Concussion Mosaic

What do you do when you can't read, write or have much screen time? A good question!  As many of you know, I have had a never-ending concussion that required me to take the last 6 weeks of school off. The concussion happened in February and I am still not 100 percent.  I am much better, but for the last 6-12 weeks, I have done very little reading, writing, or screen time. (OR Blogging--Thank You, Mary Lee!)   It is amazing how hard it is to rest your brain!

Over the last 6 weeks, I have been really, really good about brain rest.  But it took me a while to figure out how to spend my days. I've been working on balance for the last few years but this "brain rest" really forced me to be creative with trying new hobbies and finding new ways to spend my time. I tried some crafts, tried some new recipes, tried to appreciate nature, etc.  The above mosaic captures my weeks without reading or writing.

Life without reading, writing, TV, running, etc. has been a challenge and I am happy that it is not something I have to keep up forever. Over the last few weeks I've been able to do some light reading (lots of transitional series books and picture books that you'll hear about soon.) but even with that, I miss the days filled with hours and hours of reading.

So, I am finding new hobbies, but I have yet to find one that I love as much as reading!

Poetry Friday: The Day After the Last Day of School

The Day After the Last Day of School

It's like you've been on a long hike
through deep mud
in boots that don't fit
with a pack that has gotten progressively heavier
(the weight was added gradually;
you didn't notice so much).

Then suddenly before you
there is a grassy meadow
a cool brook
tall trees and deep shade.

The pack evaporates,
the muddy boots disappear.
With the weight gone, it feels like you are floating.

You are very tired.
You lean back against a welcoming tree and sleep.
You dream of hiking.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013




Happy end of the school year to all who've gotten there! I hope your final gift was not the gift of one more round of the "class crud" (mine was).

Now comes "The Long Weekend." Time enough for friends and family, for reading and writing, for professional learning, for making plans for the next big hike (how to keep that pack lighter, finding boots that fit better, looking for a path that stays on higher ground...)

Tabatha has the Poetry Friday Roundup today at The Opposite of Indifference.

If you'd like to sign up for a Poetry Friday Roundup slot for July-December 2013, the calendar is here.

Poetry Friday Call For Roundup Hosts

It's that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

If you'd like to host a roundup between July and December 2013, leave your choice(s) of date(s) in the comments. I'll update regularly to make it easier to see which dates have been claimed.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape or form (Mr. Linky, "old school" in the comments-->annotated in the post, Jog the Web, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in! If you've never participated, but you'd like to get started, choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you're not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch...and learn! One thing we're finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? I'll post it in the files on the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, and I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. Speaking of the the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, I'll set up reminders on the calendar there. Plus, I'll send the schedule to Pam to put on the Kidlitosphere Central webpage.

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It's like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

And now for the where and when:

July

5   Keri at Keri Recommends

12 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty

19 Jone at Check it Out

26 Sherry at Semicolon

August

2 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

9 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

16 Lisa at Steps and Staircases

23 Betsy at I Think in Poems

30 Tara at A Teaching Life

September

6 Laura S. at Author Amok

13 Jen at Teach Mentor Texts

20 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

27 Amy at The Poem Farm

October

4 Doraine at Dori Reads

11 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

18 Cathy at Merely Day By Day

25 Irene at Live Your Poem...

November

1 Linda at TeacherDance

8 Diane at Random Noodling

15 Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup

22 Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat.

29 Carol at Carol's Corner

December 

6 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge

13 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

20 Buffy at Buffy's Blog

27 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

I Love Audio Books!

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Niclas Lindh

Last summer I learned about the Sync (Sync YA literature into your earphones) free (FREE) summer downloads.

Each week, they pair an adult book with a YA book, and it is free (FREE) to download the pair of books for that week.

Check out the pairs they've got lined up for 2013!

How do you get these free (FREE) audiobooks?

1. Download the OverDrive Media Console (computer) or App (portable device).
2. Create a free (FREE) Adobe account.
3. Go to the Sync website.
4. Follow the links and download the books.
5. Listen to the books...whenever! They are waiting there for you in your OverDrive app!
6. Lather, rinse, and repeat every week all summer long! (perhaps you should sign up for email or text alerts to remind you to go back to the site for all the free (FREE) book pairs they are offering)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

A weekly meme from Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts

Here are my recent reads. Reviews to come...

Gone Fishing: A novel

by Tamera Will Wissinger

illustrated by Matthew Cordell

Houghton Mifflin, 2013

Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

by Liesl Shurtliff

Alfred A. Knopf, 2013

The Real Boy

by Anne Ursu

Walden Pond Press, 2013

The Center of Everything
by Linda Urban
Harcourt Children's Books, 2013

The Truth of Me
by Patricia MacLachlan
HarperCollins Childrens, 2013

May Mosaic

May, as you can see, was predominantly about flowers.

