Today I am celebrating BONS. We met a couple of weeks ago and the laughter still warms my heart. I, we, missed Tammy who was sick, but a phone call delighted us all. We are able to be open about life, sharing school snippets that drive us crazy but still make us laugh. We talk about family matters of growth and turmoil. Mostly we celebrate. Life is hard and worthwhile. We capture those moments, some in the sand and others on paper. We celebrate.
Cottage Retreat {Celebrations}
July 21, 2014
Celebrate the big and little throughout the week at http://www.ruthayreswrites.com.
Tammy’s cottage is a highlight of my summer. The BONS meet together for stories, sharing, and relaxation. We wrote too. The cottage is quiet and I found valued quiet time to focus writing an article. We arrived Saturday afternoon and stayed over through Sunday evening. Unfortunately, I did not post that evening due to no internet access. Ruth kept us updated on a softball tourney her daughter was playing in. S was playing great and the team was successful. Ruth was being a great mom, cheering her daughter on, and connected us via text messages. She was in our hearts. We missed you!
I celebrate friendship, connections, encouragement, laughter, fishing, ice cream, campfires, notebooks, revision and writing!

Tradition: sitting around the campfire sharing stories and laughter. Tam had fun keeping the flames going.

BONS means writing and writing I did. I worked on an article, added to my notebook (Thanks Ruthie) and received a new one from Tammy. I didn’t get a picture, but I clicked away on my computer. The cottage is the best setting for writing.

I usually share a book when we meet, so I had a book treat for each. I LOVE ice cream, so this book captured some laughs. We celebrated my birthday with ice cream bars afterwards. 🙂 Oh, and it was National Ice Cream Day yesterday too. How fitting!
Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution
January 28, 2013Dear BONS,
It’s January and I have been thinking about goals, a New Year’s resolution of sorts. I know Ruth has shared her goals with us. Any others? Me – I’m going to set a time limit for myself to write daily instead of just being arbitrary about it. So I find it fitting that the book Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution by Pat Miller happened to catch my eye. It’s super cute and Tammy, I think your first graders would like it. Tam, your gran kids would enjoy it too.
Squirrel wants to know what a resolution is, so he goes to the best place ever to research it – the LIBRARY. Of course, my favorite place! The definition he finds is as follows:
A resolution is a promise you make to yourself to be better or to help yourself.
As squirrel thinks of resolutions for herself, she helps others along the way. In the end, her friends remind her of how she helped them in their time of need.
Isn’t this a great book to share with a class and talk about community building and how each person in the class can help support the goals for the class? I also thought of you with the encouragement to keep writing. So hooray for writing!
Resolved to create,
MHG
Savorings for reading and in writing for Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution:
- Bucket Filling -“I resolve to help someone every day!“
- Apostrophe usage – contractions vs. possessive
- Narrative weaving of thoughts/feelings
- Community Building
- Library reference 🙂