This One Isn’t Handwritten

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Dear Slicers,

Thank you for the 31 day writing adventure. I appreciate you for showing up every day and writing with me, taking me into your world, and showing me how I can, we, can still do this. Each year I believe it will get easier.

It doesn’t.

What it does, is bring us together to share a bit of ourselves in this big, often perplexing world. Perhaps it isn’t the world that’s perplexing, but the human behaviors that make it so. The world holds us in it. We can choose to make it spin one way or another.

I began year seven with a handwritten Sunday letter, inspired by The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans. Know what? It feels odd not to write this letter on paper. I suppose the analog life is pulling me back, a little at a time. And that is a good, good, thing.

March did it’s thing and marched right over me this month. Slowing down helped. Writing every day helped. Your stories helped.

Did I read more posts this time as I planned? Nope. Since I’m practicing slowing down, I’ll continue popping in to read posts I missed along with catching up on replying to your comments.

Thank you for your ideas, book recommendations, new knowledge shared, and new connections made. If you’d like to receive a letter in the mail some time as I continue with The Sunday Letter Project, I should be able to see your email address if you comment or reach out. We can exchange addresses via email from there.

Regardless of when we meet again, on Tuesdays, a Sunday, or next March, be well.

Write well. Write often. Write much.

Sincerely,

Alice

P.S. I returned home this evening from my librarian conference with a stack of books. My next book on my TBR pile is The Shippers: A Novel, by Catherine Center. We did a little line dancing yesterday before she signed our books. That sounds like an analog and whimsical spring activity. Line dancing. I’m not good at it, but it was fun!

What are you reading?

Are You There Judy? It’s Me, Ally…

Sunday, March 22, 2026

Hi again. This is the 4th or 5th time I write to you (on my blog). I’ve had people suggest I send these letters (links) to you. Worth a try even though you may be buried in fan mail. I’d absolutely love it if you’d write back.

Thank you for writing books I needed to read when I was a kid. I’ve never forgotten them and I learned about the world in them. Looking back, I also learned about family dynamics. My parents worked long hours out of necessity. I had first born child responsibilities as a tween and teen, you know, be the little adult you’re in charge until we get one type of situation. My grandparents and extended family lived minutes away, so it wasn’t an unhealthy or awful situation, just one of those where we had some responibilities a little earlier than most kids do. Your books helped me be a teen with other teens and I enjoyed living vicariously through your characters.

My daughter and I recently re-watched Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret while she finished some homework. We both enjoyed watching it on the big screen and it was fun having it on again. She’s now older than Margaret’s character so she had a great time psychoanalyzing the family dynamics. She even offered Margaret advice through commentary about her friends and life change.

I’d love to visit your book shop some day. I’ve heard that sometimes you’re working in the shop. you are at the top of my author meet-up bucket list. I’ve been lucky to meet great authors in person, so I know it’s a possibility. If I saw you out in public I’m sure I’d go right back to my twelve year old self in excitement. If I met you in person, I think I’d cry.

Do you still get massive amounts of fan mail? I wanted to write to you years ago, but I wasn’t sure if you’d read my letter. I find myself wondering the same question now. Maybe you’ll get this. Maybe it will remain unsent. Regardless, I appreciate how your books found me.

Sincerely, a long time fan,

Ally

P.S. Is there anything you wish you would have written?

Radio Caller

I’m one of those people who sometimes gets up early and winds up running late. It happened today. This morning, I beat my alarm by fifteen minutes after trying to recapture lost sleep when my daughter loudly pokes around my bathroom stealing more of my makeup wipes. She forgot to take off last night’s makeup. Again.

After getting dressed, I pack a proper lunch rather than flinging random items into my bag. There is time for toasting a slice of cranberry walnut bread without burning it. I slather it with butter. My coffee doesn’t get left on the counter.

Today, I’ll have the computers and lights on before the line forms outside the library doors. I’m in a great mood because I’m not rushing.

On the radio, the host discusses books. Audio, e-books, or physical? I’m stuck at the tail end of a car line waiting to go. She announces the phone number. Should I try to call? It’s hard to get through. Nah…

I call.

Thank you for calling, all lines are… I try again. Nope. One last time and someone, a human, picks up. I give the screener my information and hold on the line. In all of my years of life, this is the first time I’ve made it through. Twelve year old me is flipping out as if my letter made it on Casey Kasem’s long distance dedication.

I have plenty of time as I settle in for my commute. I’m ready. But there’s another caller in front of me. I listen intently so I don’t repeat anything. Next caller. I’m nearing my school as I turn off the highway. 7:25. 20 more minutes before my official start time and I’m almost there. I should leave at this time every day.

