JOY in Relationships {CELEBRATE This Week 145}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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My friend Patrick Allen says relationships is how he keeps his joy in the journey. I layered this thinking onto my own life, letting it color the way I see the world. Patrick is right; there is great joy in relationships.

This week, I celebrate relationships. It's been a week that seems like a lifetime with the different circles of my life intersecting and linking and bumping into one another.

This post is just the beginning of my reflection. I feel wisps of thinking and know I'm not going to catch them. Truth be told, this is usually when I say, "Check back later for a celebration post." I'm afraid I'm going to leave out important truth.

Sometimes I need to give myself more grace and remember I don't have to get this one post right...but it one more step toward living the kind of life I hope to live.

The week began with a writing retreat. I met some new friends, reconnected with longtime friends, and missed some dear friends. 

I also slipped into my writing world and was lost with stories and research and thoughts about structure and craft. I came up for air, going on walks and meeting with response groups. There are times when I have laser-focus as a writer and the days that follow are about needing to ground my feet back on the earth.

The next day the All-Write Conference began. Again, it was about meeting some new friends, reconnecting with longtime friends, and missing dear friends.

These women are so dear to me, because they remind me that my story matters. I'm touched by the way their encouragement does not end. It doesn't end. You may recognize...

Elsie from Elsie Tries Writing

Christy from Read Write Inspire

Rebecca from Pen Nguyen

Mary Helen from Book Savors

Kim from Learning Tour Writing Stop

I wish you could see in this picture

Leigh Anne from A Day in the Life

Jennifer from Sweet Writing Life

Michelle from One Grateful Teacher

and NEW TREE MOM!

And we missed

Linda from Teacher Dance

Ramona from Pleasures from the Page

Deb from Coffee with Chloe

Lori from Carpe Diem

Michele from Mrs. Knott's Book Nook

Jen from Ready to Flip a Coin

My circles of relationships intersected. 

The bloggers who have become dear friends and then Tam, my mentor from my first year of teaching joined us because she's part of the blogging friends too. She writes at Clay Fragments.

And my friend, a fellow Stenhouse author, was there too. Patrick Allen visited with us, and met Andy and made the trip to the tiny library where my mom is the director. "Which one of you is Ruth Ayres' mom?" he announced walking up to the circulation desk.

Linda Urban, middle grade author of The Center of Everything, A Crooked Kind of Perfect, Hound Dog True, Milo Speck: Accidental Agent (and others) became a friend. I'm so grateful. 

Meanwhile, Andy and Sam have been "living it up," just the two of them while I've been out on writing adventures and the three oldest kids have been at camp. In fact, as I write this, Sam and Andy are having their last hurrah, just the two of them.

In a few minutes, we are going to go pick up the three oldest kids from camp. They've been in another world this week, too. 

We'll all find our way back to home, and be better because of the relationships we are privileged to have. 

Share your celebrations below.

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