The Way Things Look

As my blood sugar has dropped, my vision has become blurry. The doctor said this is normal and to be patient because it will clear up in a few weeks. A few weeks! It's hard. So much of what I do and love to do hinges on being able to see clearly. I love to read (and read and read). I love to write. I love to draw and paint and do crossword puzzles. Now most of that is just about impossible. Even writing this is a challenge.

So, I've been taking walks with some running mixed in (good for my blood sugar), watching tv on the big screen and listening to music and the radio. I've lost about 10 pounds. It's hard to take in enough calories on this restrictive diet.

But, it could always be worse. And with stem cell research, perhaps the cure for diabetes is in the near future.

Five Things On a Friday

So, here it is, Halloween and I have just a few random things to share.

1. I am so tired of needles. I was recently diagnosed with diabetes. We're not sure what kind yet (more blood work is needed) but it is genetic. I am not overweight, I exercise, watch what I eat so how did I get this? Genetic predisposition, says my endocrinologist. My father had type 1 diabetes for over 40 years. But, as my doctor reminded me, this is not my father's diabetes and he thinks a cure is on the horizon. Once we get the Bush administration out of office, perhaps we can once again hope that stem cell research will receive funding.

2. Scientifically, the Bush administration has set this country back to the Dark Ages. Take The Creation Museum in Cincinatti or George Bush's disclaimer that global warming is all nonsense. I'm sure we must be the laughing stock of the civilized world when it comes to science.

3. My husband made gravestones out of leftover wood and set them up on our lawn. I don't like them, especially after my diabetes diagnosis. But hey, it's Halloween. Lighten up, Stella.

4. When you have diabetes, you feel guilty passing out candy to little kids.

5. I wish I could do NaNoWriMo but when you work 5 days a week, you don't have time. Anybody participating in this? I really wish I could. it would be a great way for me to force myself through to the end of my novel.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Books Clubs and Reading Quotes

I'm starting something new this year -- book clubs for my fourth, fifth and sixth graders. I've never had time in my schedule until recently. I didn't expect many students to show much interest in a recess reading club but, with the encouragement of the teachers, the kids have been signing up. So, I am excited at the prospect of introducing them to some really cool books.

Here are a few of the titles I'm considering.

The Magic Thief, by Sarah Prineas
Rules, by Cynthia Lord
No Talking, by Andrew Clements
The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall
Replay, by Sharon Creech
The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt
The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
Hugging the Rock, by Susan Taylor Brown
Holes, by Louis Sachar
Crash, by Jerry Spinelli
Autumn Street, by Lois Lowry

I know I need to find more titles for my fourth graders. Maybe Frindle, by Andrew Clements or Fourth Grade Rats, by Jerry Spinelli.

I recently found a good source of decent quotes about reading. I hope to introduce the kids to a new quote each time we meet. Maybe the students can even take turns reading them on the morning announcements. Brainwashing at its best! Here are a few of the quotes I like.

Books....are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em,
then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind,
as evidence of our earlier stages of development. (1928)
~ Dorothy Sayers ~

Read the best books first,
or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
~ Henry David Thoreau ~

Books--the children of the brain.
~ Jonathan Swift ~

A great book should leave you with many
experiences and slightly exhausted at the end.
You should live several lives while reading it.
~ William Styron ~

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
~ Richard Steele ~

The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go.
~ Dr. Seuss ~

Reading makes immigrants of us all.
It takes us away from home, but more important,
it finds homes for us everywhere.
~ Hazel Rochman ~

It is not enough to simply teach children to read;
we have to give them something worth reading.
Something that will stretch their imaginations-
something that will help them make sense of their own lives
and encourage them to reach out toward people
whose lives are quite different from their own.
~ Katherine Paterson ~

Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
Arnold Lobel

Do you have a favorite quote about books or reading? If so, please share it!

Soggy Saturday

My husband ran the Hamptons Marathon the Saturday before last and I wish I had a picture but I don't. He finished in under 4 hours, qualifying for Boston. Yay! It was tough day for him. For one, I couldn't go with him because I was home sick with bronchitis so thankfully my son, Derek, accompanied him. Then, not only was the course grueling, but it rained torrents all morning. Dennis found himself sloshing through puddles, mud, fog and uphill and downhill and into the wind in every direction. Although the conditions weren't pleasant, they certainly made the race a memorable one. Of course, moments after crossing the finish line, the storm blew out over the Atlantic, the sky cleared and the sun came out.

Back home, we had high tides that crept over the bulkheading into our backyard. That's nothing new around here. Above is a picture of a particularly high tide taken after a nor'easter last year. See the mallards swimming in our backyard? Fortunately, the water has never come into our house - just the crawl space (where we have a pump installed).

Over the course of the fall and winter, I expect we'll get hit with a couple more high tides which is why we always keep a pair of waders handy in the front room closet. Living near the water has its down side.

