I’m a little proud of my picks for the awards! I predicted both winners and 3 honors, just missing one prediction. Not too shabby!

And here is a little poetry for this frozen friday:

I love heaps of ice
piled high but only when
in my waffle cone

So what do I think is going to win at this Monday’s ALA awards? Here are my best predictions and my dream winners for just two of the many awards:

Newbery:
Predicted Winner: When You Reach me by Rebecca Stead
My favorite: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Caldecott:
Predicted Winner: The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
My Favorite: Red Sings From Treetops by by Joyce Sidman, Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
though I also love All the World and 14 Cows for America

Wish I was there!

A roundup of my holiday book binge with bite-size reviews:

The Espressologist: Light and fluffy as foamed milk.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: amazing. Alexie is master at using laughter to accentuate the wrenching truth.

Rampant: Killer unicorns and well written to boot, what’s not to love? (on ipod)

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon: The only problem is the award sticker is going to hide the beautiful cover.

Life As We Knew It: Took me some time to buy the voice, but after the disaster it pulled me in. Haunting with its high stakes and personal sacrifice.

On Writing: Stephen King weaves a personal and universal author’s tale. (on ipod)

Alvin Ho: Charming, funny, love the cultural details to give Alvin identity.

Looking For Alaska: Finally getting around to this. masterful.

Suite Scarlett: As a twitter follower, I was lured by the free version on MJ’s site and now I think I’ll pick up the sequel when it drops – good work marketing department! (on ipod)

Fire: Kept me up until 4am reading – both an atmospheric and compelling book. Can’t wait for Bitterblue.

And, as always, a pile of picturebooks including much buzzed Higher, Higher! and The Curious Garden – both were lovely in entirely different ways!

Still in the pile: Feed, When You Reach Me (I so wanted to read before ALA!), Masterpiece, An Abundance of Katherines, and so many more that I had to leave at the library less I seem greedy… my TBR bin is always full to overflowing.

This last month I feel like my life has been on spin cycle. Back around thanksgiving, one of my colleagues asked how my semester was going. I answered that had been a tough semester and that I felt like it was going to end in a chaotic crescendo and Hubby and I were just hoping to hang on.

Boy, if I had known those words were going to be prophetic, I might have chosen them more carefully.

Soon after, Hubby went in for major (unexpected) surgery. The recovery is a tough, long one, but he’s hanging in there and is on the mend. I finished out a very busy/difficult semester while trying to manage the husband’s recovery at the same time. I can’t say I did a great job of either, but I did what I could. The final weekend of the semester, however, gave us our hardest moment of the season.

Our dear puppy (not really a puppy) suffered a major stroke (we think) and we had to make the clear, but painful, decision to put him to sleep. It was heartbreaking. We are the type of people that consider pets to be part of the family, and saying goodbye to our friend and companion was, and is, such a difficult experience.

Because of those two things, and many others, I am so glad to see 2009 in the rearview mirror. Hello, 2010, please come in and stay awhile.

We also had a good measure of joy over the holidays. We were able to spend Christmas with my side of the family. This was a treat as we are normally separated by an ocean, but we all were together in Switzerland for the holidays. I love that the words family and familiarity are cousins because that is what I loved the most about our time together. Even though we rubbed against each other in old habitual ways, the familiarity of being with family was something I cherished and now miss.

I also, of course, binged on books (as I tend to do over school breaks) and will be updating with a post on all that I read soon.

Until then, a final poem for puppy.

my feet grow colder
now you keep my memories
ever warm instead

Life has hit with the force of a midwestern blizzard (we got a real one too) and I’ll be traveling for the holidays. See you in the new year!

Want to win a hardcover of MAGIC UNDER GLASS by Jaclyn Dolamore plus more prizes? See http://fabulousfrock.livejournal.com for details!

Sometimes we have to get creative to come up with fun things to do in our little town. Case in point: this last weekend I attended a Jello party. Yes – a jello party. A friend came up with the idea and each of us brought some sort of Jello item to share. We ate (way too much) jello and told funny small town stories and a good time was had by all. Some things that I learned:

1) Around here, when one attends a “Ladies Salad Luncheon” (they actually have these), the expectation is that you will bring a jello dish, which means that:
2) Jello is considered a salad (especially when plated on a leaf of lettuce with a dollop of mayo. No joke.)
3) Because jello is so common, there is fierce competition amongst jello-makers to have the best recipe, and recipes are typically top secret family treasures.

