#EnticingWriters BLOG TOUR {CELEBRATE This Week: 217}

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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Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers is going on tour! Check out all of the blog stops...not to mention I'm writing a feature for the Write About November newsletter. 

Here are a few of the reasons this blog tour spurred a little family happy dance in our kitchen.

• Stenhouse has generously donated TWO BOOKS to be given away at each stop. Follow along for your chance for a free book!
• Along with the free book comes a free registration to my new course: Enticing Writers Book Club. It starts in January.
• Mid-tour there is a FACEBOOK LIVE event at 1:30 pm (CST) straight from the Stenhouse booth at NCTE. Shawna Coppola will be with me as we talk about Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers.
• Check out a full preview of the book on the Stenhouse website. (If you decide to purchase the book, forward your receipt to enticing writers[at]gmail[dot]com for a free registration to my new course, Enticing Writers Book Club.

Here are the links to each stop.

11/13 (M) Clare & Tammy http://assessmentinperspective.com/?page_id=45​

11/15 (W) Michelle Nero http://literacyzone.blogspot.com​

11/17 (F) Leigh Anne Eck http://adayinthelifeof19b.blogspot.com​

11/18 (Sat) STENHOUSE FB LIVE at 1:30pm (CST) with Shawna Coppola and Stenhouse FB Page​

11/20 (M) Mary Helen Gensch https://booksavors.wordpress.com​

11/22 (W) Jen Vincent http://www.teachmentortexts.com/​

11/27 (M) Julie Johnson http://www.raisingreadersandwriters.com

(November Newsletter -Write About https://www.writeabout.com​)

I'd love if you would help me spread the word! 

Share your celebrations below.

Not Busy {CELEBRATE This Week: 209}

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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Weekly celebrations by the numbers...

• 28 sandwiches for kid lunches
• 5 games, matches or performances
• 15 loads of laundry
• 9 dishwasher fills and empties
• 45+ showers
• 7 gallons of milk
• 8 dozen homemade cookies
• 23 cups of hot tea (all of the kids are hot tea drinkers)

We are in the thick of life with kids. They are active. They are healthy. They are growing up. I celebrate these numbers.

There are some days when I write an after school schedule so Andy and I can be sure everyone is picked up, dropped off and back home. Usually we have an extra kid or two to pick up, drop off or take home.

We also believe in creating space for relaxation and play. So even though the schedule sees to bulge, each of our kids has time to be home and do their own things to relax. Sam builds with Legos. Jordan plays Madden football. Hannah watches a Hallmark show. Stephanie plays with the dog in the backyard.

I convince them to go on bike rides and walks with me. We throw the frisbee in the front yard. They make dessert with me in the kitchen. We squeeze in a game of Skipbo before bed.

Andy watches baseball (or football or hockey or basketball, depending on the season) with his friends. I write.

This week Andy and I sat together in the tippy-top of metal bleachers watching Jordan play football. Stephanie sat beside us eating the second meal of the day out of her lunch box. Hannah was at work and band practice. My mom helped out by picking up Sam from tennis practice. They had dinner for two at Dairy Queen.

Life is packed right now, but that doesn't mean we are busy. We are enjoying each beautiful moment and holding it tight. Perhaps the number that I'm celebrating most right now is: ONE.

1 full heart

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If you missed it, last week I shared a preview copy of my new book, Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. Feel free to get your copy by completing the form below.

It's FINALLY Time!! {CELEBRATE This Week: 208}

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.

*******

I've been waiting for a very long time to share this little gem with the world. It is my very favorite of all my favorites. I know you're not supposed to have a favorite, but this one is a favorite.

I want it in your hands and in the teacher across the hall's hands and in principals', coaches', paraprofessionals', counselors', administrators' hands. If someone is in contact with a kid, I want them to read this book.

Sure, it's about teaching writers because that's what I do...but it's so much more. It's really about the power of an adult to help a child rewrite the way the story they are living can go. It's about understanding the way trauma changes brains and how brains can heal when needs are met. It's about my journey as a momma to kids from foster care. It's about my journey as a teacher and learning to love those who are hardest to love.

It's a call to action. We need more adults turning darkness to light. This little book does just that.

It's a professional book, but it's also a memoir and a persuasive essay and some parts even dance a little like poetry. It's skinny and only takes a few hours to read.

You'll laugh.

You'll shake your head.

You'll want to do something different.

(You might want to have a tissue or two handy.)

This is the best I have to offer the world. 

I want to just give it away, but apparently publishers frown on this.

So I collected bits of it -- the intro and a chapter or two from each of the three parts -- and put it together in a little PDF. I'd love if you'd like to read the preview.

I imagine you snuggled in with my words and a mug of something warm. You can imagine me as I wrote it. Typically I'm under a quilt and it is black outside. In the wee morning hours, there's a cup of sweet coffee steaming next to me and when it's past bedtime, there's ice water on the bedside table.

I wrote it in the thick of the mess of life. I wrote it when things were too hard. I wrote it when I didn't have time...

Because this story matters...

Because we have the power to heal children from hard places...

Because educators might be the last hope for healing...

Because we can turn darkness to light.

Shoot me your email address in the box below, and I'll send you the preview copy. Click here if you want more information about the book.

Share your celebrations below!