A Couple More Reasons To Go To The Health Club On Christmas Eve

1. Need I say more?

2. They have this promotion going to help us keep exercising through the holiday season/month of December: Get 15 punches on your punchcard and you're entered in a drawing for I don't even know what, because just getting those punches is INCREDIBLY (ridiculously) motivating. December 24 and 26 are THREE POINT DAYS! (It occurred to me while swimming that they probably made them 3 point days to lure in more members and make it worth it to pay the poor employees who have to work those two days.)

3. The soprano in the church choir was practicing her parts for the Christmas Eve service...in the shower...at the health club. It was a little startling at first to be serenaded by angels in that venue, but it was really quite delightful once I got used to it.

Poetry Friday -- One More Day

As I looked for a poem for today,
the ones that caught my eye were mostly about sleep.
That's the first thing on my agenda
for tomorrow.
I will spend this day,
this four-days-before-Christmas day,
with a class full of preteens
who will begin the day
with a 30 minute dance party
and end the day with a Holiday party.
Which state standards should I try to meet in the middle time,
the time between those two excitements?


Back to tomorrow.
Check out Billy Collins' poem Reading Myself to Sleep. It's in QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS. I decided not to pick a sleep poem because what I really want is time for myself. I give you

MORNING
by Billy Collins

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso


(The rest is here. Round up is at AmoXcalli.)

Food Gift Ideas

Happy Blogversary HipWriterMama!

In her anniversary post, HWM, asks us about teacher gift ideas which got me thinking about good gift ideas for lots of people. Of course, I think books always make good gifts but it is hard to know what people already have, etc. I don't often have trouble finding gifts for teachers but I always struggle with new ideas for people who I am not sure what they'd like. I do lots of food gifts. This year, we bought some Mrs. Prindables Gourmet Apples. I have also had big success with giving from these great Ohio companies and would highly recommend gifts from all of these (I would also recommend ordering some for yourself as they are all quite delicious!):

Cheryl's Cookies
Anthony Thomas Buckeyes
Great Harvest Bread
Brownie Points

But, I am always looking for other food ideas to send to people on my holiday gift list. If you have any great food/gift ideas that you've had success with, I'd love to hear about them. I think food is a great gift--especially for out-of-town relatives and friends. So I'd love to hear any ideas.

One of My Favorite Cookie Cookbooks

Well, I have spent the weekend baking. I always do this--I try to do 8 kinds of cookies in one day. It is craziness and I always mess up my last few. I have trouble fitting baking in at night and I see no need to bake if I can't put together a tray with a big variety of cookies. And I LOVE to bake cookies! Easy ones and hard ones.

I pick up cookie cookbooks often. But, I usually find 1-2 recipes in each book that I like. However, THE COOKIE BIBLE is different. There are many, many recipes that look great. I have tried several. And, there is a photo of almost every cookie. That is important to me. I need that visual. My favorite recipe is for the Black and White Hearts. These make a great holiday cookie (I did star shapes instead of hearts.) For those of you that have cookie tables at weddings, they are beautiful in heart shapes.

There are so many recipes in this book that I've tried and several that I have tabbed to try sometime soon. (One of my daughter's friends was over the other day and she was looking through the cookbook. She laughed and said that it was like every page was dog-eared. She was almost right!

It is a pretty comprehensive cookie book--thus the title. Some old favorites as well as some new ideas for cookies.

Highly recommended for the holiday season and all other seasons.

December Carnival of Children's Literature

The Carnival is up at Big A little a, for your browsing and book shopping/buying pleasure!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules - #2
by Jeff Kinney
Amulet Books
Publication Date: February 2008
Review Copy: Uncorrected Proof received at NCTE

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is funny, but Roderick Rules is even funnier. The plot is tighter and more focused. The sibling rivalry between Roderick and Greg (which trickles down to Manny) is believable and relentless. And Rowley is weirder than ever.

I'm not the only one who thinks this book is funnier than the first. When I got back from NCTE, we made a sign-up sheet for the review copy, with the students who had read the first book getting first chance to sign up. Four guys have finished Roderick Rules and all but one of them agree that it is funnier.

The first to read it said that it is funnier because there are more of Roderick's crazy ideas (like trying to use the fake money he stole from Greg), and they go bad in worse ways. He especially liked when mom got involved playing the role-playing game and named her character "Mom." (That part reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Marge gets involved in the online game in which Bart's character is ruthless and evil.)

The second reader liked the suspense after the party they had when their parents were gone. The party went undetected for a long time, then the dad almost found out when he discovered that the downstairs bathroom door was not quite what he remembered, and then he did find out when the pictures in mom's camera were developed.

