Celebrate This Week

                              Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  
                                          When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy. 

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

I'm late to the celebration, but that's because I was busy celebrating Christmas with my church family.  Our ladies' group was in charge of the party.  The above pic was taken on Friday evening as we finished set-up for Saturday's party.  We based our celebration on a Polar Express theme, enjoyed dinner together, journeyed to the North Pole, and encouraged the little ones to ring their bells for Santa's arrival.  We closed the evening with a few songs and Silent Night as a lovely reminder to believe in the "Son of God, love's pure light" whose "redeeming grace" is a reminder of His love for each of us.  I'm especially thankful for all who contributed to making this a lovely evening for our church family.  I hope you'll enjoy these pics from the celebration.  The only one I took was of Miss Imi, but her mom shared some with me.  

Ticket taker collects Polar Express tickets

(that's Imi's big sis, Lenna).  

Note the train tracks leading into the dining car.  

After dinner, guests enjoyed desserts and the hot chocolate bar. 

If you look closely, you'll see Santa entering our

dining car after our arrival at the North Pole.  

And this is my buddy, Imi, and 
her beautiful mommy, Mallory!

Slice of Life: Rainy Ruminations

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.
Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Evidence that it's raining more than usual in Seattle:

Every student who arrived at the high school where I was substituting on Monday was drenched.  It's a satellite campus and most of them walk from about two blocks away.  When I left school on Monday afternoon, it rained inside my car for the next twenty minutes.  I had parked my car on a slope and for some reason the rain pooled on the roof and dripped on me (inside the car) while I ran my errands.   I'm convinced that it was because of the slope where I parked.  I've never had this problem before, and there was no repeat performance today even though I was out in the rain for four hours.  

My biggest concern when I left Costco this afternoon was for the 10 lb. sack of sugar I had just purchased.  Everything else could withstand the pounding rain.  The sack of sugar was too big to stash in my jacket.  The lady at the door helped me solve the problem by putting it under the clamshell apple container.  Thank goodness for her quick thinking.  As I paused  just outside the store to zip up and pull on my hood, I watched as the playful wind whisked several umbrellas inside out.  

More rain than usual, the darkest December day in nine years on Monday, an atmospheric river over Western Washington, and today we added wind gusts to our winter brew.  Some would say to be grateful that the temps were warm enough so we didn't have snow.  But I think snow is more fun than rain, especially in Seattle where snow brings everything to a standstill.  

Thank goodness for that tiny bit of dry weather Sunday afternoon when I managed to put the white lights on the deck.  They comfort my wet, bedraggled soul on these short, gloomy days.  Just checked the fifteen day forecast and there's only one day with a bit of sun peeking through the clouds.  I'm hanging on to my belief that extended weather forecasts are unreliable.  That's my hope, and I'm clinging to it!

Celebrate This Week

                              Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  
                                          When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy. 

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

In a week filled with lists, sadness,
commitments, and challenges, I celebrate:

My

despicable

cold is almost gone.

 This calendar quote that

arrived when I most needed it: 

"Comparison is the thief of joy."  

My tree's not up, but thanks to the
help of Sara and Shelly - mantels, tables, 
and bookshelves are decorated and bedecked.

This  note from one member of Books Brownies
and Beyond, our after school book club, currently
reading Newbery possibilities:  "I just started reading
Echo yesterday, but finished it today, and I was wondering
if it was one of the candidates for the winning book, because
I want to change my vote to Echo from The War That Saved
My Life.  It is very emotional, and really enjoyable.  I love how
it all connects at the end.  Thank you, and see you next week." 

 The Dickens' Carolers (a gift from Friends of the Library to our community)

making my last hour of a four hour shift at the book sale a high point of the week.

 Have

a wonderful

weekend, friends! 

The tree is supposed to be all green, but blogger and I are not getting along this am!  Maybe I shouldn't blame it on blogger since we're experiencing internet issues.  I make it all green, but it refuses to save that way.  Gotta love technology!

Slice of Life: Newspaper Nuggets

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.
Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives

I love newspapers, and I thought when I retired, that I'd get the newspaper read every day.  It's still a "some of the time" occurrence, but since I've been sick for the past week, I've had more time to read the paper.  Here are some of my finds from the past week and why I can't give up the newspaper!

1.  Your Guide to Turkey Day TV - highlights for holiday specials from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Tonight is Rudolph on CBS and tomorrow night NBC has Christmas in Rockefeller Center.  Thanks to Tivo, I can tape some of these for viewing while I decorate the tree.  Yep, it's December 1st, and my tree isn't up yet!

