A Spring Wedding

My and Johnathan's close friend Ronnie was married the last weekend in April in Blowing Rock, NC. It was a beautiful day for a wedding and we were very happy to celebrate this big step in his life. Before the wedding we had an opportunity to snap a few photos.

Johnathan, my most handsome groomsman

Beautiful backdrop!

After the ceremony there was more time for fun photographs. When Johnathan and I were married Ronnie gave the bride a kiss; it was my turn to return the favor! The guys all looked so nice for the ceremony.

After the wedding we headed to the reception at Troy's 105 Diner in Boone. One of the waitstaff was kind enough to take our photo before we went inside. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we have so many great photos to enjoy from the weekend!

SOLSC: Go Go Go

Whoa! Where did this week go? I came to the blog to check out the ones I follow and my last post was last Monday. Sigh. How did I fall off the SOLSC boat so quickly? Time to catch up with what's been happening this week, even though it's only going to be one post. Tuesday was a crazy day, as in where did I put all the stuff I did in so little time? After a full school day I shot Senior Superlative photos for another hour, attended a Relay for Life meeting for an hour and then had dinner out with David. It was a nice way to relax after running around like mad for the day. Wednesday I worked, caught up with my dear co-worker Stephanie and headed to another high school in our district to hear David's band play for their State adjudication. Woohoo, they earned a Superior!! Just another great day at the office, I suppose ;) Thursday I worked, taught my two night clasaes and then had a late dinner before seeing the Hunger Games at midnight. I learned a lot about myself that night: I am too old for a midnight premiere1 It took a lot to stay awake between the end of my second job and when the movie started. It didn't help that we went to a really nice theater an hour away to see the movie; it was almost 4:00am (yes, you saw that right) when I finally got into bed Friday morning. Needless to say, worth every minute! Friday (once I stirred) Johnathan and I set off for Greensboro to visit with our friends and their new baby. This was the first time we met Genevieve and she could not be sweeter. For 8 days old she was pretty tolerant of all the "I want the baby" that was going around. She's so cute and my friends are doing great as parents. Saturday, bringing us full circle, we did some shopping in Greensboro before watching an indoor percussion performance. My best friend is bascially a band program rock star: his group won first place in their class! The show itself is great: it's based on computers which held Johnathan's attention while I watched for other performance elements. Congratulations, love! We're home and settled back in with our little dog, who may not speak to us for a while because we left her at the kennel to spend the night Friday. I've been on the go all week and am looking forward to relaxing tomorrow as I prepare for a short school week; 3 days then an early release day Thursday followed by a workday Friday. Let the chaos begin!

SOLSC: Greeting Cards

Yesterday my husband and I went out running the usual "get ready for the work week" errands and one of the places that is always on my list is Target. One of our not-so-usual errands was to pick up a bridal shower gift for next weekend, as one of Johnathan's good friends is getting married at the end of April. Luckily the couple registered at Target and picking up some goodies was a snap!

I am passionate about gift giving. There is something about knowing that you have picked out just the right item for someone that you know they are going to love. This makes the holidays really exciting for me, but probably frustrating and exhausting for Johnathan, as I will shop over and over for the same person until I find the gift for them. The rest of the year I have this other problem: greeting cards.

I'm going to go ahead and attribute (blame) my addiction to greeting cards on my addiction to the written word. I know there are lots of much more gifted wordsmiths than myself, but not just anyone writes just the right greeting card, issuing a challenge to me year-round. What draws me to them, mostly, is the blank space on the left side when the card is open: that's where I get to do my own wordsmith-ing. I can fill up that blank side with all kinds of sap!

What began as a grab a shower gift (now it still had to be the right one) run to Target became me reading card after card. I found a bridal card that is so tongue-in-cheek like me, then I found a card to send to my brother and his wife congratulating them on their new house (I didn't even know such a card existed), then I found the sweetest little card for my friends who just had a baby that I wanted to include with the Welcome to the World gifts I have stocked up to take when I see them this weekend, and THEN I found a perfect card for one of my dearest friends...just because.

I have always fancied myself a (however amateur) writer, and greeting cards have acted as a spark for me to put pen to paper (or cardstock) for years. When I write, I'm giving part of myself away to the person who ultimately reads my words, and that is not a responsibility I take lightly, just as I value giving the right gift and the right card. Sometimes, it's much more important that we give the right words.

SOLSC: Rainy Sunday Morning

I woke up earlier than I normally would on a weekend morning today. The sky was grey, the kind of grey that whispers you back to sleep. The sound of rain on my roof, but thankfully no longer in my attic, eased me into the haze where dreams and reality merge. I turned the pillow over to the cooler side, feeling the chill against my cheek, reminding me that there is plenty of day left to enjoy.

I looked over at my husband, who was still sleeping and thought about how easy it was to enjoy this simple moment, watching his chest rise and fall. I know we all say that people are so peaceful when they sleep, but my husband is usually a warrior all night: wrestling and snoring and kicking. Not now. Now he is sleeping quietly, completely unaware that I am watching him, contemplating how this little life of ours turned out to be pretty close to perfect.

