Slice of Life #23: Day 13/31: Life's Little Equations

For the month of March, each day I am writing and posting a slice of my life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. 

Slice of Life #23: Day 13/31: 

Life's Little Equations

I first discovered Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Life Equations in her book Textbook. I also read This Plus That: Life's Little Equations to my children when they were young. I adore the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal and continue to refer to her books. Last year I played with Life's Little Equations in this post. Here's another post from 2018. 

Based on parts of my Sunday, I created a few Life's Little Equations:

Eight additional inches of snow in twenty-four hours + Day Light Savings = Crabby Trina

(knocking over a food canister + playing in freshly folded laundry) x scratching on the backside of the chair = mischievous cat. 

(Lesson planning + posting weekly learning intentions and success criteria in Canvas) X giving feedback on research papers = Sunday Scaries. 

What equations have popped up in your life lately? 

Slice of Life #22 Day 14: Life Equations

 For the month of March, each day I am writing and posting a slice of my life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. 

Slice of Life #22 :Day 14/31:

 Life Equations

For several years now, I have been a fan of the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal. When my children were small I used to read them This Plus That: Life's Little Equations. I have fond memories of the life equations we made together. Four years ago my daughter and I wrote some life equations. You can read about it here. 

In reflecting on this past week, I wrote a few of my own life equations.

(homemade breakfast) served to me - clean-up = happy, grateful girlfriend.

One of the breakfasts Steve made me this weekend.

(wool hat + mittens + park) X sunrise = peaceful morning walk.

A view from one of my morning walks this week.

(purring Herbert + childhood quilt) - school work = lazy afternoon.

Herbert snuggling on my lap.

Have you ever tried to write a life equation? 

March Slice of Life Challenge Day 1: Eleven Things About Me As a Blogger

For the month of March, each day I am writing and posting a slice of my life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. 

March Slice of Life Challenge Day 1: 
Eleven Things About Me As a Blogger

In celebration of the first day of the 2019 Slice of Life Challenge, I decided to write eleven things about me as a blogger: 

1. My husband helped me come up with the name Trinarrative for my blog. This is a mash-up of my first name (Trina) and the word narrative. I wanted a name that had to do with writing with a bit of pizzazz. 
2. I began blogging in the summer of 2017; I am still learning what it means to be a good blogger. Click this link to read my first post. 
3. It is only my second year participating in the Slice of Life Challenge. After I heard Ralph Fletcher promote the Slice of Life Challenge at the Annual Wisconsin Reading Association Convention and read about it in his professional book Joy Write, I knew that I wanted to try it. 
4. My big brother, Brian, helped me set up this blog. My friend and colleague, Jeremy, has also helped me figure out blogging. 
5. I nearly always write my posts out by hand first in my writer's notebook before I type the post in Blogger. 
6. Last December I challenged myself to write a Haiku-A-Day and publish it on my blog. Among many other bloggers (including my friend Elisabeth), I accomplished this.  
7. Initially, I began this blog to reflect mainly about teaching and how I was learning as a teacher. To my surprise, I ended up writing a lot about myself as a writer, about my children, and even posting my own poetry.
8. I am often long-winded as a writer/blogger. I know that most people do not take the time to read anything long (like this post), especially in a digital platform. It is challenging for me to be a concise writer.
9. Blogging has helped me to be a more reflective person. It has made me notice more and when I look back on my published blog posts, I am almost always grateful that I took the time to write. 
10. I used to be incredibly self-conscious of every slice I posted on Blogger. I worried that someone would read my writing. I worried that no one would read my writing. Confession: I am still often uncomfortable with this. However, receiving and rereading comments has helped me keep going when I feel self-conscious about my writing (check out the gems writing pals left me in this post).  
11. Blogging has helped me have an authentic purpose and audience as a writer. I never knew how much I needed this.

I used Amy Krouse Rosenthal's brilliant The Book of Eleven: An Itemized Collection of Brain Lint as my mentor text.

Open this link to read my post from last year about my list of eleven things about me as a reader. 

Slice of Life 2018 Day 29: Life Equations

As I wrote in this post and this post, I adore Amy Krouse Rosenthal's work. She has a whole chapter in her book Textbook called Math (Unit 8), and it's filled with sweet equations. She also published an adorable children's book on equations called This Plus That: Life's Little Equations. 

