Thursday Miscellany

* I am exhausted. Second and fourth Thursdays—American Heritage Girls meetings—are like that. But in spite of the long, chaotic day in which I talk to lots and lots and lots of people, I love AHG days. Those faces! Those sweet little girl faces and the beautiful big girl faces. I love them all so much.

* I came home to a noisy house but there was pizza. And soon the two noisiest (Jesse and his friend), cleared out for Boy Scouts, and now my house is so quiet.

* I also came home to a box from Land's End with my new swimsuit in it. And guess what? It fit, even after two slices of pizza! They have loads of swimsuits on clearance right now, by the way.

* I am touched and heartened by the outpouring of financial help for Haiti that is being talked about on blogs, various yahoogroups, and Facebook. So many good places to give—and people are really doing it, not just talking about it. Did you see that Pioneer Woman is holding a contest? She'll donate a total of $1000 to the charity of the winners' choices for Haitian aid. That is phenomenal.

* I'm looking forward to World Lit and Geography tomorrow. The kids are all bringing in various types of Asian food, and we're having a wonderful speaker.

* But tonight, I need to take my contacts out, put on my favorite black lounge pants, and lounge.
What's your favorite lounging attire?

Wordless Wednesday: Pink Chucks

Call me crazy, but I think 12-year-old feet are just as cute as baby feet. Seriously, the green/red argyle with the pink shoes? You can't get much cuter than that. For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

New on the Menu

I've been having that "I'm tired of all my recipes" experience lately, so I've been searching for new ones and experimenting on my family. They are pretty honest about telling me if a recipe should become part of our "What's for Supper" list or if it should be tossed.

Probably everyone's favorite new addition is Marci's Tortellini Chowder. I'm telling you, this is absolutely fantastic. I crave it. In fact, I want some right now, and I just finished eating. (An added benefit of this recipe is that, if you have a child who doesn't eat soup, you can just give him a bowl of the tortellini.) Do yourself a favor and make it this week!

Pioneer Woman's Ranch Style Chicken was a huge hit this week. I put these on hoagies, and everyone loved them. This is getting added to The List.

I made the Mexican Lasagna from Pioneer Woman tonight. It was well received but not gushed over, and this makes a huge casserole, even though I halved the recipe. Or maybe even thirded it, or however you would say that. Anyway, it made a very full 9 X 9 pan, which is way too much for a family of 5 that doesn't do well eating leftovers.*

I also made Taco Soup from Tasty Kitchen, Pioneer Woman's cooking site. Three of us loved it, although I'd replace the hominy with white corn next time and the ground beef with ground turkey (Jesse doesn't eat red meat) next time around.

I have a few more new recipes to try in the upcoming week, along with a couple of old favorites, like Indian Chicken and lentils. This week we'll be trying Tomato Chipotle Soup, Arroz con Pollo Soup, and Greek Pasta Bake. I hope my family still loves me after all this new recipe frenzy.

In other kitchen news, Randy replaced our leaky kitchen faucet with a shiny new one!

What's happening in your kitchens this week? Got any fabulous recipes to share? There are bazillions of ideas at Menu Plan Monday each week.

*A note on leftovers: I alone in our family absolutely love leftovers; however, I seldom eat them for lunch because our suppers are nearly always our big calorie meal. Unfortunately, I am in my 40s. 'Nuff said about that.

SmallWorld's WordSmithery: Form Poetry

It's time for another WordSmithery lesson!

If you are brand new here, I recommend that you go back and start at the beginning. My goal with the WordSmithery is to make creative writing exciting for writers of all ages. Here's what we've covered so far:

Lesson #1: Introduction and Journals
Lesson #2: Introduction to Creative Writing, Featuring Good Words
Lesson #3: Using Powerful Words to Create More Interesting Writing
Lesson #4: Similes
Lesson #5: Metaphors and Strong Verbs
Lesson #6: Alliteration and Spring Flowers (or Fall Leaves)

Lesson #7: Writing About the Weather

I also have a place for you to share your kids' writing and read other kids' writing to your children: Share Your Writing! I encourage you to share there or link back to your own blog. My kids love to read what your kids have written!