The next caller is on. I turn toward my campus. They’re discussing book fairs and scrolling on e-readers and annotating and listening only to fiction audiobooks rather nonfiction because one must take notes. Another caller discusses purchasing only the classics and noticing how the books one reads as a kid often shows up as a career. Yes! I agree with you, but I can’t say anything because it isn’t my turn.

How long do I need to wait? Patience is not my thing. I snag my favorite parking spot. 7:35 and I’m still waiting. I have 10 minutes. This guy keeps going, but I want to rush him off the line because I need to get to work. I debate hanging up. I’m still waiting, you can hold out! I decide to end the call if there is someone else after this one.

Hi, Alice from Texas!

Finally. I almost have a Cindy Brady TV quiz show moment where she freezes when the camera light signals they’re on the air. I share how I avoided chores as a teen because I hate stopping in the middle of a chapter. Thirty seconds of fame. I figure I’m the last caller for the segment since the host commented, thanked me, and my phone gives me the call ended beep.

I gather my bags, loop my badge around my neck, and head toward the building. 7:47. Two minutes late and there’s already a line of kids waiting. All of the waiting to talk about books.

The Last First: New York Public Library

I happened across a great little book by Irene Smit & Astrid Van Der Hulst called Know Yourself: A book of questions. Actually, I’ve purchased copies of their other books, chock full of hygge: paper crafting, letter writing stationery, mini-notebooks, book marks, postcards, sketching ideas, tips for relaxing and self care. My Amazon feed suggested it. I bought it. One night I popped it open, you know, to relax and perhaps learn more about myself. I answered the questions without writing anything down and realized these are fantastic writing prompts.

Since it’s cozy season (anywhere else but in central Texas where we’re still at 90+ temps), I’ve decided to turn down the AC and attempt to create cozy fall vibes.

It starts with Gilmore Girls. Last fall, I started watching the series for the first time. My thoughts on Gilmore Girls can be an entirely separate set of posts I’m saving for later–yeah, had I written more consistently I could’ve knocked ’em out by now…

My sister, Angie, is a die hard fall girlie, Gilmore Girls fan, and has dreamed of visiting New England in October.

“So, what’s the verdict?”-Rory

“I am an autumn.”-Richard

I am a summer. I’ll take the heat. Until it’s almost November when cool weather should be the norm. We chat about making a trip happen. Inspired by Gilmore Girls. My niece, her oldest daughter, joined us. Last week, we finished up our first trip to Connecticut and New York in all of its fall foliage glory.

We arrived on Friday, October 10th. We decided to visit New York on Saturday because we’d soon experience our first nor’easter. A guy named Eddie, who worked on a ticket machine at the train station in Milford, assured us we didn’t need to panic. Cold rain and strong wind. He gave us tips and great conversation while we waited.

The one thing I had to see was NYPL. We walked over and noticed a demonstration. Banned Books Week! I had finished out my work week leading up to this trip teaching all of our eighth graders about intellectual freedom and censorship. I asked for a picture with someone wearing one of my favorite childhood books. We chatted about my work as a librarian.

“Better yet,” she suggested, “would you like to wear it?”

How could I refuse? Bonus points for the last time I went to NYPL for the first time. I also got a library card.

When was the last time you did something for the first time? This question taps my shoulder on days I feel myself falling into the mundane. It also guides me when I-don’t-know-what-to-write-itis strikes.

Conference Prep & Tips

Not parent conferences, but TLA (Texas Library Association) Conference. It’s next week in Dallas and I already downloaded the conference app. I usually do it on the way there.

Our library services department is organized and provides a checklist of everything we need to do before, during, and after the event. This includes the appropriate forms and permissions from admin., budget codes, hotel accommodations, information regarding after hours vendor events, signing up for professional development credit, and copies of forms and suggested items to take (always take an umbrella).

In our TLA emails, there’s a thread regarding ways to prep and make the most of the conference. There are great tips. Pack sandwiches and keep them in the hotel fridge. Pack them for lunch so you don’t have to skip noon sessions. Stuff your bag with portable snacks. Take a large water bottle. Wear good walking shoes. Take a rolling crate or extra suitcase to pack books and swag (many books are gifted by publishers, plus steep discounts the last few hours in the exhibit hall). Dress in layers. Carpool. Take an Uber for a night on the town. Use a slide deck to take notes then share with colleagues.

The ideas keep flowing. I get ready to draft my response, scrolling through to make sure I’m not repeating something. It isn’t there and I begin to draft “Be sure you check the hotel amenities. Pack a swimsuit for the pool and/or hot tub…”

I stop dead in my tracks. Wait…the last few years, my TLA roommate and I have bowed out early from some events and made our way to the hot tub or heated pool. We’re usually accompanied by no one. We’ve encountered the occasional solo lap swimmer or person leaving the hot tub when we get there, but it has usually been quiet. It’s such a great way to relax after a packed schedule and being on our feet standing in long author signing lines, trekking across the exhibit hall, and making it to our sessions.

