In Gratitude

There aren't words for how thankful I am for them:

And for Handsome Hubby, the most incredible man I know.

For my sweetest fuzzy puppy.

For my family, most of them coming for Thanksgiving, we'll be missing those who can't (next year!).

I'm thankful for having all the things that we don't think twice about but that many people don't have - food, home, warm clothes, cars, safety, medicine, jobs.

For our health.

For my students, my cutie patootie first graders and their supportive parents.

For being able to follow my writing dream (when I can find time, lol).

For friends.  Good ones.

For the beauty in the world around us and remembering to notice it.

For books and music and all of the things that make a good life great.

For bloggy friends who write and bloggy friends who read and this whole amazing community that I became a part of less than a year ago but feel like I've known forever because you all get it.

I'm thankful for the time this week to stop and be thankful.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving!

Hunger Games Fan Video

I saw this on Steph Sinkhorn's blog and HAD to repost it here.  This is a fan video made for The Hunger Games (the movie is slated to come out from Lionsgate in 2013).  Pretty darn amazing. (SPOILERS obviously if you haven't read the book yet!)


If you haven't read it yet... Go read it. NOW! :)

Ooooh! It's a Teeny Prizey Preview!

Hey, Writerly Types!  Don't forget that when you are all NaNo'd out, Vic and I are hosting a Truth is Stranger Than Flash Fiction contest through mid-December!  For details, click that scary looking button on the top right over there.  Vic is doing movie and candy boxes of prizes, and my prizes will be books and holiday goodies.  Sweeeeeeet!  Here is just a teensy little preview of something that will go into my prize boxes - holiday ornaments handmade by my sister.  (Shouldn't she open an Etsy shop?!?)  Now I want Christmas to be here! :D  More contesty details and prize package info at the end of this month!

Many thanks to my awesome sister for sharing her crafty goodness!

Best. (Kiddie.) Gift. Ever.

If you don't know eeboo, click on that link right thar and thank me later.  They are a company with lots of wonderful, imaginative kiddie products like paper dolls, puzzles, special notebooks, etc. But my favorite thing that they sell are Tell Me a Story cards.

My kids loooooooooooooooooove these.  It's a deck of cards with fairy tale pictures on them.  You can do a zillion different things with them, but Tootsie Roll's favorite thing to do is to spread out the entire deck on the floor, upside down (so you can't see the pictures), say "Once upon a time..." and pick up any random card.  She tells the beginning of the story with that card, then says "and then..." and I pick up a random card and continue the story.  It turns out completely differently every time, and sometimes it's really funny trying to curve the story so that the next picture fits into the plot.  Tonight we were literally rolling on the floor laughing at our story.

This is the Fairy Tale Mix Up set.  We also have the Mystery in the Forest set:

There are two other sets, Circus Animal Adventures and Little Robots Mission.  They also make Write Me a Story versions:

... but I always love the stories that we make up ourselves.  I love the storytelling aspect.

They have a million other gorgeous products here.  I am so in luuuuuuuuuv.... Christmas shopping here I come!  (ps... I have no connection to this company, I just love their stuff!)

Here, Bake This.

I am, at present, baking an apple pie.  I didn't make the pie, though... my daughter did, at Brownies.  Her wonderful, impressive Brownie leaders were ambitious enough to have each 8 year old girl make her own apple pie using a Betty Crocker recipe.  During their hour and a half meeting after school.  And they also made cornbread from scratch to donate to a local shelter.  (Excuse me, ladies, can I hire you?)  But back to the pie... they handed it to me when I arrived to pick her up and said, "This needs to be baked tonight."  And they gave me directions.  Verbal ones.  Which I promptly forgot even though I tried really hard not to.  So I looked on the Betty Crocker site to find baking instructions (having never made a pie myself) and it pretty much said "Heat the oven to 425, then bake 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown", which is a whole lot less complex than what I was told.  So hopefully it will go well.  We'll see!  The house will smell good, anyway! :)

I don't have much else to write about, being sort of mired in work this month (conferences, American Education Week, and my observation all next week... gahhhh), except that I have to send a giant shout-out to V.R. Barkowski, who just sent me a box of Neil Gaiman books as one of the prizes in her recent signing celebration/300 followers contest.  Thank you, Viva!  And.... Neil Gaiman!!!!  YIPPEEEE!!!

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

UPDATED:  The Pie!

And me wishing I could dig in but Tootsie Roll is already in bed so I can't eat her pie without her. :)
Oh, and the books I won were The Graveyard Book (which I had, but not with the perty Newbery Award on it!), Neverwhere (which I didn't have), and American Gods (which I also didn't have). 

After a Pajama Reading Party at school today, adorable pictures made by Curly Jones at preschool, dinner out with the fam, then Neil Gaiman and apple pie (or at least the smell, lol) tonight... Happy Friday!

Dear Facebook

Dear Facebook,

I'm leaving you.  Umm... I think I need a little space.  It's not you, it's me.  Ok, it's you and the fact that I don't really need to know the minutiae (I had to look up the spelling of that word, every possibility looked weird) of everyone else's day, even though it is oddly compelling.

It's also me, I believe I have some sort of undiagnosed social anxiety, and for some reason, reading you makes me agitated.  I also find that people say things they might filter a bit more in person.  I've found in the past few weeks that people's (often angry) opinions are getting under my skin.  Plus I have spent too much time with you.  No offense.

So... it's better this way.  I haven't posted in about a week, and I'm feeling more relaxed already.  I haven't even really been wondering what's going on in your world, nor have I been dying to post my kids' new Christmas portraits for the world to see, because, really, I think I'm just over you.

Maybe if I ever have a book to publicize, we'll talk.  I'm not burning bridges, Facebook.  Let's just go our separate ways and maybe I'll even have more time to write said book. :)  Good luck with that dinner you are cooking, movie you hated, and cryptic message that makes everyone ask what's going on.

Not yours anymore,
Lindsey

From October Spookies to November Love

Just so darn cute I couldn't resist...