One more thing: if you are enjoying SmallWorld's WordSmithery, help me spread the word by copying the button on my sidebar and putting it on your own! Thanks!

And now for Lesson #8: Form Poetry. As always, this lesson is loosely scripted. You might eliminate some things or add others as you go.

As you know if you are a regular here, I try to put the "speaking" parts in regular type and the answers in italics. And remember: parents/teacher: you should be doing the assignments, too! Go back and read the first couple of lessons to find out why. Here we go!

Lesson 8: Form Poetry

We’re going to look at some form poems this week. Most poets do not use form poetry, but some write only in form poetry. What do I mean by form poetry? Poetry that follows a particular pattern. Do you know the names of any forms? (Cinquain, haiku, tanka, couplet, ode, limerick, sonnet, ballad, senryu, tanka, etc.)

Here are a few patterns for form poetry and a sample of each on. (Try out each one on the board as you go.)

Cinquain

Title

Line 1: One word (noun or name)

Line 2: Two adjectives describing Line 1

Line 3: Three verbs telling what Line 1 does

Line 4: Four words telling more about Line 1

Line 5: Word that means the same as Line 1

Frosty

White, cold

Sitting, smiling, melting

On the snowy hillside

Snowman.

Haiku

Title

Line 1: five syllables

Line 2: seven syllables

Line 3: five syllables

Reaching to lilacs

Memories of a backyard

Spring sun warms my neck.

Lovely butterfly

Fluttering above the earth

How fragile you are.

Tanka

Line 1: Five syllables

Line 2: Seven syllables

Line 3: Five syllables

Line 4: Seven Syllables

Line 5: Seven Syllables

This brittle winter

Trees stand stark as old soldiers

Determined and glum

Embarrassed to be caught stripped

Of their summer uniforms.

Couplet

Line 1: Begin with descriptive word and add two items that fit description

Line 2: Something that rhymes with Line 1.

Little daffodil, popping up its yellow head,

Better hide from the snow or it will soon be dead.

(You can put lots of couplets together, and they can be a long poem.)

Limerick

Line 1: Three accented syllables

Line 2: Three accented syllables; rhyme with Line 1

Line 3: Two accented syllables

Line 4: Two accented syllables; rhyme with Line 3

Line 5: Three accented syllables; rhyme with Line 1

There was a young man from Alcoa

Whose best friend was a six-foot boa.

It never did bite

But it hugged him so tight

That the young man is now no mo-ah.

Ode

A poem in honor of someone or something very important to you.

Ode to My Favorite Jeans

Oh, my lovely blue jeans!

How happy I am when you are clean

Folded soft and smooth at the top

Of the laundry basket,

Waiting for me to wear you.

Write some of the above poems together, and then read some poems together. Giggle Poetry has perhaps hundreds of poems that kids will love, from food poems to mushy poems to scary ones. Here are some limericks created by kids (carefully screen any limerick sites—sometimes limericks can be a little racy!), and the Children's Haiku Garden has loads of haiku written by both Japanese and American kids. For a great book of limericks for kids, I recommend John Ciardi's The Hopeful Trout.

Journal Writings, Week 8

(Refer to the poetry patterns in Lesson 8)

Day 1:

Write an ode to a stuffy or runny nose.

[For example: Oh, stuffy nose, how I long to relieve you of your disease! How I wish to give you one good blow and suddenly free you! But stuffy nose, you continue to plague me, wear me down, torture me. Free me, oh nose!]

Day 2

Write 4 couplets about your favorite animal.

[For example:

A koala looks so very sweet

From his fuzzy head to his sharp-clawed feet. ]

Day 3

Write a haiku about whatever month it is.

[For example:

March comes in chilly

and grows warm in the middle.

Bringing greens and blues.

Day 4:

Write an exaggeration that begins: One time I was SO cold…

[For example: One time I was SO cold that my arms turned to popsicles and my brains froze into a solid block of ice.]

Day 5:

Describe a perfect winter day.

All material on the page copyright 2009-10, Sarah Small.

Snow Day!

Hope you had one, too!

