Today was the annual CECA conference up in Cromwell. I was generally disappointed -- nothing phenomenal in terms of workshops or presentations, although I did like the keynote speaker (David Warnick?) very much. I mostly went to get the iPod they were giving to attendees. Of course, as usual, it's the newly discontinued model, the 1 gig nano, but I was happy to get it as I didn't have one up until this morning. The last workshop I went to was one on blogging, and I found that very interesting.. So, the beginning and the end of the day were good, and then there was the middle, with starving attendees, not enough food from the hotel staff, and quite possibly the worst coffee I've had since my very first attempt to make coffee by myself without any directions. I've since gotten reasonably decent at it -- these people have a LONG ASS way to go. Unfortunately, there was literally nothing else available until we turned in out lunch ticket stubs for a white paper sack lunch and a bottle of water. Jen and I escaped right after lunch and ran away to Dunkin Donuts for a breather.
Mal and Steve managed the kids just fine today, so there is hope that I will be able to do other things like this every now and again.
Tonight I went to Arcadia Coffee Co/Just Books and met Anita Silvey, who has just published a book called 500 Great Books for Teens. She's got another one that's for younger kids, but this one's right up my alley. She was absolutely delightful, and it was such a treat to be able to discuss the books I really enjoy with a new grownup who sees them in the same light. After we discussed the process she went through for her decisions and criteria for which to include, we talked about her next project, which sounds amazing. She is working on a nonfiction book for the middle grades all about the women who dressed as men and fought in the Civil War. She was telling us about her research, and how she has discovered fascinating stories about so many families. Her initial question upon learning that many hundreds of women fought in the war was "Why did they fight?" and she told us that the question quickly became "Why did they stay?" because so many of them stayed with their units for long periods of time, when they could have easily gone home or at least to somewhat safer territory. She also said that she took trips to battle fields and mapped out where the known women soldiers would have been. Wow...
I can't wait to see what she does with this.
I bought copies of her current book for all 3 middle schools and she autographed them for me, so I'll pass those out on Wed.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Mama Ball Says
Busy as usual. Ran over to CMS today to pick up extra copies of a couple books for our 6th graders to use in research, and hit the jackpot in galleys from Jenny at Just Books. I brought home about 6 or 8 to read, and will send them back over when I'm done.
Looks like some fun stuff in there. I read Knights of the Hill Country by Tim Tharp last night, and I think it will be a hit with our fellas who need good sports books. The voice is pretty authentic -- not what my guys are used to as there is a definite Oklahoma twang to the characters, but I think they will all relate to the issues of friendship, and how far do you go to protect a friend and keep a friend. I know, it's set in OK, so I have a soft spot for that, and the guy who wrote it still lives there (more power to you, honey). But I liked the imagery, and there were several places where the figurative language stopped me and made me re-read just for the pleasure of a well-crafted phrase. I think that's a little unusual in a sports book. Mike Lupica does it well, and I thought John Coy's Crackback was good with that also, but I haven't really seen anything else in that category.
I have lots of reading ahead of me ... I'm actually considering going to see Our Fearless Leader and telling him I want a full day comped to me just so I can sit and read. He owes me a grand total of 48 hours from the summer that he said he could pay me for, and then he couldn't, so he said I could comp out time like that. If he lets me I may do that a couple times this year just to go read and catch up. I definitely have to do that on the Thursdays after Elizabeth has cleaned my house, though -- I can concentrate more and relax if the house is clean. She is an absolute godsend. It makes such a difference in my stress to know that I'm coming home to a house with clean floors and clean bathrooms.
Set up the staff development day today, and hopefully it will go well and everyone will find enough to do. I've got Eeyore and me doing a workshop on new online resources, so that will be good. For once, that's the only one we are doing.
The March Hare has started occasionally finding herself in the Hundred Acre Wood, mostly with Eeyore, and occasionally with Owl (who morphs into Tigger and then back into Owl), and Kanga. Every kid in the school qualifies as her Roo! Christopher Robin shows up also every now and again, but the March Hare has yet to spot a Pooh or a Heffalump (unless Our Fearless Leader counts as the Heffalump ... maybe if Heffalumps have Groucho Marx combovers).
Looks like some fun stuff in there. I read Knights of the Hill Country by Tim Tharp last night, and I think it will be a hit with our fellas who need good sports books. The voice is pretty authentic -- not what my guys are used to as there is a definite Oklahoma twang to the characters, but I think they will all relate to the issues of friendship, and how far do you go to protect a friend and keep a friend. I know, it's set in OK, so I have a soft spot for that, and the guy who wrote it still lives there (more power to you, honey). But I liked the imagery, and there were several places where the figurative language stopped me and made me re-read just for the pleasure of a well-crafted phrase. I think that's a little unusual in a sports book. Mike Lupica does it well, and I thought John Coy's Crackback was good with that also, but I haven't really seen anything else in that category.
I have lots of reading ahead of me ... I'm actually considering going to see Our Fearless Leader and telling him I want a full day comped to me just so I can sit and read. He owes me a grand total of 48 hours from the summer that he said he could pay me for, and then he couldn't, so he said I could comp out time like that. If he lets me I may do that a couple times this year just to go read and catch up. I definitely have to do that on the Thursdays after Elizabeth has cleaned my house, though -- I can concentrate more and relax if the house is clean. She is an absolute godsend. It makes such a difference in my stress to know that I'm coming home to a house with clean floors and clean bathrooms.
