Further to
Bella's Back, I espied the above while stopping for lunch along the road between Dulles and Charlottesville on Tues. Like mushrooms after a soaking rain, enormous new shopping centers have sprouted up. Now there are entire "villages" of chain stores and motels where fields and woods had been just 2-1/2 years ago. (Though I have to admit that our lunch at Panera Bread was tasty, well-priced and relaxing. And the iced tea was excellent.)
At the Special CO-VA
Literary Ladies Luncheon today, the LL to my left happily told me that she had named her new dog Bella. I told her that, to my knowledge, that makes her dog Bella #5 amongst the canine population in Cville.
The Virginia Festival of the Book begins Wednesday, and Tuesday I'm off to beautiful Charlottesville, my late (lamented!) hometown for the festivities. Following is a listing of programs that my current & former clients and buddies are doing. See the Literary Ladies Luncheon blog for listings of programs involving LLLers.
WED 3/26
12:00pm High Gloss: Making the Beautiful Book
With Susan Tyler Hitchcock (Geography of Religion: Where God Lives, Where Pilgrims Walk), Jon Lohman (In Good Keeping: Virginia's Folk Apprenticeships), and Anne B. Barriault and Kay Davidson (Selections from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts).
4:00pm Opening the Vein: Pouring Life into Writing
The Moseley Writers, Jennifer Riesmeyer Elvgren (Josias, Hold the Book), Deborah Prum (Rats, Bulls, and Flying Machines), Fran Cannon Slayton (How to Hop a Moving Train), and Andy Straka (Record of Wrongs), discuss how real life experiences inform fiction and keep writing fresh in a marketing-saturated world.
Moderator: Andy Straka
4:00pm Life As We Know It: Novels of Change and Healing
With Virginia Boyd (One Fell Swoop), Therese Fowler (Souvenir) and Judy Merrill Larsen (All the Numbers).
6:00pm Trying to Get it Right: Fiction About Marriage
Jenny Gardiner (Sleeping with Ward Cleaver), James Collins (Beginner's Greek), and Joshua Henkin (Matrimony) offer fictional perspectives of twenty-first century marriages.
Moderator: Jeanne Siler
* * * * * * * * * * * *
THURS 3/27
12:00pm Race and Place: Memoirs
With Margaret Gibson (The Prodigal Daughter: Reclaiming an Unfinished Childhood), Evans Hopkins (Life After Life: A Story of Rage and Redemption), and Kim Reid (No Place Safe: A Family Memoir).
12:00pm History in These Waters: Pre-Jamestown to the Present
Amy Waters Yarsinske (The Elizabeth River) and Avery Chenoweth (Empires in the Forest: Jamestown and the Beginning of America).
12:00pm Reading Group Choices
Barbara Mead (Reading Group Choices), James Collins (Beginner's Greek), Jill A. Davis (Girl's Poker Night, Ask Again Later), and Therese Fowler (Souvenir).
2:00pm Of Vice and Men: Crime, Money, and Panic in America
Kenneth Ackerman (Young J. Edgar), Steven Harper (Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story), and co-authors Robert F. Bruner and Sean Carr (The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm).
2:00pm In Good Keeping: Virginia's Living Traditions
Jon Lohman (author) and Morgan Miller (photographer) will discuss the making of their book, In Good Keeping, on the Virginia Folklife Program. Charles McRaven, a folklife master craftsman (The Stone Primer) will discuss his books.
6:00pm Battles of the Civil War
Jack Hurst (Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign that Decided the Civil War), John Baldwin (Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship), and Marc Leepson (Desperate Engagement).
8:00pm Evil and Sin
With authors Barbara Oakley (Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Enron Rose, Hitler Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend), John Portmann (A History of Sin) and Jennifer Geddes (Evil After Postmodernism).
8:00pm Fiction Favorites
With Adriana Trigiani (The Big Stone Gap series), Homer Hickam (Rocket Boys, Red Helmet), and Jill A. Davis (Ask Again Later, Girl's Poker Night.)
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:
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!
According to the creators, this chocolate is inspired by Carroll's Alice, Ms. Toklas, Ms. Waters and all the other "spunky Alices that inspired the name because they are people who “enrich the day through their imagination, refinement and enchantment.”
I can think of a few they may have left out. Alice Cooper. Alice in Chains . . .
Thanks to BB-Blog for the link.
How cool, Mary Lee! I bet those kids will remember that for a long time.
Man, do I wish I was in your room for this! What fun!
check this out! a fun video featuring miley cyrus
http://www.mushygushy.com/MFO2WO
Great post. Thanks for sharing. What delicious fun. I've been thinking a lot lately about the value of traditions in schools. One of our 5/6 traditions is watching Akeelah and the Bee. When we tried to come up with another movie for this year, we just decided to make the excellent one we watched last year into a tradition. We tried out having "Secret Friends" this year, too, and it went well. I think that'll become another December tradition. Happy Holidays!
My word. There's alot of baking and love that goes into this project. Your students must adore you.