Snow and Other Miscellany

* It is a very, very exciting event to have snow here outside Knoxville, Tennessee. We have about an inch of the beautiful stuff and perhaps a bit more will fall. The kids are going to go sledding at my parents' tomorrow. Since our one sled that we brought with us from Iowa broke two years ago, they think they will be sledding on cardboard. What they don't know is that my smart parents went out and bought sleds a month ago, so yay!

* I have lived here for 10 years. I barely scoff at an inch of snow anymore; instead, I've learned to take joy in what little we get. I hardly even scoff at Tennessee drivers. Tonight Jesse was out driving and said the road were truly terrible. I was terribly thankful that he made it home without incident, being, well, a bona fide Tennessee driver.

* Here's a new one in the life of a homeschooling mom: Duncan came to me around 3:30 today and said, "Hey, we never did math today!" He ran to get his math book and brought it to me. Pretty much I bet that is a unique experience.

* My parents, brother, and sister-in-law came over for dinner tonight, which inspired me to not only take down the rest of the Christmas decorations but also mostly replace the "regular" decor. Except that I can't remember what used to be where exactly, and my walls look really blank in the dining room. I have never gotten around to putting up pictures after I painted last summer…

* Jesse got a drum set—a big one—for Christmas, and he and his friend have been having such a great time playing. I can't even explain what a fantastic experience it was to hear the sounds of "Freebird" drifting down the stairs from their music room this evening.

* My couch and book (Chris Bohjalian, The Buffalo Soldier) are beckoning.

And, by the way, black, Facebook friends.

Wordless Wednesday: Mom, Playing Piano

Seeing my mom sitting at a piano just seems right. I'm so glad my Dad got her one for Christmas. For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Tuesday Miscellany

* I liked today. I was so distraught to find out last night that Laurel had an orthodontist appointment at 9:30 a.m. today, which would mean leaving at a heinous 9 a.m. on a really cold morning. (I know, I know: homeschoolers are total morning-out-and-about wimps.) But it really wasn't horrible (other than the $185) and we were home by 10:15.

* This was our first day back since who can even remember in December, and we got to start back with one of my favorite books, Cheaper by the Dozen. I read it aloud many years ago when Jesse was in 5th grade, and it was a highlight of the reading year. This time, however, we have this awesome study guide, written by my friend Kristina, to go along with the book. I've been awaiting the day when we get to re-read this book so that I could use the study guide, so I'm way excited!

* Jesse got the official word today that he's been accepted to Belmont University, his first choice. Yay for him! I'm so happy for him. And grateful on sooooo many levels. Now we just have to wait a couple of months to hear about scholarships…

* I made this taco soup recipe tonight. It was yummy, but Laurel disliked the hominy. Duncan and Jesse find anything resembling chili to be repulsive, so they ate fishsticks. I'm all about well-rounded meals around here.

* We had our first real event of the new year tonight: the monthly Cub Scout pack meeting. For one of the games, the boys got to mummify one of their parents with toilet paper. The boys thought that was the best game ever. They have an awesome Cubmaster who comes up with really good games. (I'm partial to him, as well.)

* I am still working on putting away Christmas decorations. My house is looking sadder and sadder as the green and red disappears. Makes me want to go buy all new stuff.

* But, there was that $185 at the orthodontist today.

Hope you all had a good day!

Monday Memory: 2009, a Retrospective

You know what? I'm glad this past year is over. It was a hard year in many respects.

A year ago tomorrow, Dee Ann died of leukemia that she didn't even know she had. She was a distant cousin of mine and a friend from college. To say "friend from college" sounds trivial, but when you go to a very small private college, the word "friend" carries great strength and shared memories. And just a month later, another college classmate took his own life. There was such an outpouring of weeping and grief for this man, who always yelled a friendly greeting across campus and made people laugh. And sometime in between Dee Ann and Mike, Randy's biological dad passed away. I don't know the date. It was a quiet passing sometime in the winter. Randy traveled to Illinois for the funeral. They weren't close; Randy had been raised by his adopted father. But another leaving feels lonely and sad.

Lonely and sad. I would be lying if I said I weren't lonely and sad because of a long-time friendship that has fallen apart this past year. And I, I who have taken such pride (yes, I said pride) in my longstanding habit of not holding grudges, am nurturing a grudge. I am seeking more earnestly than ever an understanding of the concept of forgiveness. Forgive and forget, forgive and forget: for perhaps the first time in my life, I watch the two in an enigmatic dance and ponder joining.