The End of September

I have today and tomorrow off work (Rosh Hoshannna). So, today I ran some errands. Then, I cleaned my nightstand of its cache of "stuff" - mostly back issues of School Library Journal, American Artist and Writer magazine. I found weird things in there, like a bag of pretty, smooth stones from Lake Michigan (I had considered doing a still life with them), some furry little bears from a side trip to the Vermont Teddy Bear factory one February (we went there to ski and it rained), books that people gave me as gifts but that I didn't like yet felt guilty discarding, an assortment of bookmarks, pens, ideas for stories that looked as though I'd jotted them down in the middle of the night (and probably had). I sat on my bedroom floor for two hours sorting through all that stuff. Now I have a box of donations.

This afternoon I ventured out in the backyard to cut back my daisies and settle into some serious weeding. I filled up two lawn and leaf bags with cuttings and weeds. I plan to spend a few more hours out there tomorrow, pulling up more weeds. These past few years, my garden has been plagued by some obnoxious, viney thing with purple flowers that entwines itself around everything. It smothers the life out of its victims.

So, tonight I'm relaxing. I've been reading Donald Maas's book, Writing the Breakout Novel, and it's taking me ages to get through. He makes many good points but, still, it's a little overwhelming and is going to take some time to soak in. Like maybe years. Or a decade.

At work, my new books have arrived at my main school. Yay! I've been having fun reading all the new picture books. I always read every single one of those. Some of the new nonfiction is so stunning - Nic Bishop's Frogs, Nic Bishop's Spiders, Living Color (by Steve Jenkins), Families (by Susan Kuklin). And of course I can't wait to read some of the new fiction.

For me, the end of this September is filled with the chirpy song of crickets, with the color of leaves changing from green to yellow, orange and crimson, with the sad yet joyful knowledge that my children aren't mine anymore. As I sit here writing, my oldest is out hiking part of the Long Trail in Vermont with some friends and my youngest has finally moved into his own place in Long Beach where he's busy carving out his own life. I applaud that, yet still I miss the days when we were all here together, curled up snug and warm. I miss reading my boys their bedtime story, attending their concerts, their soccer games and Boy Scout meetings, their music lessons and concerts. For a while I truly believed I was raising two aspiring musicians -- one a violinist and the other a cellist.

For me, September is a wistful time of inevitable transitions. This year is no exception.

Five Things On A Friday

1. Colds suck, even when you're home with a cup of hot tea, your computer on your lap and away from your day job. This is second day I've kept myself home from work with this nasty thing. Achoo!

2. Boxes of new books are one of the best parts of being a librarian. I got to spend a little more on new books this year (hooray!). Still, it's not enough. Among my new acquisitions are Living Color, by Steve Jenkins; The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt; Shooting the Moon, by Francis Dowell; Frankie Stein, by Lola Schafer; Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney; The Percy Jackson series, by Rick Riordan; The Arrival, by Shawn Tan, The Magic Thief, by Sarah Prineas, and many others. Lots of great nonfiction and poetry, too. It's like Christmas.

3. My youngest finally moved into his own place in Long Beach - a mere 15 minutes from work. Actually, he's sharing a house with 2 friends. They have little furniture (that will happen in time) and he's very excited about having a real job with benefits and living independently. We are too!

4. Tomorrow my husband is running the Hamptons Marathon out in East Hampton. He's been training for it for months. Unfortunately, the forecast is rain. Ugh. We hope it's gone by the time of the race. His goal is to run it under 4 hours so he can qualify for Boston. Go Dennis!

5. I sold an article to the SCBWI Bulletin in July. Don't think I ever posted this bit of news, though. It will be published sometime in the future (as opposed to the past?). No saying when. I hope it's within the year.

September 11th, Remembered

So, here it's been 7 years since that awful day when our country was attacked by terrorists and somehow hearing about it all over again still tears a hole in my heart.

I read the book, Fireboat, by Maira Kalman, to my 4th graders today and, even though I thought I was well over this event, I found myself choking back tears as I read the story. The kids looked at me, wonderingly. I thought of David from my art class who lost both of his daughters. They worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. I thought of Stephanie, a young woman who babysat for our boys when they were young. She lost her husband that day and she still hasn't remarried. I thought of all the people whose names I can't remember, people lost in the rubble, reduced to bits of flesh and bone found by the cadaver police dogs or haphazardly by firefighters, EMTS or others. I thought of the signs draped over the parkways that day and in the weeks afterward when the normally jam-packed roads were nearly empty. "Pray for the Missing EMTS". "Pray for the Missing Firefighters". And then "David, Come Home". That one got me. I also thought of all the little kids in the neighborhood selling lemonade and trying to help, in some small way, to raise money for the families of the victims. It was both sweet and sad. All those images crowded my mind as I read the story of the fireboat, the John J. Harvey.

Sometimes I want to forget this day ever happened. Like the day Kennedy or Martin Luther King was assassinated, somehow I can't. It's just as important to remember the sad memories as it is the good. They're all part of being human.