Grinning, I delete my draft. This one, I’m keeping to myself. We’re not quite ready for a bookish pool party.

Learning To Read

I don’t remember learning how to read. I also don’t remember anyone reading to me at home. My first book. Finishing a book. I know someone read to me though, probably my mom. I had books around me from early on.

I do remember tracing my finger over lower case and upper case glitter letters, one letter per workbook. Aa Apple. The letters on the cover were dusted with red glitter. Each day before we opened it, we traced. Inside the pages we practiced writing each letter, matched letters to pictures and whatever else is blurred in my mind. When we finished the book, we took it home and started the next one. Bb Ball.

I do remember meeting with our teacher in groups. Reading about running and dogs and a kid named Jack. Easy words like tip and tap and hat and bat. Certificates with scented stickers awarded milestones, whatever they may have been.

I do remember listening to Mrs. Jones read Charlotte’s Web in second grade. She cried at the end. What did I read? I don’t recall anything, except for the book I received the last day of school for perfect attendance. The Ghost of Windy Hill. My own book to keep forever and read over summer break. I went home, finished it, and figured out the mystery before the story ended.

I do remember reading Little House on the Prairie (all of them), Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books, Encyclopedia Brown, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, nonfiction books about Amelia Earhart and Annie Oakley. Since then, I’ve been known to be the one who is always reading.

I can’t imaging not knowing how to read. Since I can remember (or not), I’ve read whatever came my way. Cereal boxes, junk mail, JC Penney catalogs, magazines, books, dictionaries, the phone book…

A Quarter

A quarter of a century. How is it that many years already? A quarter of a century of my life spent teaching, mostly. Slightly less than half of my life. Half! Twenty five years of packing up classrooms and now a library. Shoving things in drawers, closets, cabinets, storage closets. The garbage because..can I just go home already?

I pack my car with high hopes. Planning over the summer so it won’t be so much work. I still can’t manage to do it though. Laptop. I’ll need it for my first day back.

A bag-o-books, this fall’s Lone Stars, the best reads for middle schoolers. I packed a stack instead of all thirty and will probably read two. Maybe three since one is more than half finished only because it’s an audiobook and these days listening is easier than reading. I have my own TBR tower at home I’d like to read.

A pink Keurig needs a deep clean (and a break). I dug out a broken down box from the recycling bin to carry it out. Somehow it’s dripping residual coffee from yesterday’s second cup.

The Wonder Woman spiral notebook with a pile of papers jammed in its middle gets stuffed inside the box too. Good thing the cover is plastic and I don’t care if the papers get coffee all over them. I’ll go through each one to figure out what to do with them. Keeping things fresh so I don’t forget-when days start blurring together-about what it was that needed doing but could wait until fall.

These days, years, I bring less home. Twenty five years and I’m still the last one out. You’d think I’d have this moving out thing figured out. Everything that needed doing got done. Another wave of a spiraling timeline makes me dizzy. Some day I’ll pack it up for good. I look over the clean space, uncluttered counters (mostly), tables, desks, and unplugged computers. Desk supplies hibernate in dark drawers along with framed photos.

I turn in my badge and keys. My much younger self winks back at me. Have a good summer, she says. We’ll catch up again soon!

Word Equations

“Taking time to appreciate three beautiful moments in your day instead of one can be extremely meaningful. In my mom’s famous words, let’s make the most of our time here.“
Paris Rosenthal

You know how algebra includes letters with numbers? (I was never good at algebra.) These equations require words. The idea comes from Paris Rosenthal’s book, Project 1. 2. 3. A Daily Creativity Journal for Expressing Yourself in Lists of Three. Write a list of three, prompts are provided, every day. It was a project she continued resulting from her late mother’s work, children’s author Amy Krouse Rosenthal. She posted her list at 1:23 p.m. every day and began the project on 12/3. Her intention was to post for 123 days, but due to her illness, she stopped on day 61.

Like all other things requiring daily discipline to maintain, I faltered and only completed a few pages. Picking up the book for inspiration this afternoon, I took a look at previous entires (I got the book in 2019) and found this one titled Creative Calculations with the following:

__________x__________ = __________

__________+__________ = __________

__________–__________ = __________

My responses on 11/7/19

ideas x solitude = creativity

pen + journal= story

reading – social media = ideas

Today’s responses:

stories + Spotify = podcast

shopping x teen – money = thrifting

(observation + blog) x (community + comments) = SOL

I don’t know if I’ll continue to go through the book every day. I most certainly won’t have my list completed by 1:23 p.m. because I’ll be bogged down with a million other things at that time. I can toss it in my bag. If I get to it, fine, if not, the world moves on. However, I plan to pop in and use it as needed. At the bottom of each page, there’s space to document the date, which my brain likes for keeping track.

