Actually Doing This!

Ok, so the last time I "blogged" was during the myspace era, circa 2005-ish. Even then, it was just rants and raves of a young adult spurned by boys, getting through college, and eventually moving away and becoming a "grown-up." This blog will NOT be anything like that. I've titled it "Actually Ashley" for a reason: things posted on here are things I actually do, think, feel, believe, etc....
My goal is to limit the negativity and try to encourage and uplift when possible. Everything else will be about cooking adventures, teaching/classroom projects, funny student stories (when applicable), books I'm reading, places I go, and other interesting tidbits that I feel need sharing. I'm also toying with the idea of trying my hand at writing children's poetry. For a while now my mother-in-law has been encouraging me to write. She says she has dreams where I am a children's author. That sound FABULOUS! I'm a reader by trade, but writing has always been fun for me. I never once remember complaining about a writing assignment. In fact, I looked forward to it. My only downfall in writing is getting started. I often find myself in need of some assistance in finding my initial idea. After that, I tend to take things and run with it, sometimes a little too much.

I know many people think that as a teacher I enjoy the whole summer off completely done with anything and everything school related.....WRONG! As many of my teacher friends can identify, we do spend quite a bit of our own personal time dedicated to our profession. That being said, I attended a writing professional development earlier this week. It was designed to help us first grade teachers become better at teaching writing to our students and being more intentional with teaching writing. It was at the end of that workshop where some of my teammates and I were able to write a short poem; thus, inspiring my continuing efforts to become an author of children's literary works. Of course, I feel the need to share what we came up with:

Summer Fun

By: A. Browning, T. Johnson, V. Williams, and L. Barnett

 Hot days, ice cold snocones.

Soft sand, hard shells.

Big waves, little boards.

Play all day, camp out at night.

Run through water, walk on sand. 

Bright Sun, glowing moon.

I fell in love with this as it was finished, so I just had to keep it. I just love the way we took a theme and then each line used opposite adjectives to describe the theme of our poem!

I've also been inspired to write due to friends at church who share the same literary interests as I do. I look forward to reading their works and gaining feedback from them as I begin my own.