McCain’s VP Choice. . .

Want to know my opinion?  My friend, Monda, put it best.  
If you agree with me, spread this image on every website/blog you can!
Bye y’all,
SV

German Rituals: Schultuete

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It’s that time of year again, folks.  Signs are showing up all over the house, backpacks, lunch bags, number two pencils.
Yes, it’s time to go back to school.  This year, I thought I’d share a new ritual I’ve started to ease the transition, one I found in Family Fun magazine but decided to start with [...]

Mama’s Got a New Laptop!

Introducing:  Mama’s teeny, tiny laptop!
 

This  blog entry is being written on the tiniest laptop in the world.
Well,  let’s put it this way, if there are tinier ones out there, I don’t know about them.
For years I have been complaining about the heft of my work laptop/computer.  Honestly, it’s like lugging a VCR—it’s well over 6 [...]

The Creative Family: A Book Review

 
The Creative Family:  A Review
I’ve been a fan of Amanda Blake Soule’s blog, SouleMama, for some time now.  On it she “writes about and photographs her thrifting, crafting and parenting adventures” from her coastal Maine home (got that from the jacket copy).  Last summer she wrote about debuting her book:  The Creative Family:  How to [...]

Let the Boys Write!

 

So, I’m deeping involved in reading a wonderful book called Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices,  by Ralph Fletcher, which in moving toward closing the gender gap that exists between boys and girls in literacy and writing, examines ways in which we can “create writing classrooms that are friendlier to boys.”  And, I just spent all [...]

A Good Day

I spent today with Wendy Bishop. More specifically, I spent today poring over her book, Teaching Lives: Essays and Stories, aka her greatest hits, digging for stuff to flesh out an essay I’m working on about her, for a deadline bearing down on me. Wendy died in 2003 at the age of 50, and though [...]

Creativity for the 21st Century: Got Beijing 2008?

An argument for more arts and creativity education for the 21st Century.
Step 1. Review the opening ceremony. Go to www.nbcolympics.com, scroll down to video, if you need a refresher or didn’t get to see it the first go round.
Step 2. Watch Did You Know? on youtube.
Any questions?
Bye y’all,
SV

The Birth-days and Book-days of August

Dog days, too, but there is much to celebrate in our family in August, as that is when my mother and both my sons were born (my uncle and sister-in-law too, I might add).  Not  surprising when you consider that August has the highest number of births of all the months of the year.  [...]

Wordamour has returned!

I’m back. . .from computer hell of sorts, a period of over one month during which, in the effort to change my template to something more interesting on wordpress, I screwed it up almost beyond recognition. Think black background with red font or, even worse, two templates superimposed, one on the other. Result: [...]