Slice of Life: Who knew? True Confessions of a Twitter Addict 19 of 31

This morning, I popped on Twitter to quickly check tweets as I made my cup of coffee. A notice waited in my mentions:

Twelve years. A lot has happened in those twelve years. My kids have graduated high school and college. One new grandbaby has been born and another arrives any day. I've had three different teaching positions. There's been three different presidents and a pandemic. 

Twelve years is obviously a long time (My Twitter Addiction Beginnings). In the Twitter world, I've had three accounts in that time and made countless connections. In honor of this anniversary, here are 12 ways Twitter has impacted my life:

1. A life-line to professional development
2. Taught me to amplify the voices of others 
3. The way I find out about all the latest picture books (and so much of my reading life) 
4. Pushed me to blogging (because in the beginning days of Twitter you only had 140 characters)
5. Extended my "classroom hallway" out into the world and made so many connections
6. Slice of Life and the TWT community (it's how you got here today!) 
7. Connected to the Poetry Friday community #poetryfriday
8. Started virtual book talking with the #cyberPD community
9. Created a yearly celebration of picture books: Picture Book 10 for 10 (thanks, Mandy Robek) 
10. Disrupted my thinking on privilege and pushed me toward better allyship (#stilllearning)
11. Helped me to grow and nurture my local connections 
12. Amplified educational conferences (Why Twitter Makes Conference Better - also increases FOMO)

Thank you, Twitter. 

It's March and I'm diving back into the March Slice of Life Challenge!  Buckle in!  This will be my 8th year joining the community (though I must confess to a two year break).  Yep, some of the writing will be messy.  Honestly, most of it will be messy.  Thanks for stopping by.  I'm excited to dive back into the madness.  Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for hosting.