It was a fantastic Friday.

The Husband got home yesterday while Middle Sister and I were out clothes shopping. I was kind of looking for something to wear to a funeral on Monday, and didn’t quite find that but got some awesome leggings, a new plaid pea coat, and a lovely oversized charcoal grey sweater – hooray for Old Navy sales – because I made an unexpected windfall yesterday. Yeah, we were sort of late meeting

The Husband’s idea of tidying up his stuff.

The Husband at his truck and helping him haul his stuff home. Actually, all that meant was that I didn’t have to sit around waiting while he shut down his onboard computer, packed up all his junk, and secured the truck. It’s kind of weird standing in a parking lot moving coolers, duffle bags, and dirty clothes from the cab of a tractor trailer and into my van. Strangely, we haven’t even gotten any odd looks, let alone comments, from any passers by.

Unexpected windfall explanation: My friend, neighbor, and co-author (that’s all one person) and I spent the morning at a nearby elementary school leading writing workshops for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I get a kick out of dusting off my old teaching skills, my friend and I get to spend a little time together, and I get to share some interesting stuff with kids.

My workshop yesterday was about blogging – specifically kid blogs. Had to do a little research and prep work, but it was worth it. We started out with a review of internet safety rules – and I discovered that, thankfully, they’d been pretty well drilled on that topic already. Then we moved onto why people create blogs, brainstorming blog ideas and titles, and imagining what their blog pages would look like. Sadly, the internet was down in the building for the first two workshops I led. It was pretty lame just asking them to imagine what a blog looks like or how to get free, credited images off of photopin.com.

But they were all beautifully behaved and real sports about it. I ended each session by giving them each a sample blog template and having them write in a blog name, a title, and the beginning of a post, and then drawing representations of some graphics they might look for to use. In each classroom the kids were very well-behaved (even the ones who obviously had no interest in the subject) and followed directions as best they could. And in each classroom I could identify two or three kids who were totally excited about the idea. I heard several times “I’m going to do this when I get home today!” Very cool.

My friend led workshops on the creative writing process and writing prompts. I wish I could have been in on her sessions, where they re-imagined the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, and got some movement in by acting like a growing beanstalk and various characters in the story.

We each walked away with a nice stipend and a good feeling, having spent time with great kids, lovely teachers, and other interesting presenters. Oh, and laryngitis. Just like I used to get every year on the first few days of school – too much talking!

Following that experience (and grocery shopping/clothes shopping), by 7:00 I was too tired to even knit, for Pete’s sake. I was in bed by 7:30, reading blogs and chatting sleepily with the husband. Partly a function of the DARK BY 5:00 THING and partly having been “on” all morning with 75 kids.

And now on to Saturday…

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