It’s a Love Fest
Featuring all my favorite lovey-dovey pics from peeps I know…
Hannah in England
Will Staney proposing to his wife at a Foster the People concert.
Hubby and Me at a Party
If you don’t think this is sweet, there’s something wrong with you… Emily & Michael.
There we are again… The Klemms 2006
Andrew and Krystal
Valentine’s Book Love Art
If you don’t already, you should really follow Bookshelf Porn on Facebook. Click the image they shared today (Valentine’s 2013) to visit their page.
Valentine’s Day News
Weekly Lo
w Down on Kids Books
Title: Slugs in Love
Author & Illustrator: Susan Pearson and Kevin O’Malley
Join Herbie and MaryLou, two slugs on a farm, in their quest to find each other and true love. They write poetry and love letters back and forth on garden hoes and barn doors, leave messages in strawberry patches and on tomato vines. It’s really cute and a household favorite of ours year round, but is especially wonderful when celebrating Valentine’s Day with small children.
Also, tonight at Half Price Books Humble…
As it is the second Thursday of the month, we’ll be journaling at the table in Metaphysics and Health from 7-9 pm. Bring your love or come alone, either way it should be fun to journal with art together.
Featured on the right is a Valentine’s piece from a journaling/art blog I found today.
If you’re not into journaling, you should still come into HPB Humble before the Valentine’s display comes down. The Store Inventory Merchandiser did a pretty rockin’ job on it:
My Classical Re-Education Part 2
Kiddo and I started the year reading The Confessions over breakfast… we got caught up in The Magic Tree House Adventures and that got put on the back burner, but I intend on putting a good dent in this list this year, so we need to get back on it. Feel free to join me.
The Story of Me: Autobiography and Memoir
PART TWO of The Well-Educated Mind
Augustine – The Confessions
Margery Kempe – The Book of Margery Kempe
Michael de Montaigne – Essays
Teresa of Avila – The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself
Rene Descartes – Meditations
John Bunyan – Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
Mary Rowlandson – The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Confessions
Benjamin Franklin – The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Henry David Thoreau – Walden
Harriet Jacobs – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
Frederick Douglas – Life and Times of Frederick Douglas
Booker T. Washington – Up from Slavery
Friederick Nietzche – Ecce Homo
Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf
Mohandas Gandhi – An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
Gertrude Stein – The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Thomas Merton – The Seven Storey Mountain
C.S. Lewis – Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
Malcolm X – The Autobiography of Malcolm X
May Sarton – Journal of a Solitude
Aleksandr I. Solzhenistyn – The Gulag Archipelago
Richard Rodriguez – Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
Jill Ker Conway – The Road from Coorain
Elie Wiesel – All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs
More Homeschooling with a Toddler – Pirates!
It took longer than expected, but we read through Magic Tree House book #4 Pirates Past Noon
While reading the companion book, kiddo sorted sea shells and counted her treasure…
After that we learned about Vikings and ancient maps… even learned how to spell “Map.”
And that’s what homeschooling a two year old looks like.
Illustrator of Note – Aoristos
Gershom Reese Wetzel (Aoristos) has been a friend of mine for about ten years now. His artwork fills my living room and my husband’s man cave. There’s even a portrait of us hiding in a picture frame somewhere.
So when you go to write a sci fi novel or a children’s Kung Fu series (yes, I have both projects in my back pocket), naturally you ask this guy to cook up some illustrations for you.
Check him out, like him on facebook…
Awesome.
We’re a week away from Valentine’s Day, and normally I am just thankful that I’m not Rosaline from Romeo and Juliet.
This year, though, I wanted to show my appreciation for those of you who read this blog and read my books! No contest, no sign ups, no opting in for anything – none.
If you would like me to mail you a chapbook with my short story “When I Met Crazy in the Morning” and Recipes from Hefner Falls (recipes from the Great Depression), just send me an email (I won’t spam you and I won’t share your email address) – melindamcguirewrites @ yahoo dot com with the subject line “chapbook”. Include your mailing address in the email, and I will mail you the chapbook and a bookmark.
Just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been so supportive. I do…
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Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Green Eggs and Ham
The problem with toddlers, and kids in general, is the second you pin down what they like and don’t like they immediately turn into liars. Coincidentally, my kid did this with the infamous Dr. Seuss title Green Eggs and Ham.
As you probably well know, Green Eggs and Ham is about a guy discrediting something entirely without ever trying it. He insists through the whole book that he doesn’t like Green Eggs and Ham, he won’t like them here or there or anywhere, he’ll never try them because he knows he’ll never like them. Of course, as the twist of fate will have it, to get Sam-I-Am to leave him alone about the matter, he agrees to try them and discovers that low and behold they are GREAT!
That’s kind of how kiddo has been the last week or so about the book. I picked it up thinking, here’s a classic my kid needs, and read it to her (and some other kids) for the first time during Story Time at Half Price Books Humble. In a retail environment you don’t really have the freedom to take full advantage of all the exclamation points, so I bought it and read it to her at home.
