Why am I here and what am I doing?!

I'm a perfectionist.  Everyone and anyone that knows me just a little will confirm this.  The fact that my "blog" has been left vacant for the past three months has weighed on my mind heavily.  It felt so....unfinished.  So unlike me.

But I had no idea what to "blog" about.  I've always been one of the younger teachers in my district and was always up on these technological advances.  I rolled my eyes and smirked at my father who couldn't figure out how to send me pictures of the 2 choices of flipflop nightlights (which I had been in hot pursuit of for over a year - I have a nightlight obsession of sorts!) that he and my mom had finally found on the Ocean City boardwalk.  Frustrated, they ended up buying me both much to my decorating enjoyment.  And my mother?  She was by far one of the worst "students" I had ever taught.  She lived through the age of typewriters and is an avid and accurate typist.  But hand-eye coordination when it came time to move the computer mouse AND look at the computer screen at the same time?  Not so much.  In fact, not at all.  So when I had to muster up my pride and walk across the elementary school hall to my younger colleague and ask her, "Umm...what's a blog and what am I supposed to blog about?"  I realized that somehow I too had lost touch with the ever-changing technological world.  I was "one of those people." 

Why am I here and what am I doing?  Well, I have begun yet another quest.  My ultimate goal is to become a published children's author.  I have written what I believe is a stellar manuscript that I envisioned in elementary classrooms nationwide as one of the first mentor texts teachers used to launch the ever-popular Writer's Workshop come September.  But rejection letter after rejection letter has been sent back to me and I knew I needed help, guidance and some sort of direction.  Cue the Institute of Children's Literature. 

It was a whim, I knew, sending back the application with the cute little puppy on the front envelope and samples of my writing inside.   But soon I was accepted, enrolled and paired with an amazing mentor (who ended up being a former colleague of one of my colleagues in the Reading Department at Burlington County College.  Small world, no?)  One of the first things Ms. Heiss wrote to me was, "You need to spread your wings and get your name out there.  Start a blog."  A what?  Why?  How?  Where?  Who?

And so after the initial set-up (thanks, Chrissy!) my blog sat empty...until now.