2.  The Great Gift of Reading by Frank Bruni, a piece about Reading Is Fundamental (RIF).  Include this quote from Frank in your next note to parents:  "Kids who read more get better at reading, and because they are better at reading, it's easier and more pleasurable so they read still more...Reading tugs them outside of themselves, connecting them to a wider wold and filling it with wonder.  It's more than fundamental.  It's transformative."

3.  The Most Colorful Time of the Year - Meghan Cox Gurdon's guide to books of the season.  Can't wait to pick up Oskar and the Eight Blessings from the library when it arrives on my holds shelf.

4.  A recipe for Muffin Tin Quiches 

5.  Portland Style, a guide to shopping in Portland (OR).  Sara and I are headed there for a mother daughter getaway later this month

6.  Looking for ground cover?  Try paving stones by Ciscoe Morris - I'm never sure why I read these (not a gardener, but my daddy was).  But in this article I discovered this tidbit:  "...the only maintenance required to keep the surface looking great is an occasional vinegar spray to prevent weeds from coming up in the cracks between the stones."  Now I need to email Ciscoe about the proper ratio of water to vinegar.  

7.  The New York Times Magazine - I'm still sad every week when I turn to the final page and my favorite part of the magazine (the essay) is gone.  Even when I didn't have time to read the magazine, I would tear out this page for later reading.  Because that is the kind of writing I want to do when I grow up (and they took it away).  However, I still read the magazine.   I love the poems selected by Natasha Trethewey, especially this week's Ted Kooser poem, "Sleep Apnea."  This week's On Clothing pays homage to the winter hat - "...is it possible to find a way to wear one that isn't ridiculous?"  And the Letter of Recommendation, "Kitchen Timer" commends the timer as a tool of time management.  Life can be measured into pomodoros (25 minute chunks)!

And now I ask, are those the kinds of things I could have found online?  Perhaps, but probably not.  That's why I still pick up the newsPAPER to be delighted by the odd find, to be sustained in my ongoing search to master my time, to read a poem, peruse a book review, or find a recipe.  And now I must close this post for I still have The Book Review, Sunday Review, and the Travel section from Sunday's paper calling to me from my unread newspaper stack!

Celebrate This Week!

                             Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  
                                          When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy. 

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

I've had a despicable cold this week, but in spite of that minor annoyance
to my days and nights, there's been much to celebrate:

1.  Family members

Sara and Will, my daughter and son-in-law had already planned to cook a large part of the feast anyway, but they stepped in to take over some of my contributions also.  Sara sent me to bed on Thanksgiving Eve (talk about role reversals) and helped me with several obligations when they dropped by yesterday to watch a football game.
Lance has been patient with my need for naps and
has continued to help out in the kitchen.  

2.  Friends who joined our celebration

Courtney, Staten, Laura, and Mark helped fill our table. 

Staten took this pic.  You know I'm sick if I'm not taking pictures.  

3. The opportunity to speak about gratitude last Sunday with two other lovely women

As I prepped for my talk, I kept coming back to a scripture that's been especially meaningful in my life with different layers of meaning at different times of my life.  

I explained touchstone mentor texts in my talk and coined (or borrowed) the term "touchstone scriptures" to reference the scriptures that resonate and continue to be meaningful throughout our lives.  It may not be original with me, but I love the idea of touchstone scriptures.

4.  Gratitude 

One of the speakers asked us to think of three things (just three?) we were grateful for. The first three that popped into my head were my Savior Jesus Christ, family, and friends.  As I've continued thinking about her question throughout the week, I would have to add two more - the beautiful world we live in and books!  

5.  The picture I didn't get to take
I was in Costco when I spotted two young girls (probably about 3rd grade) filling up most of the shopping cart.  They were reading (each with a copy of the same book), and it made me smile.  When their mother crossed in front of me a bit later, I asked permission to take a picture.  She politely declined my request.
So it's an image I carry in my heart!
Wondering what they were devouring while their mother shopped?  
Diary of a Wimpy Kid:  Old School!

6.  Sunshine
While it's been colder than usual, we've enjoyed multiple days of sunshine.  Here's a shot of the sun peeking through the trees that I caught one morning this week.

Poetry Friday: One Today

Head over to Carol's Corner

for this week's roundup of poetry love.

Thanks for hosting, Carol!

I haven't posted much to Poetry Friday recently, but I love stopping by and becoming familiar with new poets and poems through your posts.  I just had to stop by today and mention a new favorite book of poetry, One Today by Richard Blanco.  It's the poem he delivered on the National Mall for Barack Obama's inauguration for second term as president of the United States.  The book is illustrated by Dave Pilkey.  I shared it last week when I substituted in 8th grade Social Studies classes.  It was fun to see how many students in each class recognized the illustrator's name, Dav Pilkey (illustrator of the Captain Underpants series).

