12 Years! A Thanku and Another #HaikuFromTwo

Happy Poetry Friday! This post includes a Thanku and a #HaikuFromTwo.

As Esther shared in her post kicking off our current series, this month we're celebrating our TWELFTH Blogiversary! I can hardly believe it's been that long. This blogging journey has been filled with wonderful surprises and blessings. One of those surprises was the TeachingAuthors' virtual meeting Esther shared a photo of in her post. I thought that meeting was to learn some great new Zoom teaching tips from the amazing April Halprin Wayland. Instead, it was a party to celebrate our blog and my efforts to keep it running all these years. My fellow TeachingAuthors showered me with thanks that day. But I am just as grateful for all of them and what they've contributed to this blog over these dozen years. And I'm grateful to you, our readers, for traveling along with us. 

Esther didn't mention in her post the lovely gift my fellow TeachingAuthors sent me that day, as if the surprise meeting wasn't enough:

I smile every time I see these lovely plants (which are still blooming).   

This month, each of us are sharing a favorite post written by one of our fellow TeachingAuthors. My heart is so filled with gratitude for our blogiversary milestone that if felt appropriate to remind you all of Esther's terrific post introducing us to the Thanku: a haiku expressing gratitude. Esther inspired us to feature thankus often over these twelve years. You'll find many of those posts here. I'd like to add one more to that collection:

For my fellow TeachingAuthors and All Our Readers:
       My heart overflows
       like a basket of flowers,
       still growing. Thank you.
©2021 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

Speaking of haiku, this week I wrote another #HaikuFromTwo. I shared last month about Amanda Davis's #HaikuFromTwo challenge: you randomly pick two words from a book you're reading and create a haiku using them. After Beverly Cleary's recent death, I thought it would be fitting to read one of her books. Unlike most writers I know, I never read any of Cleary's work until I was an adult, and that book was Ramona Quimby, Age 8. A few weeks ago, I finally read the first Ramona book: Beezus and Ramona.  Today's #HaikuFromTwo includes two random words from that book: drawing (page 45) and pretend (page 159):

Be sure to check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup by Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core.

Happy writing!
Carmela

PS: Congratulations to Linda M, winner of our giveaway of JoAnn Early Macken's new book, Grow!