In this moment I am not making a list of all the things I have to do before the work week begins tomorrow. I am not thinking about the pile of laundry in the hallway or the dishes in the sink. Yes, the yard needs to be mowed and the grocery list needs to be made and there are a myriad of household chores to be completed. But under a grey sky, the gentle sound of rain echoes the stillness in my mind, encouraging me to slow down, breathe in this beautiful moment and embrace it.

SOLSC: Road Block

I've hit the wall.
I cannot for the life of me come up with anything to write about today. So, I suppose I'll just write about not having anything to write about; that's what I tell my students to do when they get stuck.

It's not that I haven't done anything today; in fact, I got off the couch and had brunch with my family to celebrate my brother's 24th birthday today. My husband and I took off and did some shopping at Concord Mills and I managed to find some fabulous deals. For some reason, though, I can't seem to find anything "slice" worthy today. I don't feel very focused on any one element or detail. I think I'm just so relieved that I finally feel mostly human again that I can't think of anything special.

I know the Slice challenge is about finding something in everyday life worth writing about; I know each entry doesn't have to be particularly newsworthy. I'm thinking now that I'm putting too much pressure on myself to write something catchy, flashy or engaging. Isn't this more about process than product? I know I tell my students that regularly, that I'm interested in their process, but do I mean it? For some students the idea of them developing a process is a huge victory; many of them like to just write the first thing that comes to mind and call it a final draft.

Even though I don't have much to say today, this process is helping me observe the world a little better for a potential Slice story. Tomorrow is another day.

SOLSC: Recovering

I am sure I sound like a total whiner, but I am still just NOT. OVER. THIS. COLD. And it comes and goes in waves; which is even more annoying because I start to feel better and overdo it then crash. But I'm surviving, and this brought me to a list of things that have gotten me through this ridiculous, hellacious congestion-fest:

7 Essentials for the (Lingering) Common Cold

1. Puffs Plus with Lotion: I cannot say enough about how these have essentially been my saving grace when it comes to my poor little nose. I basically feel like that girl in the picture and couldn't deal with the incessant nose blowing otherwise.

2. A sick day: I would not have been able to truck it through the other 4 days of the work week if my doctor had not literally told me I couldn't go to work on Tuesday. When you doctor says "slow down," you listen!

3. Something to read: Right now I'm reading Lauren Oliver's Pandemonium at work during out independent reading time in the classroom and at home I'm reading A Million Suns by Beth Revis. It's nice to disappear into a world where you don't focus for hours on end on the pressure in your head or when you need the tissue box (again!).

4. A fuzzy blanket: I have two of these at my house- one on the couch (where I have practically lived all week after school) and one that is on my side of the bed because my husband keeps our room pretty cool and I like to be snuggled up under it. The texture of it is so important to me because it makes me feel at home in some way.

5. Fluids, Fluids, Fluids: With this cold I can't get enough to drink. Part of that comes from the prescription meds my doctor gave me for the asthma flare I had earlier this week, but since I'm off those now I'm still thirsty like whoa! I've been drinking mostly bottled water but some sugar free lemonade too, like Crystal Light, for flavor.

6. iPhone: I know, right? What? In the last week I've found out I'm getting a new nephew and my best friend from college and her husband welcomed the cutest little girl into the world. So, without my iPhone I wouldn't be connected to them seeing as I'm certainly not going to go and infect them with the germ fest living in my head.

7. A sense of humor: when you have to call the doctor and report on the not so pleasant details of your cold, you have to smile and keep moving. I carried around my own "contaminated" box of tissues and made sure no one got near them. Hey, it was for their own good!

And if I had completed one, I would add a BUSTED BRACKET after today! Sorry Dookies, have a safe trip back to Durham! (I couldn't resist!)

Happy Friday!

SOLSC: Images

Today I was poking around online after work and found a website that offers different kinds of writing exercises for different days of the week. Today on the site is a poetry day, but I was particularly interested in the image task from yesterday (Tuesday). So I'm taking it on!

The task: write about this image:

Two hands, two fists, two words. Rage: an anger of the fiercest sort, the kind that provokes people to act far beyond their normal boundaries. Love: an emotion of the highest intensity, the kind that provokes people to act far beyond their normal boundaries. Who would have thought these words have anything in common? And yet, they do.

Rage and Love are two words that come to mind when I think of so many hot button topics in our society today. Same sex marriage brings people to raging righteousness while others argue that it's really about love. Abortion causes people to rage against the opposition, while others choose love as their course of action. It's interesting to note how evenly these words are leveled on the hands in the photo, too. It's as if they have some kind of ease or fluidity.

What else are these words saying? Separately they can have so much in common but paired together they can say so much more. What if, instead of rage, we let love rule more of our emotions? What if our governing instinct relied more on love than rage? Either of these emotions can create strong rhetoric, but what if we channeled the energy of rage into love? Would we be better to each other? Would we actually, in spite of the image above, use our fists less and our words more?

Is love positioned on what is the "right" side of the image for a reason? Or is it because it's on the left hand where we wear wedding rings? This image really pushed me to question its composition on so many levels. I'm thinking that writing about images would be a great break from my students usual journal topics and get them thinking outside of the box. I know I enjoyed thinking this one through.

What do you see?