Popular Fiction

Okay, I am reading The Hunger Games. I wasn't interested when I first heard about the series. I love book series but have read some depressing stuff in the past that sounded like the way this series was going to be. It is not high literature but so far it's entertaining. I will probably read the others, too.

I shouldn't turn my nose up at these stories. The books I have been reading on my nook are really fluff. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for mindless reading for pleasure. I have two other books in progress-Bringing Up Bebe and God Is Not One. Both too serious for me right now.

So I'm going back to the dystopian future when I post this.

On the sewing front I finished two little baby quilts with Eric Carle prints and green minky dots on the back. I hope to get the borders on my summer block party quilt. Then I will have 7 tops to finish. Oh, my.

The Borrowers: a book and movie experience

My fourth and fifth grade group recently read The Borrowers by Mary Norton. The book was published in the early '50s. It tells the story of a family of little people, Borrowers, who live under the floor of an old house. We read one or two chapters a day. As I read the kids read along silently in their copies. I try to model fluent reading and use different voices to indicate the various characters. We write a simple summary after each reading, sticking with 5 W's or less.

After we finished the book we made two circle graphs about two of the main characters. I modeled the first one and got them started on the second one. All of the students took the AR test on the book. First they took the test orally as a group. Then they took a practice test in pairs. Delfina really did well on the test and offered to help everyone take the practice test. Even the two beginners did well on the test. One boy did not listen to the instructions to wait and take the practice test. He took the test in his language arts class and did not make a very good score.

To extend the story I asked the students to write about which main character they would like to have as a friend. They could use the circle graphs to find supporting details. The fourth graders were just days away from taking the state writing test. Most of them copied sentences from the graphs in no particular order but they did write more than usual.

Now the movie part of the experience. I had a recent movie version of the book but it was not at all similar to the book. I found an old BBC version available on amazon.com and ordered it. It turned out to be a great three hour movie of the first two books in the Borrower series. We watched the first half the movie and then had to stop to take 9 weeks tests. Finally we finished watching the movie. The kids really enjoyed it. One of the fifth grade girls checked out The Borrowers Afloat from the school library. I love it when they want to read more.

Redbuds are blooming again

I know I've written about redbuds before but just this morning I noticed that they were blooming again. Most of the woods were still bare and brown, yet here and there were soft smudges of fushia. By this afternoon the spring blooming trees were covered with flowers everywhere I went.
The white flowered pear trees were the showiest. But I still love the redbuds the most.
I'm reading two books that are quite good. The mystery is cute and pretty much like watching TV. I have a hard time putting it down. The other book is an easy read but has so much that I want to remember and so I read it in bits. I bought it for Emily. It is an interesting true story called Bringing Up Bebe. I like reading it and looking at our culture through another culture's lens.
Well, that's all I've got for now.

What Happened to January?

Here it is February. I didn't write anything in January. It was a busy month and I didn't feel like reflecting or reading anything very serious. I started reading a mystery series I really enjoy. Laura Lippman set her stories in Baltimore. I like her detective Tess.

Taking a week off to work on dad's service, I contemplated retirement. I know I would keep busy with sewing and reading. But I'm not ready.

Martha Kelly decided to retire at the end of this year. It will be hard to find another sweet, soft spoken, hard-working librarian like her. Most people think librarian is an easy job. As much as I love reading, I know I wouldn't like the record keeping side of the job.

Maybe I can work on the baby quilt this weekend. I really want it to look good. I love making the pieced tops but the quilting part is overwhelming. I have finished some quilts and they turned out okay. I just love doing quick little quilts. I've got to stop buying fabric and get some of these projects finished. (Stern talk to myself-let's see if it works.)

All the stories I meant to write

Write down some of your stories. Make a scrap book so we can know who all these people are. Here is a box to organize your things. I had lots of good ideas for saving the stories my dad told. I wish I had recorded them. Maybe I can remember them and record them myself. It won't be the same but the stories would be saved.

Dad started forgetting things that happened recently and mixed up things that did happen with things he worried would happen. But I could get him to remember stories from his childhood. Some were funny, like the one about the relative who brought a plucked chicken for my grandmother to cook for him because he was feuding with his regular cook.