I'll borrow these words from the front flap to describe this delightful new book, "...a lush and lyrical, patriotic commemoration of America from dawn to dusk and from coast to coast."  It was my second day with these 8th grade students, some of whom I had taught as sixth graders.  In every class, the students were stirred to applaud at the end of the poem.  I love every single page, but two in particular are favorites.

The two page spread of cars, trucks, and people wending their way home through a plum dusk with these words:
"We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk,
but always - home,
always under one sky, our sky."  

And the final two pages offering these words of optimism against a blue night sky filled with stars:
"Hope - a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it-
together."

If you haven't seen this book yet, head to your favorite indie book store tomorrow (it's small business Saturday) and purchase two copies, one for yourself and one to give away!

Slice of Life: Online Chat with Thanhha Lai

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.
Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

They came from the 100 wing, they came from the 200 wing, they came from the math wing, they came from points all around our campus.  It wasn't our usual meeting time, but with an advance email to teachers and notes delivered to classrooms by office TAs, Book, Brownies and Beyond members assembled in the library at 10 am for a special treat.  (No, it wasn't for Mrs. B's cookie bars.)  We joined a virtual chat with Thanhha Lai, the author of Listen, Slowly, one of our recent reads for You Choose the Next Newbery sponsored by King County Library System (KCLS).  

Books, Brownies, and Beyond club members ready for chat with Thanhha Lai

Our moderator's questions came from students.  The author was unaware that her book, Listen, Slowly, had been selected by KCLS children's librarians as one of five titles for students to read as Newbery possibilities.  She explained that she was writing and on deadline, and only talks to two people:  her husband and her daughter.  We felt lucky that she took the time to talk to us about her books and her writing process.  We were immediately drawn into this conversation.  Katie commented on one of the first things she noticed as the interview began, "I thought it was interesting actually seeing the author, naturally, not with fancy clothes or anything, just at home in her writing state."  and Elsa concurred, "I thought it was really cool that she seemed so human, kind of laid-back and relaxed..."

We enjoyed learning about the author's daily routine for writing which includes putting her daughter on the bus for school and then jogging for about two hours.  Everyone agreed with Rio, "Jogging for two hours is amazing."  That time outside is important to her.  As a child in Vietnam she wanted to be a naturalist when she grew up.  When she gets home around ten, she eats a huge amount of food, and is then ready to begin writing in her favorite writing uniform, pajama pants.  She always writes until three, but on a good day she writes until six.  The hardest kind of writing is working on brand new sentences. Whether she's writing those brand new sentences or revising (sometimes up to sixteen hours a day), she shared when you're an author, it's necessary to sit still a lot.  It is a solitary occupation, one that is done alone.  She's currently working on her third novel, Butterfly Yellow, which is aimed at an older audience than her previous two books.

While characters in her books are often based on someone she knows, she embellishes them and even combines traits from different people to create the characters who people her books.  The character of Mai was influenced by conversations with her niece who visited Vietnam for the first time as a 12 year old.  The mom in Listen, Slowly is based on her own mother.  All of the stories in your life add up to a voice inside you.  She commented that if I weren't a refugee, I wouldn't be a writer.  Norah whose grandmother is Vietnamese felt a connection to the author, "It was interesting to see how her life story of moving to America was like my grandmother's experience."

When asked about the cover of the book (one of our favorites of the books we're currently reading), the author responded that the covers for this book and Inside Out and Back Again were designed by the same person, an illustrator in western Europe and selected by her publisher.  When asked about the decision to write in poetry or prose, she commented that it depends on whose head she's inside of.  If it's a Vietnamese character, then it has to be poetry because her language is such a poetic language.  We agreed with Chris, "What really surprised me was how long it took to write a book," when we learned that it took her fifteen years to write her first book.  

As we arrived at the most powerful part of the chat, Maggie commented, "I really liked the advice she gave to young authors because I write a lot and it was cool to hear an actual author's perspective."  Her advice to young authors includes:

1.  Read a million books.  They can be fiction or nonfiction.

2.  Begin to recognize the styles and genres you like.

3.  Develop your sense of self based on what you like.  

4.  Eventually you'll find the one book that you would give your fingers for.  

5.  Look at how it's put together.  Tear it apart.  Copy sentences from it.  Shred it. 

6.  This is your spark. It will let you put together a book that is yours.  It will have echoes of the book that informed you, but it will be yours.

After our short time spent together, Charlie summed up the chat with this response:  "That was really cool.  It was amazing to hear from an actual writer about how she writes and about her process.  Her advice was good as well.  I will definitely try it out.  And yes, I would give my fingers to have written The Lord of the Rings."  

Here's the link to the entire video chat archived by KCLS:  https://youtu.be/7GrRKH9P3FI