A couple new colors of iris (ones I brought back with me from Mom's garden) bloomed this year -- the yellow and the rust. I'm thrilled that the Jack-in-the-Pulpit I got at the Clintonville Farmer's Market last summer is blooming!

The squirrels are using our garden gnome as a chew toy. He looks even worse now than he does in these pictures. Is this revenge for all the times in stories when gnomes ride on squirrels as if they were their ponies?

There were two amazing visitations this month. As I pulled up to park one Saturday in the early(ish) morning to work in the Land Lab, a Cooper's Hawk landed on the fence right in front of me. Same one I wrote about in Madness 2013? Perhaps!  And one night when AJ went to put some trash in our trashcan, he realized that the "leaf" on the handle wasn't a leaf at all -- it was a luna moth!

In this set you can also find a piece of pizza with a funny face, a sunset at Goodale Park and documentation of a first-try French Braid. (Next week I'm getting 4-6 inches cut off at my twice-yearly haircut.)

You can see this set up close and personal on Flickr. They've redesigned the site. It is quite lovely!

Poetry Friday -- Chalk-A-Bration -- Casting for Recovery

I have a multi-purpose offering for Poetry Friday this week. 

We went over to the neighborhood park yesterday evening to blow the dust off our casting in preparation for the Casting for Recovery Fish-A-Thon on Saturday. While there, I chalked a poem on the sidewalk:

Now for the PSA:

Casting for Recovery is a leading breast cancer quality of life program. CFR isn't trying to find the cure for breast cancer; the goal of CFR is to empower breast cancer survivors by giving them powerful tools to overcome the challenges of breast cancer.

One of those tools is fly fishing.

I'm involved in Casting for Recovery as a past participant and now on Ohio's retreat team. I teach casting and knot tying.

We're having a Fish-A-Thon tomorrow to raise money for the Ohio CFR retreat. If you'd like to sponsor me on a per-fish-caught basis, or with a one-time donation, send me a message through the blog email. 

"Casting for Recovery is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that relies solely on donations to provide all-expense-paid weekend wellness retreats to 14 breast cancer survivors per retreat. Through your support, we will be able to continue to enhance the lives of breast cancer survivors by providing retreats that promote mental, physical, and emotional healing."

Betsy, the Queen of the Chalk-A-Bration, has the Poetry Friday Roundup AND the monthly Chalk-A-Bration today at Teaching Young Writers.

Walking

It's true. I'm a sucker for #(fill in the blank)-A-Day challenges.

#PoemADay,  #BookADay,  and now #MileADay.

When Paul Hankins mentioned #MileADay (Runners World is calling it #RWRUNSTREAK, but since I'm not a runner, I have taken the liberty of renaming it), I didn't even have to think about it. A mile a day every day from Memorial Day until Independence Day? I'm in!

I'm logging a short note about my walks on FB, and another (shorter still) on Twitter. Because I know that when I go public with these challenges, I am more likely to keep the commitment. Community also helps. Lots of people have said, "That's a great idea," but I only know for sure that two friends are joining me. One is local, the other sees paddlewheel riverboats in New Orleans on her miles! For right now, all I see is my neighborhood waking up.

The book I'm currently listening to fits this challenge nicely.

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
by Robert Macfarlane
Viking Adult, 2012
audiobook from Audible

The author tells about the walks he takes on "the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond."

I love his writing (and thinking) so much that I also bought the book on Kindle so that I can go back and highlight favorite passages.

Here's a bit to entice you (click to enlarge):

Great End-Of-Year Teacher Gift

Brontorina
by James Howe
illustrated by Randy Cecil
Candlewick, 2010

Here's a book that says, "Thank you for making school/your classroom fit my child rather than making my child fit school/your classroom."

I hope that's what you'd like to say to your child's teacher!!

(Franki's more complete review here.)

Poetry Friday -- Think For Yourself

This week, I've done a series of 3 reviews of books on the theme THINK FOR YOURSELF. (Day Two comes with a bonus -- a link to WordEyes, a site that teaches vocabulary using art. Check it out.)

• We need to make decisions based upon what we know to be right, rather than letting others tell us what to do.
• We need to think for ourselves, rather than listening to what others tell us to think. 
• We need to love our friends for who they are, rather than believing what others tell us about them. 

Flannery O'Connor said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

Emily Dickinson advised

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---

And Gerard Manley Hopkins famously championed all that is unique in the world:

PIED BEAUTY

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                  Praise him.


What's your favorite book, quote, or poem that says to you, "THINK FOR YOURSELF!" ?


Jama has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Jama's Alphabet Soup.