The third reader was the one who disagreed. He liked the first book better. He liked that it was longer, and he thought the Creighton the Cretin comic (Greg's invention) in the new book was simply not funny. (He can recite the joke in the first Cretin comic word for word.)

The fourth reader thought that Roderick definitely made this book funnier than the first. He thought it was funny when mom danced when Roderick's band played at the talent show. (It's always more funny when someone else is humiliated by their mom!)

Looks like a couple of girls are next up on the list to read Roderick Rules. It will be interesting to see if they agree with the guys!

Holiday Baking

There's a Christmas cookie party going on at jama rattigan's alphabet soup ("a children's writer offers food for thought & fine whining"). Here's another of my holiday baking traditions. My first two years of teaching were in a school in the Dallas Independent School District that was on a federal low-income list. It was like being in the Peace Corps. Every year I taught there, my student loans were reduced and deferred. If I would have made it 5 years, I would have erased my student loans. I lasted for two. But I'm proud of what I accomplished in that short time. I took my kids on a field trip, single-handedly, to the (then) brand-new Dallas Museum of Art. I taught with literature. And I started a tradition that lasted 20 years: I made gingerbread people for the students to decorate. Some of them had never decorated cookies. I made myself a promise that I would make cookies every year in case I ever had students who had not decorated cookies. After 20 years of gingerbread, I was ready for a change. I have an extensive collection of cookie cutters and only two were getting used. So, a few years back, I switched to sugar cookies. And, in a bold move that gave the whole event a new twist, I provided the kids with plain white butter frosting (yes, from scratch) and FOOD COLORING and let them make their icing colors. Here are some views from last year's event:

Dear Santa...

For this gift book post, we decided to be a bit selfish. We thought it would be fun to create our own wish lists of books. Any family members who read our blog will have an easy time buying us gifts. And, if you know us, you know we'll just buy these books after the holidays if we don't get them as gifts! Win-win. We like it that way when it comes to books!

Franki's Holiday Wish List

My piles of Books-To-Read seem to be growing and growing and growing. Two that I am hoping to get to soon are Run by Ann Patchett and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I don't need to ask for those--I already have them! But, these are books I would LOVE to own that I don't own yet:

Good Dog. Stay. by Anna Quindlen
Somehow I missed that Anna Quindlen had a new book out. This seems like a different type of book for her. One about her dog. It seems like one of her short life-lesson books. I read and love EVERYTHING by Anna Quindlen so I would love to add this one to my shelf.

Fire From the Rock by Sharon Draper
Sally's Newbery Hopeful list prompted me to want to read this one. Sharon is an Ohio author which makes it even more fun.

Eggs by Jerry Spinelli
Larry Swartz has been talking about this book since he read it last winter. I usually read Spinelli's books right when they come out, but I've missed his new ones this year for some reason. So this is way up there on the list of books to read before the Newbery is announced.

Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shy Nihab
I saw an advanced copy of this book at NCTE and LOVE it. I love the poems, the concept of people finding passions and looking at the world in new ways, and I always love this author. Can't wait to get a real copy of this one. I know that it won't be out before Christmas, but my husband could preorder it for me, I guess... (hint, hint)

Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli
This books keep showing up on my lists of books I want to read but I forget about it every time I go to the bookstore. It is one that has looked good to me since I first heard about it. And every time since. If I don't get it on my stack upstairs, I am afraid I'll forget about it.

The Italian Cookie Tray
I would love to have this book or one like it. A book about Italian cookie baking. I love to bake cookies--especially at Christmastime and I like to try a few new recipes each year. I was looking for some recipes when I found this book. A book on Italian cookies and all of the traditions that go with them would be a fun one to have.

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard
This is an interesting concept and it sounds like it would be fun to read. Who would think that someone would write a book about a topic like this--how could it not be an interesting read?

Regarding Emma: Photographs of American Women and Girls
I found this book a while ago while searching Ann Patchett. I love the whole idea of it and would love to have a copy.

But, what I would really, really, really like is this bibliochaise...who comes up with these things!? Thanks to Pixie Stix Kids Pix for sharing this find!


Mary Lee's Holiday Wish List

I mustmustmust have a copy of Andrea Beaty's Iggy Peck, Architect. Did you know it is number 4 on the Time Magazine Top 10 Children's Books list? (Thanks to Gregory K. for the heads-up!) Andrea is one of the Three Silly Chicks. She has her own blog, too.

