Celebrate

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on weekends where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.
 
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”  Melodie Beattie

I had some moments of chaos this week, but had many more moments filled with gratitude. This week was the Wisconsin Book Festival. That meant that on Tuesday, I was able to meet Yuyi Morales and hear her story. Here are some videos that share bits and pieces of her story. I will write more about what she talked about another time, but her presentation was fantastic.

Would you believe these cost less than $150?

The Wisconsin Book Festival being in progress also means that on the weekend, I was able to drive over and take part in the festivities again. First, I went to the CCBC's Friends book sale and bought a lot of books. 

Then, I went to the library to hear Kevin Henkes speak - which was wonderful. He talked about his writing journey and then shared his new book Waiting.

Later, I was also able to meet Crystal Chan, author of Bird, and go to her excellent session. She had me wanting to write again.

It is truly inspiring to hear from authors and illustrators. I get to share about them with my students and I also appreciate their work more once I know a little about them and the process that they went through to create and share their stories.

I spent a little over ten hours on the road to be able to spend time with three authors this week and it was absolutely worth the effort.