Best Gift

Speaking of favorite gifts, my college roommate Cheryl Ann came to visit recently and brought her dog Lexie to see our dog Abby, who just happen to be sisters. Their mother was our dog Katie who died in 2007.  One of the pups is pictured here with Laura, circa 2000. "Lexie is the best gift anybody's ever given me," Cheryl told me on that visit, which made us both cry. Abby, who had been sick for several months, passed away the next day. 

Little Tree

This little tree was planted not long after we moved into our home. The neighbors had planted a wild dogwood they found in the woods in the corner of their front yard near our driveway. I thought it would look nice and balanced to have a dogwood tree in our yard on the other side of the driveway. So Rick and the kids planted our little tree for me on Mother’s Day, 1995, give or take a year. It wasn’t long before the neighbors’ dogwood up and died. Soon afterwards, ours withered and turned brown, too. Rather than dig it up, we just clipped its tiny trunk and mowed over it. Sounds cruel, doesn’t it? But honestly, we hadn’t even had time to become attached to it. Some days, weeks, maybe even months later - I don’t remember how much time passed, or who discovered it - a green shoot sprouted out of the seemingly dead roots of the little tree. “A true miracle!” we declared. and the rest is history, family history. The little tree is like a member of our family, complete with its own stories. I love it. It’s one of my favorite gifts ever.

Hopefully my last project of Grad School

I ♥ Sugar Free Allstars. They gave me permission to use this cute song in the book trailer I am making for my multicultural literature class.

Poem Flow

Here is a poem I received earlier this week via Poem Flow, a new free, mobile application. Enjoy!

Envoy

Robert Louis Stevenson

Go, little book, and wish to all

Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,

A bin of wine, a spice of wit,

A house with lawns enclosing it,

A living river by the door,

A nightingale in the sycamore!

This week's Poetry Friday Roundup is over at Teaching Books.

I want to give a shout out to all who attended the Poetry Pep Rally at Ferndale this week. Here's a link to the handout for my presentation.

New Poetry Friday Schedule

I was very excited to find with very little difficulty the new Poetry Friday Schedule, not that I ever have time to post anymore, what with the Web Development Class I'm taking and summer reading on the horizon; but maybe, just maybe, one day I will find a minute. It's over at http://readingyear.blogspot.com/