Halfway through our first reading at home she said, “No, no mommy, no green eggs and ham. No, no.” She put her hand over the book, shook her head at me, and instantly replaced it with another title. The title she wanted instead was a Max Lucado picture book from the library called One Hand Two Hands
A few days later, it hit me, but not until after second breakfast. At second breakfast, I started reading Green Eggs and Ham, which she insisted I put down. So, I went to pick out a different title and when I did this she protested!
“No, mommy, I like Green Eggs and Ham.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, now I like Green Eggs and Ham. Read.”
Like the star of Dr. Seuss’ little book, Kiddo had to warm up to the idea of Green Eggs and Ham. For whatever reason, when first introduced she was certain she would not like the book. Maybe it seemed to long. Maybe it was too repetitive. Maybe too loud. Who knows, maybe Sam-I-Am just annoyed her with all his persistence. But at the end of second breakfast, after trying to re-read it for over a week, my kiddo decided – finally – that maybe she liked Green Eggs and Ham after all.
Oh Heavenly Days
My post today is supposed to be an update of last night’s book club meeting at Half Price Books in Humble. We discussed Geraldine Brooks’ March, Alcott’s Little Women, Bronson Alcott, Fruitlands, and more. Gigi’s Cupcakes in The Woodlands donated a half dozen cupcakes (which are more like really rich mounds of awesomeness than your typical idea of a cupcake) and mid way through the discussion and a bit of double vanilla icing melting in my mouth, all my very southern self could think was “Oh My Heavenly Days.” The I-literally-feel-like-I-am-in-heaven version of that line, not the rolling of the eyes sarcastic version… you fellow southerners know the very huge difference.
The discussion was awesome. I am quite enjoying this little once a month activity. I love how prepared my gentleman patron comes, with several books and research in tow. I love yacking aimlessly on end about our likes and dislikes and anything about the book that has moved us that much. Add in free cupcakes from GiGi’s and I feel as though we have created a true little slice of heaven tucked away in the corner of Half Price Books.
As far as the discussion of March was concerned, one thing that was agreed upon was the difficulty in reconciling the characters Brook created with the characters we all know and love from Little Women. How did such a hot-headed Marmee become such a controlled and beautifully calm version we read in Alcott’s original work? Things that Brooks clearly well researched don’t mesh with the feel we have for the same history growing up in the States. One thing that stuck out in our minds, as a group, is whether Marmee would have actually gone and stayed under the same roof with the character Grace. What do you think? It’s not too late to join the discussion, leave your thoughts in a comment or come to the meeting next month.
We also agreed on a memorable quote that made an appearance quite early in the novel:
“For to know a man’s library is, in some measure, to know his mind. And this mind was noble in its reach, wide in its interests, discerning in its tastes.” – pg. 18-19
Of course a group of bibliophiles would enjoy that one, of course.
I am still reading Eden’s Outcasts, a book about Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May. I believe I expressed this opinion last night, so I shall re-hash it here, and will probably say it again when I provide an official review of the biography… Bronson Alcott was a weird dude.
Louisa May Alcott’s father was a true transcendentalist, and with that come some shocking beliefs to someone raised as I was. To have your sole guide to life be your own conscious is rather difficult when your conscious moves you to establish a commune with other transcendentalists. Fruitlands became a commune of many differing beliefs and activities that never seemed to find a happy balance. You have one member running the place naked with another member refusing to farm, another with children, and others anti-children. The only common belief system to educate and be separate from the world. In Bronson Alcott’s attempt to create a heavenly utopia he created a hot mess, which upon seeing it I would exclaim in sarcasm now: Oh My Heavenly Days.
I am amazed that Louisa May Alcott came out mostly well adjusted. I am not, however, surprised that the story of Little Women in a happy little world to lose yourself. Little Women functions as a biography of the best versions of her family brought to life in fiction, all the strange and unhappy parts discarded probably for the sake of sanity.
That brings me back to Geraldine Brooks’ March. March is a much darker, sinister, true to life version of the tale of Little Women and Mr. and Mrs. March. It is a grown ups history. I think what is most difficult is reconciling the fictional tale of Little Women with the very real feeling war novel of March. There are some details here and there that ring false, but for the most part it is graphically realistic of some pieces of the Civil War. It captures the darker sides of human nature that Little Women does not address, things that coming from an abolitionist’s family Louisa might have been very familiar.
What do you think?
Who just agreed to donate a print for an HPB raffle!? This guy! Updates to be posted as they come.
Wow. These past twelve months have not only flown by but they’ve also been filled to the brim with so many amazing opportunities and people and it’s honestly a little difficult to even try to summarize everything! 2012 was a big year for me, do you ever have those stand-out years in your life where you feel your own part of the world move just a bit? This year was that for me.
If this time last year you had told me that I would have travelled to the places I’ve been to, met the amazing people I’ve had the opportunity to meet or have even half of the experiences I’ve had, I wouldn’t have believed you but through hard word and good luck I’m so happy to say that this year was filled with all of those things.
At the beginning of the year I was offered an amazing opportunity…
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Anakalian Whims 