This fallen friendship has made me cautious. Because one of my faults is that I failed to read between the lines—to grasp the hidden meaning of actions or non-actions—I find myself, well, questioning my relationships with other people. What signs am I not following? Did I miss an important signal in her body language? Are they talking about me?

Aaah, what a tangled web. My greatest desire this year, I think, has been for honest communication. Gotta problem with me? Please. Tell me now. I can't bear the suspense, and I probably don't understand the rules to your game. I need the directions, spelled out clearly and sensibly.

Honest communication. This spring some of our friends went through a trial of tremendous proportions. We cried with them, prayed for them, ached for them, and cheered for them. And loved them, nonstop and without conditions. Someday, I know, my writer friend will put it all in words.

Tangled webs. Late this summer we had to navigate through a tangled web of lies and manipulation, spun by someone who was supposed to be a role model. My husband is a kind, gentle man who has tremendous tolerance, even for fools. But this foolish man sent us into a tailspin that swallowed our time and energy. Cleaning up after him was exhausting, and yet there is a certain joy that comes with saying good riddance to such toxicity. A palpable freedom when the sore spot is gone. Still, those weeks were draining, and our hearts were heavy at seeing mean-spiritedness in action.

Heavy hearts. This August my parents sold their house in upstate New York, where I grew up. Though I did most of my grieving the year before, it was still hard, so hard, to say goodbye to this house. After the kids and I visited as we have every summer for years, this year, after weeping, I took a deep breath and drove away.

Those were the hard things. Those were the things that contributed to my spending this past year feeling slightly out of sorts, sort of not myself. Learning grown-up lessons and facing my own frailties.

But there was good, too. My family is strong and healthy. We laugh a lot and take joy in each other and the good, fresh mountain air and a home complete with much, much more than we need. My firstborn turned 16, finished his Eagle Scout project, went to Philmont Scout Ranch and hiked 75 miles, and got his driver's license. And applied for colleges. Randy and I celebrated our 20-year anniversary in a blissful getaway weekend with an amazing hike. And a hot tub.

We got to spend a weekend in the mountains with some dear, dear friends of ours. My parents moved just a mile down the road, and I can see their precious faces every single day. My sweet friend had a long-awaited baby boy. I got to go to my 25-year high school reunion and reconnect with friends I haven't seen in nearly that long. One of the best parts of the reunion was meeting again as adults and finding that some of the people I most related to are ones that I barely knew in high school. And that my best friend from high school was still my best friend from high school.

It wasn't a bad year; but it was a year heavy with outside clutter and aching, and I'm glad to see it go. This year there will be more hikes, more board games, more quiet evenings at home, more laughter, and much, much less drama. This year our oldest will graduate and go to college. My daughter will grow as tall as I am. My youngest will lose his babyish "r" and "w" sounds. This year when the dogwoods and redbuds are flowering, we'll drive my parents up to the mountains, because they'll only be a minute down the road.

This year—I know, I can feel it—the joys will be far more memorable than the sadnesses. It's a brand new decade, after all.

2009 Books Read and Reviewed

For those of you who are faithful readers of both my blogs, I apologize for this duplicate post. But some of you may not know that I carry on another life on my reading blog, SmallWorld Reads. And today I finished a most satisfying task: compiling my list of my Top 10 Favorite Books of the year. Click that link to go to my reading blog, or read on below. I hope you add some of my favorites to your own TBR lists, if you haven't read them already!

I read 65 books in 2009, including 20 children's or young adult chapter books (I didn't include history books, picture books, etc.) that I either read to my kids or taught in various co-op classes.

It was a good year for reading, although I was often frustrated with myself for failing to read faster. I fell asleep too frequently during my allotted before-bed reading time. Someday I will again be a person who reads during the day, but for this season of my life, I must be content with my bedtime reading.

