Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers

With two weeks to go until school starts, I’ve started to reflect on everything I’ve accomplished this summer. It was definitely the busiest summer I have ever had, but also the most rewarding personally and professionally. Here’s a glimpse:

I took two 6 week grad classes to finish the coursework portion of my gifted endorsement. Needless to say this online program has been a whirlwind of information and work, but I’ve learned a lot about differentiation, gifted and talented learners, and have found that a lot of the theory and practice can easily transfer into my reading intervention classes that I currently teach.

I was fortunate enough to take a few trips this summer – my husband and I went to Vegas over the fourth of July weekend to celebrate his 30th birthday and to go to the UFC Fan Fest and big fight. While I am not a huge fan of MMA or the UFC, I have come to appreciate my husband’s excitement and passion for this sport. We had a blast in the 120 degree heat and even got to go to In and Out Burger – which I haven’t had in over 20 years. Well worth the wait! A few days later I drove up to Michigan for nErDcamp and had the most amazing time. I met so many passionate teachers and librarians and have expanded my PLN twofold. It was truly an experience I will never forget. We also went to Oklahoma to see my brother in law graduate from pilot training in the Air Force. It was a whirlwind trip and I found myself fascinated with the military base, ceremonies and everything that came with it.

This summer was all about projects – I did a bunch of cleaning around the house and started getting really organized. My husband and I put all of our things in storage last fall and have been living with my father as full time caregivers. It’s been a blessing that we can be here for him, but it has also made me an organizational freak at times because of the tight space we have in his home. Another highlight this summer is that my mother in law was very gracious and let me have full rein of her garden this summer, and while it was my first gardening experience, we’ve had some successes – jalapeños, cilantro and cherry tomatoes all summer, 6 cucumbers on the way, and this week we will have more onions then we know what to do with. My Roma tomatoes have been very finicky as of late, so I am trying to be patient and just wait for 30+ of them to ripen.

I also (obviously) finally started a blog. I’ve been wanting to do this for about two years, but had no clue where to start or what to do. While I consider myself pretty comfortable with technology, starting a blog was a HUGE undertaking. I have spent countless hours looking at other blogs out there and tinkering with my own. After almost three months I can say this – blogging is fun and I love connecting with others this way. I’ve been able to fuse two of my favorite loves – technology and reading and am excited to see where this blog goes. It’s always a work in progress and I like that. Kind of a good metaphor for life, don’t you think?

The last project of the summer was to tackle our wedding pictures. In June we were given almost 1,000 pictures by our photographer to keep and do whatever we wanted with. Yep, this was the project I was dreading through June and July. When I finally ran out of projects to do, I sucked it up and started our photo album. I knew that I didn’t want to use a traditional photo site for our book, and ended up using Artifact Uprising who use recycled materials and whose projects just have a really cool vibe to them. It took me a total of 10 hours to complete 150 pages of our photos, and it was so fun to go through them again.

I met my husband in the spring of 2009 through a coworker. We then saw each other sporadically, and started dating in the fall of 2010. We are true examples of how opposites attract, but have found a lot of common ground since we started dating. You know you’ve found the one for you when your partner doesn’t mind your book buying, book piles and, “Just one more chapter!”. We got married in March, 3-23-13, to be exact, and I knew from the start, that I really wanted to incorporate my love of books into our wedding decor. Anyone that has ever met me knows that I am an avid reader. It is a part of who I am just as being a daughter and teacher are a part of me, too. So I bought a box of interesting looking books online and hoped everything would come together. We had a very small ceremony at church and a large reception at a warehouse venue. I loved finding these pictures of “my bookish” wedding on the DVDs and I am so glad I decided to go for it and use them at my wedding.

The warehouse and a few of our “bookish” centerpieces.

Two of my favorite pictures of us. Love this handsome guy!

I can’t wait to get our wedding album in the mail. Getting married to your soul mate while surrounded by your loved ones is a very powerful thing. This year my students will only know me as Mrs. Mosher, and truth be told, I still kind of grin anytime someone says it. I’ve been looking forward to sharing my love of books with my classes and helping them tell their stories since school got out in June. It’s going to be a great school year!

Lesley ♥