Welcome to Blogfest

You know what they say about the road to hell and good intentions, right? That's me and Blogfest.

Back when I signed up for this blogging extravaganza, I was in the midst of summer vacation, was blogging regularly, and was eager to find a way to draw new friends into conversations about books and writing. I imagine I noted the date, but apparently it didn't register that September 10th would be the Friday of my first week back at school. Don't get me wrong, I love my work as a teacher and I love talking about books and writing, but if you read the preceding post, you'll note that at the end of this week I'm lucky to be able to manage a coherent thought let alone an engaging post that's going to make you all want to come on back and chat again.

So I plead for your mercy and please don't give up on me right away.

I'm going to attempt to draw inspiration for this post from this crazy first week. It may be exhausting getting back into the swing of things, but it's exhilarating as well.

One of my favorite parts of teaching is the opportunity to sit with children and discuss books. I love nothing more than reading a story to my class and hearing the chuckles at a funny part or the gasps when something scary happens. I know I'm planting the seeds of lifelong reading pleasure. It gets even better when they start really thinking about their reading and making all sorts of amazing connections and expressing real insights into the stories. That's when I know they're hooked; they get the true joy of reading.

Today we were sharing information about ourselves in a project called "All About Me Bags". The idea is to take a plain brown bag and decorate it with something to reflect who you are, and then you fill it with things that are important to you. I decorated my bag with pictures of the ocean and lighthouses (surprise!) and filled it with a book I loved when I was their age (9) and a teabag to represent how I love to curl up with a pot of tea and a great book.

For my giveaway, I'm offering a slightly better version of that - a $20 Barnes and Noble gift card in a mug with tea (or coffee). Enjoy!


Finally, it's my pleasure to link you to the next step on our blogging whirlwind. Bitten by Books is a terrific site dedicated to reviewing Paranormal books so if you're looking for the best vampire or shifter novel out there or you want a taste of something different, hop on over to Bitten by Books.


ETA:  Thanks to everyone who has visited or followed me today. I really appreciate you coming by. One of the comments gave me an idea.  If you'd like, tell me what you'd put in your brown bag if you were doing an "All About Me Bag".  That sounds like a fun way to get to know some of you.