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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Donalyn Miller, Linda Urban, me, Colby Sharp |
Sometimes you live a magical day, but can’t really put your finger on what made it so. I celebrate this. I celebrate moments that seem so ordinary, but are rather remarkable. I celebrate carving out time each week to tug on threads that will lead me to finding the magic.
I spent an ordinary day in the middle of an ordinary week doing ordinary work. There was reading alongside students and recess duty and lunch in the teachers’ lounge and writing in notebooks. Colby Sharp and Donalyn Miller do these ordinary things all of the time too. But this week, we did them alongside one another. Linda Urban joined us too. She walked right out on the playground and stood with us, Colby tossing the football, all of us soaking in the joy of a playground filled with sunshine and happiness.
It was so incredibly ordinary.
And not.
There I was with three of my mentors. Linda Urban, a writing mentor. Donalyn Miller, a professional mentor. Colby Sharp, a lift-people-up mentor. I glean bits, important bits, from these people about how to write and interact and live.
It was a privilege to spend the day with them.
I’m changed because of it. That’s what a little bit of magic in the middle of the ordinary does to a person. It changes you. It’s a little like clearing out some dirt and finding gold underneath. It makes you a better version of yourself.
I celebrate the encouragement they offered and the way it changes me.
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My offerings to encourage writers (and their teachers), because I’m smitten by the way writers work…
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( For more information on these resources (and others), check out
this post.)
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Places you can find me celebrating throughout the week:
Instagram: @ruth_ayres
(I still don’t have this platform figured out!)
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Spending the day with three fabulous mentors -what a celebration! Love these words: “…all of us soaking in the joy of a playground filled with sunshine and happiness.”
What a great way to spend “an ordinary day”!
Wow! Sounds like an amazing “ordinary day” I'm hoping it's okay that I feel totally jealous of all of you! 🙂
Wow! Sounds like an amazing “ordinary day” I'm hoping it's okay that I feel totally jealous of all of you! 🙂
My favorite line is: It makes you a better version of yourself.
Your post got me to think about those in my life who do that for me and how I try to do that for others.
Thanks for sharing…and providing me with this Saturday structure to do my own reflection on my ordinary moments of the week. I do think we get what we give…clearly YOU give much and deserved such an ordinary/extraordinary day with other super-ordinary brilliant minds!!
That sounds like a fabulous day! I would love to spend a day doing these ordinary things with these extraordinary people, including you. Thank you for the inspiration you offer to all of us. Have a great week!
I saw your tweets, Ruth. What a fabulous time you all had. I still remember Hound Dog True, maybe time for a re-read?
Magical days make life worth living!! Love this and thank you for sharing!
I live for those moments where the ordinary-ness of things just feels bigger than it is.
I saw some of the tweets. It looks like it was a lovely day!
What a wonderful group of people to spend the day with! Wow!
So glad you got to spend this day with your mentors. It sounds like anything but ordinary.
Ruth, as always your post inspire me to live a full life and to start each day with an attitude of gratitude. I can see why you enjoyed your day with your trusty friends. Since I was away with family this weekend, I unplugged for most of it and wrote my celebrate post remembering all of the stellar moments.
Ruth, as always your post inspire me to live a full life and to start each day with an attitude of gratitude. I can see why you enjoyed your day with your trusty friends. Since I was away with family this weekend, I unplugged for most of it and wrote my celebrate post remembering all of the stellar moments.