Funny and Yet, Sad Quote

"The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket."

From The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance. Which I have not read but have heard of.

The War of Art is a great little book, each page is short but packs a punch. The first part is about resistance, and it's written in a way that makes it easy to see, and laugh about, the ways I sabotage my own efforts at success. This quote is from the page about how others can work to keep you down (so they feel better about their ow inability to overcome resistance and move forward).

The link above is my Amazon affiliate link to the book, but I'd recommend you pick it up anywhere you happen to be!

Happy Bring a Book to Bed Day!

My friend Alba founded this fun mid-winter holiday three years ago: Bring a Book to Bed Day, the last Saturday of February.

This year, it was easy to comply ... as Husband and I are not watching TV for Lent, we are reading more books.

Here we all are:

I am reading the latest Sue Grafton book,
U is for Undertow. I get the hardcovers for Christmas!

Husband is reading Pawn of Prophecy.
He says it's a slow starter, that nothing has
happened yet in the first 30 pages.

And, DuckyBoy and I are reading a few things at once:

At bedtime I've been reading him Beverly Cleary's
The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and
he loves to read his Complete Official Guide to Club Penguin
over and over. Here he's reading it with his purple Puffle, Yoyo.

Annd, Haiku Friday Sneaks Up on Me Again!

Really no excuse
for forgetting this again ...
what is my deal here?

With a little help from DayQuil to control the cough I woke up with, I had a great time in the school library today. Each month DB's school features a different book that inspires discussion and projects. We moved the "bucket drops" from the October book-of-the-month, How Full Is Your Bucket, to a different wall, then made a new display of vegetable soup inspired by the November BOTM, Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen.

We also have to add something new from now on-- the librarian said the principal told her to add a "Task sheet," describing what the kids did for each project and why, like this: "Using crayons, K and 1st-grade students decorated foods inspired by Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen, including onions, carrots, string beans, noodles, tomatoes, potatoes, cheese and bread."

It was fun to write them up and make those pages fit the theme of each display, and I also think they help make the projects look more "official," instead of purely "for-fun."

Next week we're going to decorate mittens and hats and read the book Caps, Hats, Socks and Mittens. Guess who's bringing the craft? Bring it on!!

Would you like to haiku today? To participate in Haiku Friday, just follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. It or they can be part or all of your post, but your post must include a haiku. What's a haiku, you ask? Hint: 5-7-5. More info: Click here. Or here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON'T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Please leave a comment after linking, thanks! (Eventually the Mr Linky links go away, I think, so they only way we'll find you in the future is via your comment.)

4. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top of this post.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will carry on the esteemed tradition of deleting any links without haiku!

INSERT MISTER LINKY LINK HERE

Princesses on the Brain

After we filled in as much of our Transformers alphabet as we could last weekend, DuckyBoy told me I had to write my own "Alphabet of Princesses" since I am the girl.

At first I thought, There aren't that many Disney princesses yet... but then I thought, It's not such a bad idea. The Disney helpless lasses could be mixed in a book with real-life strong women, like Queen Elizabeth (both of 'em) and Princess Di, who had a fairy-tale life to some extent but found strength to follow her own pursuits.

My approach to learning is to meet the kids where they're at -- DB and I have been translating Bible stories into Transformer stories lately, and boy did the Good Samaritan rock his world!) -- so it might give the K and 1st grade girls something a little more substantial to read, a little non-fiction princess action!

Then a few days ago I got a Tweet from @AmandaSteinberg with a USA Today blog post called "The Princess Problem," talking about how too much Princess might, and this is just one blogger's opinion now, and I'm paraphrasing, make young women more passive about our lives instead of expecting to take charge of our own destiny.

Interesting. I think a non-fiction, easy-reader book could help with that! (Am I writing a blog post here or a query?)

Plus all the little-girl modern princesses could be mentioned too, 'cause it's kinda neat that there still are princesses in the world.

Anybody have a favorite historical princess they'd like featured?

Bring a Book to Bed Day

Herewith, our participation in Bring a Book to Bed Day! At bedtime we are currently reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

We're on our way through Little House in the Big Woods for the second time, and here DB is posing with Farmer Boy, and we've also started -- but have returned to the library for now -- By the Shores of Silver Lake.

For the record, DB is only pretending to read this book. He's a good reader, but these are still text heavy for him.

Library Fun Haiku

Cutting out snowmen
all day in the library,
things we do for kids!

I like library
at DB's school, it's more like
craft time for me.

Nervous to start with
Feared I didn't know enough
but it's really fun.

Feel free to find other haikus at Christina's blog

Dr Seuss Day

Today parents were invited to come into DuckyBoy's school and read Dr. Seuss books to the students, in as many classes as you felt comfortable with (15-minute increments, up to 4 classes).

Now, I really like to read, so I went. I should simply feel like did a good thing. yet I still feel like I shoulda done better (as my coach likes to say, "We're shoulding on ourselves again...") *Sigh.*

I just wish I wasn't the first reader in DuckyBoy's class. I would have picked a different, shorter book. I didn't know what to expect! For the second class I read to, I picked a shorter book and there was more time for discussion. I read that same shorter book to class #3 and they liked it so much they wanted an encore! (Their teacher said no.)

I also wish I'd known I could bring in my own books instead of having to choose from the ones left in the library by the time I got there. Or even that I could choose one in each classroom.

I get so ashamed that Someone will find out I don't know, that I just pick something and do something and it's not always the best choice.

I did last week try to ask who picked the books, but didn't get an answer. I only asked one person though. I could have taken in books and simply not read them if the books were preselected, but I was embarrassed. They might laugh at me if I do it wrong.

I think I have unresolved shame issues with school, don't you?

I had a good time. I just wish I could do it over again. I hate when I feel this so strongly over an issue so small. I hope DuckyBoy enjoyed having me there. He seemed to enjoy the book I read -- in fact he seemed more into it than his classmates -- so it's probably fine. I hope I do alright at not letting how I feel about the way the morning went color how he feels about it -- after all, it's not even about me, it's about him.

Updated to add: DuckyBoy did enjoy having me there. He told me as he got off the bus (always an interesting indication of what's on his mind, as he's been sitting and staring for about an hour), "You were the first reader in our room." Hopefully he meant that as a good thing, haha -- it seemed so.

He also remembered the part of the book I read that reminded him (us) of another Dr. Seuss book. The one I read, Scrambled Eggs Super!, had one page where the name of the creature rhymes with where it lives and another critter lives in almost the same place with a different name and it's hard to tell them apart --the Chiffs live on cliffs and the Chags live on crags, something like that. It reminded him of a page in one of the Dr Seuss books we own wherein a similar problem occurs. It's that "making connections thing."