Hi everyone,

If you’re still here, thanks for being a loyal supporter of my blog. I started it in 2011 (as penelopeclearwater.wordpress.com) as a place to post a couple of book reviews so I could get free copies of the books. Over the years, I’ve written about all manner of topics–most recently, focusing on online teaching and learning–but recently (as you may have noticed) my posting frequency has fizzled out, with 2025 having the dubious distinction of being the blog’s least active year ever.

There are good reasons why I haven’t been posting as much–life events have led to a great desire for privacy and less time for writing. Simultaneously, though, I’ve been sensing an invitation to get back into some creative activities I’ve enjoyed in past years, as well as trying some new ones. These have included activities from cross-stitch (an old hobby) to crocheting (a new and challenging one) to making Christmas cards (a new and delightful one) to making origami birds (a fun one-off project I enjoyed on one winter evening). I’m also slowly getting back into writing more than just emails and grading feedback. I’ve been writing a haiku prayer every Wednesday for almost a year now, and just this past month I finished and polished up a short story to enter into a contest. And this leads me back to my blog. I want to start posting regularly again, even if “regularly” at first means just quarterly.

Right now, I’m working on turning a conference presentation I made last much into a post, so you can expect that soon. But for now, I just wanted to say thank you and let you know that I’m still here!

Sincerely,

Tess