Some stories made me see why dad was constantly working on something outside. He started working at the age of four picking cotton for his grandfather. His sly old grandfather would pay little Dennis in the candy section of his country store. Knowing dad's sweet tooth, I am sure dad wound up being paid in candy.

Dad loved talking to people and that served him very well in his work life. He didn't really understand my standoffish ways. He was smart with numbers and liked to travel. He was good at fixing mechanical things.

On the other hand he was accident prone. Maybe because he was often in a hurry to get things done. One Christmas memory was when dad was going to help Emily get her doll out of the packaging. He took out his handy, always present, pocket knife and proceeded to cut the plastic strip and a large gash in his hand. That resulted in dad and Martin spending hours in the hospital emergency room on Christmas day.

I wish I had written down or recorded his memories. I am sad he is gone but in some ways he has been gone for months. We didn't want him to linger on and suffer. As much as I hate to say good bye, it was time let my sweet daddy go home.

Missing the Music and Musicians of One Voice

Driving home the other day I heard an interview with members of a pop band who were retiring after 31 years of musical performances. As they talked about what they would miss about their musical life together, I started thinking about what I've been missing since the final One Voice concert two years ago. At first I hoped we would get back together but after so much time has passed, I doubt we will sing together again until we sing together in heaven.

I have so many great memories of the times spent with this group of singers. In the beginning I would bring Emily and Joey with me to practice. They were too young to stay home alone.

The first mission trip the group took was to Hawaii. We participated in Musicians on Mission. The whole group didn't get to go and one person was a new recruit who had never sung with us before. A couple of things have stayed with me from that trip. At one concert we traveled a long way through pineapple fields to a small church. There were about as many people in the congregation as in our group. Some of those sweet people later met us at the airport as we were leaving and brought each of us two boxes of ripe pineapples! Those were the best pineapples I have ever had.

Another thing I remember from that trip was traveling to a fabric shop, several historical sites, and a museum complex on the city bus. It cost only 60 cents to ride all over on the city bus. I went by myself because no one else was interested in museums. As I returned to the hotel on the bus I looked into a woman's shopping bag and saw a live duck! Someone's dinner, I guess.

I miss the concerts and traveling together, even when we got lost or came home late. Some concerts I hope to always remember. We sang in Nashville and we couldn't see the audience because of the lighting. We sang 'Shut De Door' and the lights were blacked out. The crowd roared. What a feeling.

Another wonderful concert was in a huge, unheated church in China. I don't think many, if any, could understand our songs as we were singing in English. But as we sang 'When I Survey' and did the motions where our arms were outstretched, there was a reaction that made us feel that the words were understood by everyone there.

Others will remember different things from our practices, concerts, and trips. There was the time Troy's hat was rescued when we were whale watching in Alaska, the Irish Coffee that enabled Dot to play the piano as never before or since, and the unsanctioned trip to the flea market in Honolulu. Singing in One Voice was an experience like no other. I miss the songs and the singers.

Cooler Days and other ramblings

When I read back over old posts, and yeah I do that, I see that I complain a lot about having too much to do. Guess I could do something about that-like say 'no'. So anyway, I will try not to complain about too much to do. It'll all get done. It's just whirling around in my brain and sometimes it helps to write down everything so I don't keep thinking about it.
What I really want to write about is the feeling of being flooded with too much information that I have most days. I know I could stop checking email, unsubscribe to updates, stop watching TV, and listening to the news on the radio. I think the most annoying are the email updates I get from SmartBrief. They seems to be sent several times a day. Sometimes the same 'news' is sent over and over. Most of the articles are not research but just opinions in the newspaper or someone's edublog. I am very close to deleting that service.
Enjoyed listening to teachers sharing ideas this afternoon. The members of Madison Reading were discussing writing instruction. Two National Boards candidates shared ideas they were using with students. Of course, I had to chime in (several times). They had articles to share, too. I will make time to read and try to absorb those this weekend.
Now to the title of this post-we are finally getting some cooler weather. We had a blistering hot, dry summer. Then a mostly dry, warm fall. If the temperature got down to the 70's, the kids at school thought it was freezing. On top of that, many of the rooms at school have malfunctioning thermostats. I'm ready to wear turtlenecks and jackets. Ready for the cooler days.