Marching Forward

Weekend Coffee Share 3-29-19

Good afternoon, Everyone.

It’s a beautiful afternoon with a cool breeze and the sun beating down. I’m sitting down with a cup of coffee. Join me.

This morning, I picked up branches and sticks from my yard. The wind had blown them off the white oaks. I did clear out the front flower bed. The lenten rose’s magenta flower peeked out. The side yard is a mass of perennial bushes and plants. It is covered in a blanket of packed leaves. I also trimmed brittle branches from the hydrangeas and Montauk daisies. As I looked up to stretch my back, I saw that there is so much work to do here.

But I need to pace myself. Inside chores call, and then there’s school work. The weather has warmed above freezing this week, allowing the children to play outdoors during recess—a much needed yet under scheduled activity for all children. Spring also brings annual reviews and assessments for my special needs students. This requires additional homework for me, meetings that require substitutes, plans for substitutes, and contingency plans if a sub is unavailable. Like most of New York State, we are having difficulty finding substitute teachers.

I will be attending the Long Island Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Meet the Agent tomorrow. I have the first page of Daily Bread ready for a review.

The 2019 April A to Z Blogging Challenge starts on Monday. I hope to have at least the first week ready to go by tomorrow night. I was having some trouble formatting the layout of the post pages. I got too distracted and overly critical on the font size, where to place maps and possible text boxes, and so forth. I finally came to realize that I am posting a blog page, not laying out a book page. Now that  I’m settled on how the pages will look, I can expend anxiety on a more critical piece—content.

I did visit Davis Park on Fire Island last Sunday. My cousin, Gloria, and I took a ferry ride across to the barrier beach.It was a bit nippy, but with gloves, hat, and coat, we were sufficiently bundled. We strolled the boardwalk, chatted with homeowners opening their beach houses, and walked the ocean beach. The beach does look decently wide and high. It is still early spring, and one wallop of a nor’easter could sweep most of the shore away. Right now, all looks great. I collected moon shells. They are beautifully intact. Maybe I will decorate these instead of Easter eggs with my granddaughter. Matt and I will be traveling to Hilton Head Island on Good Friday to spend the weekend with my grandkids (and my daughter and son-in-law). I plan to play, bake cookies and cook a homie Easter dinner.

OK, done sitting. Hope Everyone out there is well.

As always, BIG THANK YOUs go out to, Eclectic Alli for managing Weekend Coffee Share.

Have a good week, Everyone. Make it great.

Antoinette Truglio Martin is the author of Hug Everyone You Know: A Year of Community, Courage, and Cancer. The memoir is a wimpy patient’s journey through her first year of breast cancer treatment.

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