Thank you, Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Paris, for brining this project to life, and helping us focus on gratitude and creativity with simple lists of three.

Alice and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I woke up this morning, with a pep in my step. My favorite dress was clean, the one I like to wear with my short brown boots and jean jacket. I added a sparkly strand of beads. I couldn’t tell it was going to be a terrible, no good, very bad day.

It started well. Observation scheduled for noon. Three classes before that, I got to work out the kinks. It went well. Students understood tasks and it was time for lunch. Except it wasn’t.

A student came in, one of my favorites. Lunch had to wait. Can’t leave a student unsupervised. I took a break to check emails and I got a message. Then a phone call. I could tell where it was going from here. It felt like it would become a terrible, no good, very bad day.

A phone call followed. I made arrangements for my last class of the day. Signed out. Drove to the school for an early pick up. Things will get better when we get home. Except they didn’t.

I called to make an appointment. “We take walk-ins, if you leave now we can see you right away.” There’s a plus. We go straight there. Traffic is starting to get heavy, but we’re just ahead of it. Barely.

We arrived and I completed forms. Wait a few minutes until it’s our turn. Get to the room, except something is missing. I call home, there’s something I need. No answer.

Text message.

Call.

Text message.

Call.

“How far do you live from here?”

“About fifteen minutes, but traffic.”

I could tell she’d say no. “Go get it and let them know when you come back, I’ll see you as soon as you return.” It has become a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Back in the car. Traffic is thick. Thirty minutes later, I get what we need and go back to the car. Drive back, trying to stay calm. When will this be over?

We check in again. Call us back. Everything is fine.

Back to the car. Back home. On the way, I get a call, “What do you want for dinner?”

It wasn’t planned to get take-out, but today I’m making an exception. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I sure would like a trip to Australia.

Milk Carton Gardening

Spring brings opportunities for growth and metaphorical lessons blossom this time of the year. As a kid, we drank down milk (chocolate for me) that accompanied our lunches and teachers reminded us to save our empty cartons. We must have forgotten frequently or the teacher stashed away said cartons, but the dreaded day came when it was time for sowing seeds.

I don’t remember much about the lessons, but I remember washing out and drying the cartons, opening the opposite end of the drinking side, and adding soil. Next came the seeds and a sprinkling of water. Lopsided red and white milk cartons lined classroom window sills with the occasional brown and white ones. A few of us didn’t like regular milk.

Sure enough, within days, someone announces the first sprout emerging from the carton-pot. We all gathered around, taking a look at the tiny green specimen boldly pushing its boundaries wondering whose would be next. Sprout they did. First one, and it seemed within minutes, another, another, and another. The race was on with observing leaves and measuring height. The first one to sprout raced to the top, leading the class in all of its spring time glory, a mini-beanstalk, not nearly as big as Jack’s. Would there be a mini-giant running after him?

I read too many books of imaginary little people and giants and magic beans.

Looking in my milk carton, the same soil sat there. Day after day, I willed something to grow. I followed the directions. I added the soil and pushed down the seeds, lightly topping them off with soil. I watered it like we were instructed. I placed it on the window sill with the others. Excited with all of the new shoots, classmates hurriedly crowded around the window sill to see whose plant led the class in height, or number of leaves, or even a second shoot.

Lucky.

There mine sat, a little carton of soil with nothing growing. I don’t remember any teacher giving me advice, allowing me to plant another seed, or encouraging me to pair up with someone else. No lessons on why some seeds germinate and others don’t. I quickly observed my dirt, went back to my seat and drew a little box, covered with brown crayon. My green crayon was much taller, the brown one getting worn down each day. Why couldn’t I use both like everyone else?

The special day arrived when we took them home as gifts. Mother’s Day gifts. This is for my mother? A lopsided repurposed chocolate milk carton full of barren dirt? My mother deserves so much more. Kids proudly walked out of school lugging book bags and lunch boxes, their plants proudly waving goodby to the rest of us as they were escorted home.

We did this for a few years. Each year, whatever I planted either barely sprouted or didn’t bother to grow. Later, I learned to stop at the trash can, making my annual deposit and walking home empty handed while everyone else took plants home. Did they re-pot them when they arrived? How long did they last?

I never knew and I never asked, but I did try my best.

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Teacher me would have started the container gardening lesson with The Empty Pot, by Demi. Of course, I’m older than the book, but no matter. I used it with a class today and reminded everyone that sometimes, not all seeds will sprout. If that’s the case, they can try again. I just want them to do their best.

	Alice on This One Isn’t Hand…
	Alice on This One Isn’t Hand…
	Alice on Not Today
	Alice on Whimsical Spring
	Alice on Blank Canvas, Blank Page