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To show your true colors…You have to come out of your shell!

A little bit of spring on your desktop… right click and save!

Happy April!

….. and please feel free to comment, I like to know you’re out there! :)

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Today, 29 February 2012, is a ‘leap day’. To understand more about the leap phenomenon, and the significance of 29 February in history, we turn to The Oxford Companion to the Year: an exploration of calendar customs and time-reckoning.

29 February

Leap Day. In the modern form of the calendar, which dispenses with the Roman names of days, this is leap day, inserted every four years to make up the difference between the common year of 365 days and the solar year; by happy accident the sequence of leap years inherited from the Romans coincides with years AD divisible by 4. Since the true difference is some eleven minutes less than six hours, Pope Gregory XIII ordered in 1582 that leap day should be omitted when the year was divisible by 100 but not by 400; the years affected, in those countries that accepted the reform (which Great Britain did not till 1752), were 1700, 1800, and 1900. There was a 29 February again in 2000, but will not be in 2100.

Persons born on 29 February are humorously said to have a birthday only once in four years; on that basis Rossini, who was born on 29 February 1792, would have waited till 1804 for his second birthday, since 1800 was a common year. In practice, however, they have birthdays in common years on the 28^th. By the legal rule noted under the 22^nd, anyone born on either 29 February or 1 March 1948 in England (though not Scotland) came of age on 28 February 1969; but since the Act that abolished that rule also reduced the age of majority, persons born on 29 February 1952 came of age on 28 February 1970, but those born the next day not till 1 March.

Western saints such as Oswald of Worcester who died on 29 February used to be culted on that day in leap year and 28 February in common years; this was a last relic of the Roman reckoning, which made the last day of February pridi Kalendas Martias in either case. By contrast, the Orthodox church, which uses the forward count, celebrates John Cassian on 29 February in leap year and not at all in common years, reputedly as punishment for being last to arrive when the saints came to ask Christ for work. In Mytilene this is the shirkers’ feast, and Cassian holds the keys of idleness.

An old Scotswoman in the nineteenth century, asked by a small boy why this day occurred only once in four years, consulted the ‘funtin-heid’, her Bible, which fell open at Job 3: 3, ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born’, and deduced that Job had been born on 29 February; the Lord had not altogether abolished that day, but done what he could for his servant by suppressing it three years out of four. That was mere fancy, but we read in a near-contemporary that in the second century AD the Athenians gratified the multimillionaire Herodes Atticus – or rather yielded to his unrestrained emotionalism and much-resented power – by removing from the calendar the day on which his daughter died.

29^th February
A day added to the year,
laconic or luminous.
The extra day can be seen
and touched, like any other.
Its hours are not difficult to count,
the weather varies but is weather,
no alien manifestation.
Lovers who marry on this day
have the usual eggshell hearts,
the lewdness of fish.
Children born on this day
are as fierce as any others.
Those who die on this day
must find new ways of being,
and on this day
singing still builds
the upstairs room of the sky.
This is the day
the year keeps for herself
but offers to you,
her breath fo

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Download your December desktop calendar and start your holiday count down! Click the image to see full size then Save As….  Happy December!

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We had a fantastic time at the Cloudy Collection show at Minneapolis’s Pink Hobo Gallery, and the rest of the weekend at MIX was so much fun!

But like the fun weekend, all good things must end. So instead of moping, we’re excited to release our celebration of the endtimes in our 2012 Calendar of the Impending Apocalypse. Each month was made by a different artist - January through December were made by Phil McAndrew, Jaime Zollars, Ana Benaroya, Joe Alterio, Adam Koford, Vincent Stall, Joe Lambert, David Huyck, Kali Ciesemier, Luke Pearson, Emory Allen, and Amy Crehore, repectively. Check them out!

(via Cloudy Collection / Print Editions)

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Keep a turkey on your desktop… click on the image for full size, right click and save!

Happy November!

