countdown

Counting down the days until I leave for Vermont College: 11 more days.

Number of readings completed: 2

Things lost that I know I'll need to pack: 1 pair of heavy gloves.
Things lost that I don't know I've lost: ???

Things to do before I go: (an uncountable number)
Wish me luck.
-wendieO

It's a ... BookTree!

The minute I saw this BookTree at Betsy Bird's Blog, I knew I had to borrow it.
A lot of libraries are getting rid of their reference books and going for databases. Now I know what they're doing with their old, no longer used, reference books.

Question --
Can you Identify any of these books?
I'd swear that I know what that green series is, but the name doesn't popup in my mind.
-wendieO

Christmas Day

Hope your day was happy, healthy and stress-free.

counting the days

One more day = tomorrow is Christmas Eve. (Do we have enough little treasures to stuff stockings?)
Two more days = Christmas Day. Ummmmm, Roast Beast, etc.

Eight more days = New year's Eve
Ka-Pow = The year 2011 begins.

Seventeen more days = I fly to Vermont College and the Residency begins.
A little over two weeks. (I thought it was three weeks, but NO.)
Yikes!
I still have all that assigned reading to do beforehand.
And the workshop booklet.
Double yikes! All 186 pages of it.

I think I know what I'll be doing New Year's Eve -- reading.
-wendieO

Names

You'll never guess what happened today with my name.

Sometimes I need to move money from the Credit Union to our household checking account.
So, I go to the Credit union and make a withdrawal. My husband's name is the first name on the account, so I have to put his name and then me as co-owner of the account on the Withdrawal slip.

"Would you like that check in Your name?" the cashier asks.
"yes." sez me.
After a few minutes she hands me a check.
The check is made out to my husband's name.

I hand it back. "That's my husband's name. You asked if I wanted my name on it."
So she deposits the amount of that check back into our savings and cuts a new check, to -- you guessed it -- Wendy Old.
By this time I'm a little ticked off with her.
I hand it back. "That's not my name, either."
I show her my driver's license, Wendie Old.

She cuts a new check, and hands me back a balance receipt with double the amount subtracted from our account.
She had forgotten to deposit the amount of the check back into our account and had simply cut another check from the account.

Several more calculations later, I walk out of the Credit Union with the correct check and the correct amount deducted from our savings.
(at least I hope everything is correct.)

At times I hate my parents for giving me such a strange spelling of this name.
-wendieO

Light and Darkness 2

So, here we are.
December 21st -- the shortest day of the year.
(the longest night of the year)

The full eclipse of the moon happened early this morning on the east coast, around 2 am. Did anybody see it? Not me. I was sound asleep. But the full moon was very, very bright in the early evening.
Large and bright.
Which means, when it was eclipsed, darkness took over for a few moments.
Light and Dark.
The theme of these Solstice days.

I don't know about you, but I'm READY for the days to get longer.
And beginning tomorrow, they will.
(I'm also ready for days to get warmer, but that's not gonna happen for a while.)
-wendieO

Light and darkness

Soon we'll have the darkest, the shortest day of the year.
December 21st.
This is the time of the year when light and the promise of more light to come becomes very important to our lives.

We huddle around our fires.
or woodstoves.
or electric heaters.
Fully aware that winter won't be over when the days begin getting longer. It will be just beginning. But we'll have hope, because we'll have more LIGHT.


Once Darkness falls, we turn on artificial light to keep us going.
This light doesn't just shine down on us.
It's a globe light.
It also shines up into space.


But lights from space also shine down upon us in wintertime.
The Northern Lights!
(Which we can't see here in Maryland, but we certainly do enjoy seeing pictures of them shining in Alaska.)

Yes, the shortest, darkest day is coming, but fear not -- Light will come back.
-wendieO

Hanukkah fun fact

Hanukkah is over.

So, there I was, putting away the Hanukkah books at my library, when I discovered this Fun Fact in the book Eight Lights for Eight Nights, a Hanukkah story and Activity Book by Debbie Herman and Ann Koffsky:

In 1997, astronaut David Wolf celebrated Hanukkah in outer space. His dreidel spun and spun for an hour and a half! It could have been even longer, but it got lost. They finally found it -- caught in an air filter!
-wendieO

Nonfiction Monday

Friday the 13th came on a Monday this month and I didn't find any easy reading nonfiction goodies on our new book shelf at the library.
But you can get your fresh baked Nonfiction Monday blog posts right here at the Books Together blog.

Call your local helpful librarian

So -- How many of you were yelling at your television sets during The Amazing Race final, "Find a Los Angeles Library. Go to the library. THEY have computers with internet. Librarians know how to find the answers to those clues. And they do it for free!"

None of the groups even thought of calling the library for help. Sad.
-wendieO

Santa Brunch

Today the Woman's Club of Joppatowne held their Brunch with Santa at our library.
It's a joint project. We handle the publicity, the registration and the tickets.
They supply the 'brunch' and the Santa. And the presents for the kids who attend.

I do a short Seasonal storytime complete with some activity that the kids 'help.'
This time they helped me sing Jingle Bells, while they shook wristbands of jingle bells and I showed a pop-up version of the song.

My theme this year was "The Night Before Christmas."
I read What Santa Can't Do, and one up-to-date Night Before Christmas. (The illustrator had put Santa into aviator goggles.) Showed a few other versions, including the Robert Sabuda papercut version.
A favorite part of this program is a visit from Maynard Moose who tells the story of The Night Before KissMoose. (Actually Willy Claflin's voice on a tape in a tape player at my feet.) The Moose puppet (2 and a half feet long) does this about every third year.

One of these days, I'm going to have to go to the link above and buy the CD of Willy Claflin and Friends so that I can play this piece on our CD player.

For the past few years, a REAL Santa's helper has come to be the Santa at this program -- real beard and all.

I've been doing this for 11 years now. To get a peek at the various themes I tend to use, follow this link to my 2009 post, and then follow the links there to previous years.
-wendieO

The Wright Brothers Fly again

Mary Ann Dames is featuring my book, To Fly, The Story of the Wright Brothers, on her blog, Reading, Writing, and Recipes, this week.

Nice job, Mary Ann.
-wendieO

Two celebrations in early December

Two celebrations this weekend:

1 -- The 10 year old has turned 11.

2 -- Jane Yolen celebrates the publication of her 300th book. (announced on NPR radio, for heavens sake!)
Just click on the link. Unfortunately, the link will probably only be live for a couple of days.

-wendieO

Choose a Winner

The Newbery has been announced.
The Caldecott has been announced.
In fact, every ALA award winner can be found in this list of 100 Magnificent Children's Books on Betsy Bird's blog today.

The only problem?

You have to figure out which one of these wonderful books will be the award winners. (to be announced in January)
Your choice.
I'm sure that one of these WILL be the winners, or at least one of the honor books.

However, if you don't agree -- or have other titles to suggest, well then, just click on over to her blog and add your favorite in the comments.
-wendieO