While I was browsing around some of Time's other Top 10 lists, I checked out the Top 10 Graphic Novels. (Nope, none of the Cybils nominees made it to their list.) Number 4 on their list looks interesting: Jack of Fables Vol. 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape. It sounds a little like Into the Wild by Sarah Durst, except for the sex, nudity and corruption. Fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters are exiled and forced to live undercover in New York City.

This week's Poetry Friday (rounded up at The Miss Rumphius Effect) added an author to my must-have list. Shelf Elf introduced me to the poetry of Loris Lesynski. Books of funny poems do not stay on my shelf long during Poetry Friday. Lesynski's books will be a welcome addition to my collection.

Books that are coming out soon that I will have to have include: Babymouse #8: Puppy Love by Jennifer Holm (Dec 26, 2007), Clementine's Letter by Sara Pennypacker (April 15, 2008), and Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia by Barbara O'Connor (May 1, 2003).

My wish list is short because the one thing I want more than any more books is TIME TO READ THE ONES I ALREADY OWN!!!!

Holiday Traditions

There's a Christmas cookie party going on at jama rattigan's alphabet soup ("a children's writer offers food for thought & fine whining"). I'm going to join the party with a couple of my holiday baking traditions. First, the candy.

Today I finished up the last 40 bags of Christmas candy. Over Thanksgiving weekend, I made 60 bags. If you lived here, Kidlitosphere Friend, you'd be getting a bag.

There's not a lot in each bag -- three peanut clusters and three chunks of graham cracker toffee. I would tell you when I hand you the bag, that I intend it to be just enough for you -- you don't have to feel like you need to share it with anyone.

By the end of the day, you would probably make a guilty confession to me that the candy was all gone.

Next year, when I would hand you your bag, you would squeal with delight. My candy does that to people. I love that squeal. It's all I need in the way of thanks.

I give these recipes to anyone who asks. They are not a closely-guarded family secret. The key to making 100 bags of candy is the simplicity of the recipes.

Peanut Clusters
1 lb. white candy coating (at Kroger it is "Bark Coating")
12 oz. Nestle's semisweet chips
5 c. Planters Salty Cocktail Peanuts (almost 2 lbs.)

Melt chocolate and coating in microwave (3-5 minutes). Stir until smooth. Add peanuts. Drop on waxed paper by spoonfuls. Let set. Makes about 60 pieces. (20 bags)

Graham Cracker Crisps
Line a buttered 9.5 x 13.5 in. jellyroll pan with whole Keebler Original Graham Crackers. Combine 1 c. butter, 1/2 c. brown sugar, and 1/2 c. chopped pecans. Boil 3 min. Pour over crackers and bake at 350 for 9-10 minutes. Top with a 12 oz. package of Nestle's milk chocolate chips and spread when melted. Crack into pieces when cool. Makes about 30 big pieces. (I do 2 pans simultaneously for 20 bags.)

Happy Holidays! ENJOY!

Poetry Friday -- Picking Favorites

I kept snagging this poem as I ran my fingers through the teeming waters of the Poetry Foundation archive. The more I read it, the more perfect it seemed for this week. This week of Newbery Hopefuls and Newbery Potentials. (Did you notice that the first four letters of potential spell poet?)

Here is the first verse:

Reading to the Children
by Herbert Morris

The first child asks me: Are these poems yours?
The second asks: Where do you get ideas?
The third child says: I have always loved poems.
The fourth child wonders: What makes poems poems?
The fifth one asks: Which of them is your favorite?
The sixth one asks me: Is there ice cream later?
The seventh child asks: Is a poem dreaming?

The verses that follow answer the children's questions, one by one. You might expect me to share with you the answer to the fifth child, in keeping with the theme of "picking favorites." Here, however, is a part of the sixth answer, and it is just as apt:

Ice cream? Of course there will be ice cream later,
more flavors than you knew existed, cookies
shaped like cottages (plumes of chocolate coiling
from crumb-top chimneys), candied apples, plum tarts.
By the time the desserts are brought and passed
(I suggest this for your consideration,
no more than that, one possibility
among the many which may offer themselves),
what you have heard (and, hearing, felt) may well seem
more astonishing than the crisps, the pastries,
the butterscotch napoleons, the rum balls,
mocha parfaits, coconut wafers, jam cakes,
the goblets of vanilla-laced-with-mangoes,
brought on trays from the pantry. One can know that
only at the conclusion, having sampled,
one by one, what was deftly laid before you,
poems read, plates passed, music heard, half-heard,
a judgment reached, or not reached, a choice made.


The whole poem is here.

The Roundup today is at The Miss Rumphius Effect.