And so, out of those 45 "adult" books read, here are my favorites:

The Top 10

Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese)
Day After Night (Anita Diamant)
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Shaffer and Barrows)
Other Side of the Bridge, The (Mary Lawson)
People of the Book (Geraldine Brooks)
Road, The (Cormac McCarthy)
Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)
Skeletons at the Feast (Chris Bohjalian)
Prayers for Sale (Sandra Dallas)

It was hard for me to narrow this down. I had about eight other contenders for the Top 10 list, but I'm sticking with the list above. These are books that are especially memorable to me. They were well-written, poignant, and captured my attention and imagination more than the others.

And for my number one favorite novel of the year: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. Part of the draw for me is the "sweeping epic" aspect of this novel. I love "sweeping epics" that span generations. A book like this gives me that sense of closure. Nearly all my questions as a reader were answered; the prose was perfect; and I felt truly satisfied upon finishing the novel.

Below are my two lists. Click on the titles for my reviews of nearly all these books. (A few of the children's books didn't get reviewed.) If the book as one or two asterisks** by the title, I can't really recommend it with any sort of enthusiasm.

The Whole List of Books Read in 2009

• All Good Gifts (Kathleen Morgan)*
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie)****
• Bonesetter's Daughter (Amy Tan)****
• Bookseller of Kabul (Asne Seierstad)***
• Breaking Dawn (Stephanie Meyer)***
• Buster Midnight's Cafe (Sandra Dallas)***
• Chocolat (Joanne Harris) **
• Conversations with a Fat Girl (Liz Palmer)****
• Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)*****
• Cowboy and Wills (Monica Holloway)***
• Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese)*****
• Dancing Under the Red Star (Karl Tobien)****
• Day After Night (Anita Diamant)****
• Dedication (McLaughlin and Kraus)***
• Dogs of Babel (Carolyn Parkhurst)***
• Eclipse (Stephanie Meyer)***
• Epileptic Vol. 1 (David B.)***
• Funny in Farsi (Firoozeh Dumas)****
• Girl from Yamhill (Beverly Cleary)****
• Good Earth, The (Pearl S. Buck)****
• Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Shaffer and Barrows)*****
• Her Fearful Symmetry (Audrey Niffenegger)****
  
• House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende)***
• House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros)****
• Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain) *
• Lacuna, The (Barbara Kingsolver)***
• Made in the U.S.A. (Billie Letts)*
• New Moon (Stephanie Meyer)***
• New Stories from the South, 2009 (ed. JJ Packer)**
• Other Side of the Bridge, The (Mary Lawson)*****
• Outcast, The (Sadie Jones)***
• Paula (Isabel Allende)****
• People of the Book (Geraldine Brooks)****
• Persepolis 1: The Story of a Childhood (Marjane Satrapi)*****
• Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (Marjane Satrapi)****
• Persian Pickle Club (Sandra Dallas)***
• Prayers for Sale (Sandra Dallas)****
• Raisin in the Sun vy Lorraine Hansberry****
  
• Road, The (Cormac McCarthy)*****
• Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)*****
• Secret to True Happiness, The (Joyce Meyers)***
• Short Guide to a Happy Life (Anna Quindlen)**
• Skeletons at the Feast (Chris Bohjalian)****
• Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)*****
• Tramp for the Lord (Corrie ten Boom)***

Children's Chapter & YA Books Read/Taught

Abe Lincoln Grows Up by Carl Sandburg
Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
Bound for Oregon: by Jean van Leeuwen
Boy in the Striped Pajamas (John Boyne)
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
Children of the River (Linda Crew)
The Christmas Doll by Elvira Woodruff
Dear Mr. President: Abraham Lincoln--Letters from a Slave Girl (Andrea D. Pinkey)
Dragon of Trelian by Michelle Knudson
George Washington Carver: From Slave to Scientist by Geoff and Janet Benge
Little Britches by Ralph Moody
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr
Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan
Sounder by William Armstrong
Road to Paris (Nikki Grimes) YA
Sonshine Girls: Summer Secret (Rene Morris)
Stargirl (Jerry Spinelli)
Ties That Bind, Ties That Break (Lensey Namioka)
Wright Brothers by Quentin Reynolds

And there we have a year of reading in my own Small World. I've started 2010 out with a bang, having just finished John Iriving's Late Night in Twisted River. How will the rest of the year measure up?

For more reading lists, check out Semicolon's blog beginning on Saturday, Jan. 2.