Set up the staff development day today, and hopefully it will go well and everyone will find enough to do. I've got Eeyore and me doing a workshop on new online resources, so that will be good. For once, that's the only one we are doing.
The March Hare has started occasionally finding herself in the Hundred Acre Wood, mostly with Eeyore, and occasionally with Owl (who morphs into Tigger and then back into Owl), and Kanga. Every kid in the school qualifies as her Roo! Christopher Robin shows up also every now and again, but the March Hare has yet to spot a Pooh or a Heffalump (unless Our Fearless Leader counts as the Heffalump ... maybe if Heffalumps have Groucho Marx combovers).
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Mama Ball Says
The trip Jake and I took to Washington DC last weekend for the National Book Festival was fantastic! He was wonderful -- walked everywhere with me, did a LOT more than I thought we'd be able to do, and was generally a great traveling companion. He was excited to be able to stay overnight in a hotel (we stayed at the Capitol Hyatt, which has a great rate for Sat night and was only 3 blocks from the mall). He was so happy to have me all to himself, and also to be able to do whatever we wanted - whenever we wanted! We haven't been anywhere without an agenda or anyone else to worry about in ages, and theat was really good for him.
The National Book Festival was amazing. There were plenty of authors for every age group and genre, and lots of free activities and presentations as well. We came home with a boatload of free posters -- the artwork was wonderful. I definitely want to do that again next year. I told Jake we would definitely go down again, hopefully soon so we can take advantage of the great fall weather, and next time we'll work it out so we can stay with Paul and Kelly and go in with Kelly and Cate.
Yesterday we interred L's ashes at the cemetery. The kids were reasonably well-behaved through most of the ceremony with Father Fred, but they lost it at the end and started running around. Mal didn't take that too well. He was trying so hard to hold it together. We went back to the house and had everyone for lunch ... I guess about 25-30 people. J and I went through the costume jewelry and decided just to move it all into the corner of the closet we are making the "dressup" closet for the kids. I guess at some point we will go through the good jewelry with Mal. I don't know that I want to have any of it for myself, but I would like to pick out some pieces for Charlotte and Sadie to have as graduation/wedding gifts, and maybe some for the boys for when they get married (for our future daughter-in-laws). Still have to finish all the thank you notes. I think I have about 10 or 12 left to do.
Work is going well. It's amazing to me how I'm working harder than I ever did last year, but I'm happier. I think it's because I don't have to worry about getting hit from behind with manic behavior or wonder what's going on that I don't know about (and will have to drop everything and jump in to fix at the last minute). There are issues at work, but they are manageable. Eeyore is still not doing much, but she did get a few things done this week to prepare for the eztraxx nonsense we have coming up early next week. She sent the book order -- didn't really look at it, but she sent it. I started weeding the fiction, and told her to look over what I'd pulled -- and told Kanga to give her four days to look it over and then delete anything left on the cart on Friday. That got done, but I'm not sure she actually looked at anything. I've been doing all the website updates too. That doesn't take much time, but it's something we have to discuss as doing double duty on this isn't going to work out easily. The Boss is supposed to come in from downtown sometime soon to divvy responsibilities. That should be interesting.
Haven't had much time to read lately, but I'm working on Meg Rosoff's new one, Just in Case.
The National Book Festival was amazing. There were plenty of authors for every age group and genre, and lots of free activities and presentations as well. We came home with a boatload of free posters -- the artwork was wonderful. I definitely want to do that again next year. I told Jake we would definitely go down again, hopefully soon so we can take advantage of the great fall weather, and next time we'll work it out so we can stay with Paul and Kelly and go in with Kelly and Cate.
Yesterday we interred L's ashes at the cemetery. The kids were reasonably well-behaved through most of the ceremony with Father Fred, but they lost it at the end and started running around. Mal didn't take that too well. He was trying so hard to hold it together. We went back to the house and had everyone for lunch ... I guess about 25-30 people. J and I went through the costume jewelry and decided just to move it all into the corner of the closet we are making the "dressup" closet for the kids. I guess at some point we will go through the good jewelry with Mal. I don't know that I want to have any of it for myself, but I would like to pick out some pieces for Charlotte and Sadie to have as graduation/wedding gifts, and maybe some for the boys for when they get married (for our future daughter-in-laws). Still have to finish all the thank you notes. I think I have about 10 or 12 left to do.
Work is going well. It's amazing to me how I'm working harder than I ever did last year, but I'm happier. I think it's because I don't have to worry about getting hit from behind with manic behavior or wonder what's going on that I don't know about (and will have to drop everything and jump in to fix at the last minute). There are issues at work, but they are manageable. Eeyore is still not doing much, but she did get a few things done this week to prepare for the eztraxx nonsense we have coming up early next week. She sent the book order -- didn't really look at it, but she sent it. I started weeding the fiction, and told her to look over what I'd pulled -- and told Kanga to give her four days to look it over and then delete anything left on the cart on Friday. That got done, but I'm not sure she actually looked at anything. I've been doing all the website updates too. That doesn't take much time, but it's something we have to discuss as doing double duty on this isn't going to work out easily. The Boss is supposed to come in from downtown sometime soon to divvy responsibilities. That should be interesting.
Haven't had much time to read lately, but I'm working on Meg Rosoff's new one, Just in Case.
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