Having no family treasure chest of jello recipes, I turned to google and brought Mimosa jello – orange jello made with champagne. Scandalous!

Do you have any favorite jello recipes or stories?

Here are the results of the poetry stretch for this week, courtesy of The Miss Rumphius Effect. The form is a rictameter, which has lines of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 8, 6, and 2 syllables. The first line should be repeated in the last. As you can see, I turned it on its head for the first, and then didn’t follow the rule for the second. Ah well… it’s fun to play and I liked how they turned out.

First, a silly one:

Unwrap
and chew and chew
and chew until soft then
carefully stretch and suspend the
double bubble parachute. Breathe in deep
and slowly blow it bigger but
don’t blow too fast or else…
POP! Your face is
wrapped up.

Now, a more serious poem in honor of Veteran’s day and the man across my street with pressed khakis and wispy grey hair.

Your boots
and medals shine
like brass instruments that
announce the sacrifice you made
for him, and her, and them, and us, and me.
Do the sounds of battle still ring
in your ears and do you
long for quiet
and peace?

ok. not really. But this is too much fun! Thanks to 100 scope notes for the fun…Follow the steps below to create your own debut picturebook cover! Here is mine:

CREATE YOUR DEBUT PICTURE BOOK COVER

1 – Go to “The Name Generator: at http://www.thenamegenerator.com/

Click GENERATE NEW NAME. The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Picture Book Title Generator” at http://www.generatorland.com/usergenerator.aspx?id=243

Click CREATE TITLE! This is the title of your picture book.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” at http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php

Type the last word from your title into the search box followed by the word “drawing”. Click FIND. The first suitable image is your cover. It will give you the option to go to Picnik.

4 – Use Photoshop, Picnik, or similar to put it all together. Gettin’ creative is encouraged.

5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

(6 – Comment at 100 Scope Notes for the Cover Round-Up.)

Friday Five:

I am swamped at my day job but I keep finding myself staring out the window wishing for 5pm. Here’s what I’ve noticed:

1. The November sun path is almost low enough to shine in my south facing window.
2. Most of the corn in the fields outside of town has been harvested and now my view is of rolling hills of corn stubble.
3. The high winds, clouds, and sun have made a Van Goghish swirly sky.
4. It must be a busy shipping day because there are a lot more semitrucks rolling by than usual.
5. There is a kite stuck in a tree across the street. It’s a windy day, so it’s fluttering like a trapped moth.

This whole living in a small town thing is still pretty new to me, so I thought I’d share some of the funny, strange, and umm.. unique happenings from around here that remind me I’m not in the city anymore.

Our little town was recently graffitied. This is remarkable for our small little town. But what is even more remarkable is:
1) the culprit was an elderly man
2) who sprayed his graffiti in broad daylight
3) and the building he tagged was a church
4) and the graffiti said “worship Jesus”

I’ll give you a minute to imagine the scene.

Who said small town life is dull?

Do you remember this movie? I watch it every year for Halloween – I’ve loved it since I was little. It has terrible blue screen effects, synthesizer music and a creepy music montage starring Tim Curry – what’s not to love? Growing up on this – how could I NOT love Harry Potter?

For some reason it seems a little ridiculous that “Fall Break” should… umm.. fall after we’ve had 4 days of snow flurries. Granted, none of it has stuck, but the green leaves that have been stripped by the wintery storms never had a chance to rust and the pumpkins have only just begun to turn. Fall is my favorite season and I hope it shows itself a little more assertively in the coming weeks.

So stand up for yourself, Fall! Your beauty matches spring – so speak up! Be loud! I want crisp days and skittering leaves and frenzied squirrels, gosh darnit!

We are enduring our third snowfall in the last few days – and it’s not yet November! I am choosing to be positive about this by decreeing it a reason to drink even more hot beverages than usual.