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This Day in World History - In Roman times, Julius Caesar instituted a calendar reform based on a solar year of 365 and one-quarter days. To accommodate the quarter day, the Julian calendar added an extra day to every fourth year, creating leap years. Unfortunately, a solar year is really a few minutes shorter than 365 days and 6 hours. The Julian calendar’s overestimate meant that over the course of a century, more or less, the beginning of each of the four seasons moved back a day. By the late 1500s, the spring equinox fell on March 11, rather than around March 21.

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Keep your mummy on your desktop… click on the image for full size, right click and save!

Happy October!

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I was happy that I caught the tweet early when the Men of the Stacks calendar came out because it’s been fascinating to watch this project grow and blosson. If for some reason you haven’t heard of it, the website is here and they have a facebook page here. Thanks to some nice photography, some cute librarians and a good message, this project has taken off, been mentioned in international news outlets, hit boingboing, Oprah and the Village Voice. The calendars cost $5 to produce through MagCloud and are sold for $20 which means for every calendar that gets purchased $15 goes to the It Gets Better Project. There’s a thoughtful post by the MotS administrator Megan about bullying and jerks online and why this sort of thing is so important. My favorite thing is probably close to what Will Manley says, this is “an image buster with a sense of humor.” My second favorite thing about this is, hey, I know those guys! A lot of the fellas in the photos are librarians we’ve known online for years and years–Brett and Trevor and Von and Gabe are people I know, and the others seem like people I’d like to know–and so we can smile along with them and say “Way to go guys!” Can’t wait to see how this evolves.

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This Day in World History - Sometime around September 23 each year, Earth reaches the autumnal equinox, the point when the sun stands directly above the Equator and daylight and dark are roughly equal. (The day, of course, marks the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. South of the Equator, it is the vernal, or spring, equinox. March 23 is the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the Southern.) These astronomical events did not go unnoticed by ancient peoples.

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As the Printz Award is now 12-years-old, it is the perfect time to showcase the book jackets of the winners on a calendar. The calendar will debut at Annual for the cost of $15. Members of the Financial Advancement Committee will be selling the calendars at Saturday morning’s Strategic Planning Session from 10am to noon and again that same day outside the entrance to the Edwards luncheon. Sunday you can purchase a Printz calendar at YALSA’s Membership booth from 2 to 5pm and, if you miss those opportunities, it will also be sold on Monday from 10 to 11am at the Membership Booth, then later at the Membership meeting, and that evening at the Printz Awards (if copies are still available).

FAC members have only a limited supply of calendars to sell, but a few more will be available at the ALA Store during Conference as well as via the ALA Online Store beginning in late June. And, you will want to have your calendar before the Printz Program and Reception because Paolo Bacigalupi will be speaking and could autograph it for you.

Scattered across the months, you can locate birthdays of YALSA’s winning authors (when the info was available) in addition to information on when to celebrate National Elephant Appreciation, Tell a Joke, Don’t Step on a Bee, National Turtle, or Support Teen Lit days. Equally valuable is learning which months focus on Internet Safety, Get Reading, or Teen Esteem. The special days and months will help you plan displays, programs, and other activities.

Remember last year when the Financial Advancement Committee asked you to “Give $10 in ’10?” Now they’re offering you the chance to buy what will become both a collector’s item and a source of programming ideas for years to come, and all for only $15.

As always, all monies collected are donated to Friends of YALSA and in 2011 are being used to produce materials to support our award and selection lists.

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I don’t get time to sit down and read blogs as much as I used to, but I still see them scooting through my feed reader, or in the profiles of people following me on Twitter, or sometimes just linked in random places. A few I’ve been enjoying lately.

• Lenny Likes Libraries – full of photos of books and shelves and library buildings. The Dead Libraries post is especially poignant.
• Libraries and Transliteracy – not that new, but consistently great with a stable of terrific writers. Learn about all kinds of literacies.
• Koha: One Library’s Experience is a great blog about the ins and outs of really getting started with Koha, by the Arcadia Public Library in California.
• Aaron Tay’s Musings About Librarianship has been a favorite for a while. I get great ideas from it but I haven’t just said “hey go read the whole thing.” Last weekend’s post about library social media campaigns that work is a great summary of some good news.
• Not a blog but a neat project, VLA is doing a 2012 Public Libraries calendar. One lovely library from every county (they hope), professionally designed and full of neat library facts.

