’m talking about something different. This time I get to be the camper! This is summer writing camp for adults, specifically teachers of students in grades K-8.

There’s a Facebook group run by Jennifer Serravallo (of Reading Strategies and Writing Strategies fame) that invites you to write along. It’s still week one, so if you want to join in, you absolutely can, and really, I think you can jump in on any of the weeks, since each week explores a different type of writing.

This week we’ve been working on a fictional narrative piece. Each day Jennifer posts a short video introducing and teaching the strategy. She models its use, both in mentor texts and in her own writing, then she sets us off to try it out. The videos are in the 5-10 minute range, and the writing time is about 10 minutes too. For twenty minutes a day you’re learning new strategies, writing samples you can use with your students come next school year, and having fun doing it.

Many people are posting their work and comments, too, but I haven’t gotten into that part of it. I’m doing the “streamlined” version, short and sweet.

Have I mentioned how much I love summer camp? Even if it is in front of my phone or laptop.

Here’s the link in case you’re interested:

Writing Strategies Summer Camp

 


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Stop. And Breathe. Crisis Cleaning Rears its Ugly Head

garbiketa.jpgI’m working myself into fits and I need to stop. I feel like I’m spinning in circles, rushing from one room of my house to another tidying this, straightening that, dusting this bit off, putting this thing away at last, only to to see a thousand more of these items to do. It’s productive, to a degree, but it’s making my anxiety level climb, so here I sit. Breathing. Good.

Why all this nervous rushing about? Because after living in this house for four years my friend is finally coming over to see it. My friend, whose beautiful new(ish) home I saw for the first time a couple of weeks ago. My friend, whose home is perfect.

I know, I know…

I’m NOT comparing my home to hers. They are different. We are different people at different stages. I have a dog (yep, blame it on the dog… she won’t mind), my friend doesn’t. I have a college kid here for the summer, she doesn’t. I have a blended household, she doesn’t. I work full-time (except in the summer, but shh), she doesn’t. Still, her house is CLEAN, and mine? Well, it isn’t.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post this (yep, warts and all) then drag out the vacuum cleaner, see if I can find some Windex, and call it done. Oh wait, I’m supposed to meet her in half an hour and I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Yeah, maybe the other stuff just won’t happen. She’ll love me anyway, won’t she? I hope so. And exhale…