Confession: I have a very poor growth mindset for math (especially with story problems), but these kinds of equations are perfect for me. My daughter, who turns ten next week, wrote some life equations with me. Below are a few we penned together: 

(sofa snuggling + sleeping in) x book reading + no homework = Spring Break

(itchy leotards + wild costumes + flowers) x stage fright = dance recital

Daffodils her brother gave her at her dance recital

(backyard digging + stealing stuffed animals) x sneaking on furniture = naughty border collie puppy

Don't be fooled by this sweet face. This is a puppy who is always in trouble!  

(cookies + honesty + exploration + confidence) x friendship = Girl Scouts

My Girl Scout in action selling cookies.  

Our equations were fun to create together. Try one! 

Slice of Life 2018 Day 24: What My Childhood Tasted Like

In search of some inspiration for today's Slice of Life post, I turned to Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I thought about writing an encyclopedia entry, but as I was paging through this familiar book, I noticed that she includes many tables in her writing - sources that I had never considered emulating before.

Below is a table called “What My Childhood Tasted Like” (on page 59 of my paperback of Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life). It is a simple T-Chart. On the left hand side is the item from her childhood and the right hand side is ARK's notes about it.

AKR's Taste of Childhood Table 

I immediately found myself thinking about my childhood tastes and got to work making my own childhood taste table.

Trina's Taste of Childhood table 

(Note: I couldn't figure out how to properly include a chart on Blogger without distorting the words, so here is a link to my full chart of childhood tastes.)

I think about food probably a lot more than I should, but I hadn't thought about writing about food in this way before. Creating this chart conjured so many fond memories, and I could easily elaborate on just one of these ideas in a poem or short story. I found it to be a playful way to come up with new seed ideas to write about.

Slice of Life 2018 Day 5: Eleven Things About Me as a Reader

Recently, I saw a blogger write a list of 11 things about her as a blog post for Slice of Life. This reminded me of Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s book, The Book of Eleven. Note: Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s categorizes this title on her website as one of her grown up books. The Book of Eleven, as many of Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s books, is one of my writing go-to’s when I am not sure what to write about. For me, creating lists is sometimes the only way I can get started in writing.

My personal copy of The Book of Eleven

In the spirit of the great Amy Krouse Rosenthal, below is a list of eleven things about me as a reader:

1. I was a struggling reader for most of elementary school and middle school. I often share this with my students and wrote about it here.
2. Most nights I end the day reading. It is usually in bed or on the couch between my two children. I once wrote a poem about it called Bookends.
3. I almost always have an audio book going in the car. Right now I am listening to One of Us is Lying. When selecting audio books, I try to find books that will appeal to my high school students so I can use the titles when I confer with students and make recommendations.
4. My least favorite genre to read is fiction stories about animals. I am pretty certain that this is because I love animals, especially dogs, and cannot handle it when a dog dies.
5. The last book I finished reading was Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God. It is a dystopian feminist thriller, a kind of book that I didn’t expect from Louise Erdrich. Although this was not my favorite title from Louise Erdrich, I still loved it. Think Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
6. I am currently reading Deborah Wiles’ book Countdown. This is a mixture of historical fiction and nonfiction through a variety of texts. I was introduced to Deborah Wiles when I participated in the 2017 Book Love Foundation Summer Book Club.
7. My nightstand is nearly always toppling with books. It is a constant source of annoyance for my husband. I own too many books, but it makes me really happy to live in a house full of books. 
8. For the past three years I have surpassed my goal for on my Goodreads challenge. This is where I am at right now: 

My current Goodreads challenge

9. I enjoy reading physical books more than electronic versions of books. Mostly, I think that this is because I dog ear pages of books all of the time. When I find a line that I want to linger over, I oven dog ear the bottom corner of that page. I know that there is a digital bookmark option, but I just can't get used to it.

10. One of my favorite places to visit is our local public library. I typically check out more titles than I can read before the titles are due at the library.

11. I must read before I go to sleep. Every. Single. Night. I have found that I have trouble sleeping without digging into a good book.