Mama Ball Says

November 20
Where has this fall gone? I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. On a good note, cooking Thursday will be minimal as we are headed to Stamford to the Lombardo house. We've donated through CMS and CDS to the local food bank, the kids have been coming home with mutant construction paper turkeys, and it FINALLY got cold here. The cats are eating like we never feed them and they are getting ahem...fluffier. Daisy's going to have to watch it or we're going to tattoo "WIDE LOAD" on her ass. The last time she got really fat, she couldn't get through the cat door to the basement, which is kind of a necessity as the litterbox is down there.
Jake and I just finished building a monster Thomas track all over the toy room floor: one giant hill, four bridges, two waterfalls and about eight intersecting loops. This will last until Godzilla gets up from her nap and goes on a rampage.
Saw the new Harry Potter flick on Friday, and LOVED it! There were things I wish they had included from the book, but if they had added everything I wanted to see, the movie would have been longer than "Gone With the Wind". The Media/CMS girls all went together to the theater in Greenwich. I have decided that I'm going to stick to the theater in Port Chester -- it is soooooo much nicer. They have stadium seating, better movie munchies, more parking that's free, and a cleaner place in general. Steve doesn't know it yet but I'm going to make him go see "Walk the Line" with me (revenge for "Jarhead").
Good reads lately: am in the middle of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, recommended by one of my 8th grade boys. Good stuff -- what a twist on the original tale! Very creepy.
Am almost ready to unveil the project I've been working on with Justine Domuracki's 8th graders: a website of their book reviews. So far, most of them are pretty good -- a couple outstanding, and the garbage ones didn't make it to the posting. I did get some of those kids back in to work with me on them, and most of those made the cut once they figured out what was wrong with what they had originally.
Have to get Isabel's 7th graders to come put their genetics projects in the media center display cases. Izzy had them take dominant and submissive genetic traits and create stuffed animal "children" from different stuffed animal "parents". Great idea, and they were very creative about it!
Tellebration went well, and the entire 6th grade took the day to tell their tales in small groups, in front of parents and staff. I think this is still officially the largest tellebration event for this age group, even though EMS is doing it with 7th grade. I don't know if they actually schedule it for the official Tellebration Day.