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Going to redo the kiddies so they actually fit under the elephant... but the idea is that the boy's pissed because she keeps feeding the elephant the cookies. No cookies = fort fail.

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I know it's a little ways away still, but I've been starting to see some marketing materials for this year's BEA, taking place in NYC May 25-27. The website gives a lot of great information about the event, and they recently announced that they are trying to broaden the appeal and turn it into an entire New York Book Week May 24 through May 28. This is very cool, and offers not only authors, publishers, agents and the entire publishing community a chance to come together, but it also gives regular New Yorkers the opportunity to get involved and come out to join in the fun. Many venues are taking part, and people will be able to visit places all over the city for events, including bookstores, the 92nd Street Y, and the NY Public Library. If you'll be in town, take a look at some of the great programs they are planning and put them in your calendar now so you can come out and support the book biz.

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Friday, February 5th Terri will host our first group book read, Children of the Waters by Carleen Brice. Haven't finished the book or started? We won't tell. Don't miss the discussion that will run for five days. Link will remain on the sidebar for a full week. If you're not bothered by spoilers check out these reviews:

Browngirl Speaks
aalbc

Do support these authors with new releases:

1/2010 Eight Grade Superzero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
2/10 Explorer X-Alpha by L.M. Preston sci-fi/MG
2/16 A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott historical/sci-fi/ YA
2/25 Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemision sci-fi/adult

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The clock is winding down, but there is still time for you to win your very own 2010 Book Lovers calendar by reminding us of your favorite author and their birthday!

Read more about the contest and share your favorite author’s birthday here. So go ahead – post a comment, help us remember all those fabulous authors who wrote the books that make us smile and take a chance at winning a 2010 Book Lover’s calendar!

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Every March we celebrate the birthday of the beloved Dr. Seuss.  Classrooms everywhere read Oh, the Places You’ll Go! and kids parade around in those classic red and white, striped top hats.  It is a day of fun for all.

This year, we are wondering, why stop at celebrating the birthday of only one of our favorite    authors? Let’s kick off the next decade of books and fabulous authors yet- to-come by remembering the birthdays of our favorite authors!

And as an incentive, we are giving away 10 copies of  the 2010 Book Lovers calendar, complete with author birthdays, stories about our favorite classics from Sails for the South Seas to Of Mice and Men, and pictures that every booklover wishes they could hang on their kitchen fridge! Plus, each copy helps First Book provide new books to children in need.

Want to get your own copy of the 2010 Book Lovers calendar?

Here’s how you can: post a comment mentioning your favorite author and their birthday by 11:59 pm ET on December 28^th. Ten participants will be chosen at random to receive their very own Book Lover’s 2010 Calendar.

Post a comment and help us celebrate all of the authors who wrote those books that make us smile!

Calendars can also be purchased by visiting www.bookloversstuff.com

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Yey, I've finally finished the painting I started two years ago!
A scene from one of the chapters of the book I’m writing- Alex and Raúl are resting by the stream after a long and tedious trek through the forest, unaware they have ventured into the territory of Mortikye the wolf. Their presence is not welcome…






I’m really pleased with how this turned out considering I did'nt rough it up and more or less painted it as I went along.

I’ve updated the sculpture section of my site with some photos of the pen toppers ive made and sold on ebay. – http://www.elysiumrain.com/Sculpturedpens.html

Val and I have set up a calendar of the picture book 'Alex and Friends' on lulu.com – http://www.lulu.com/content/lulustudio-calendar/alex-and-friends/7079356
We hope to another for the second book when its finished.




And last but by no means least, a little bit for Fi-Fi (not my choice of name lol), my hamster who passed away today.







She was by no means the friendliest critter but she was definitely the cutest. Will miss you lots Fi-Fi mouse X

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Page-a-Day calendars are a blatant waste of paper. I’m shocked. Shocked, and very very covetous of this Cute Overload Calendar.

I’m buying two. One for me, and one for my grandma. That lady needs more cute in her life.

…from Cute Overload

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