Fruit Pizza

I hosted a small dinner party last week (just me, Marci, McKell, and Lexi). For dessert I made this fruit pizza. It was really yummy and I think it looks pretty. After taking this picture, I added the pineapple glaze. So good!!!!

Mice and John Lennon

Today I finished reading a darling book on my kindle; Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry. It's a story about a group of church mice who have to avoid the Great X (exterminator) and manage to get back to the church in time for the blessing of the animals. A cute story with beautiful illustrations!

I also want to mention a painting I found in one of the art galleries in the Grand Canal Shoppes. It's a painting of John Lennon by Stephen Holland. The picture above doesn't do it justice. It's simply amazing in its detail and use of color. I kind of fell in love with it. If only I were rich enough to buy expensive artwork!

Writing Process +2 (What I Learned in Vegas)

I'm at a teaching conference in Las Vegas and they're talking about blogs, wikis, and twitter. I realized that it's been a year since I last posted on this blog. Yikes!

I learned something cool that I plan on using next year. Usually, when you teach the writing process, the steps are: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing. One of the presenters I had this morning suggested adding two steps. The first is to add "talking" after prewriting. Students are to tell their story, essay, whatever to a partner, referring only to their graphic organizer or prewriting. The partner can then ask questions and help the writer add details to their prewriting. This also helps the student to consider organization, etc. The other step in the process is "Referencing and Re-reading." This happens during the drafting phase. Students re-read what they've written, and reference their graphic organizers and rubrics. These are two simple ideas that I think are brilliant and I'm excited to try them out.

Finished!

Hooray! Yesterday I reached 50,000 words on the Julnowrimo project! For this project, I worked on a story that I started a few months ago. It's kind of science fiction in that it's set in a time of intergalactic travel and seven galaxies of human civilization. However that's only a loose structure. The main character, Bennett Carsgrove, is named after Elizabeth Bennett, of course and (I hope) that she's just as strong-willed and intelligent as her namesake. Bennett is an architect who travels the seven galaxies creating amazing structures. At one point in the story, she goes to a planet called Transitania; a place largely covered in rainforest. I could say a whole lot more about this story, but even 50,000 + words in, I'm not ready to share more. Maybe if I manage to finish it, I'll share more info later.

4th of July/JULNOWRIMO

Today is the 4th of July! Yay! It's also a Sunday. The Legion and whoever else is in charge of the town celebration stuff has decided to have the parade and everything else today. The parade is at 11:00 so a lot of people will have to choose between going to the parade and going to church. I think this is really weird. Why not celebrate on Saturday? or Monday? The parade isn't super long, but it's a fun thing to see (I usually see a bunch of my kids there each year) so I'll be sad to miss it. I should be able to go to the fireworks, but it will probably feel weird to be having them on a Sunday. Oh well, I guess there's nothing I can really do. You probably have to live here for 30+ years before you have any influence over those kinds of decisions.

I always think about Aunt Kim on this day. I miss her. Slug bug red!

On another note, in my last post I talked about writing again. I did work on that story for a few days but nothing much ever came of it and I kind of quit writing again. Until yesterday, that is. JULNOWRIMO is on and I was already signed up since I did it last year, so I started writing yesterday. JULNOWRIMO is sort of like NANOWRIMO (national novel writing month in November where you write a 50,000 word novel in one month) but a bit more relaxed. You still have to write 50,000 words, but it doesn't have to be a brand new project. You can work on past pieces as well. I'm working on a very-loosely-based-in-science-fiction piece and I have about 2300 words so far. I'm way behind already, but that's okay. I have plenty of time to catch up. And to the three or so people who actually read this blog, no you can't read my writing until it's ready. And it might not ever be-not this piece anyway. We'll see.

Well, that's it for today. Happy 4th of July!!!!!

Writing Again

Yesterday, for the first time in four months, I felt like writing. The story that came into my head is totally silly and completely unlike anything I've written before but that's not the point. I wrote three pages last night. It was nice to just sit down and write again.

Awesome Things About Saturday

In keeping with my last entry, I'm starting with another quote from "high literature." In As You Like It, Shakespeare wrote, "And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

I've been trying to be more optimistic these days. Something that I thought was AWESOME about yesterday was that it was the first day that has started to feel like springtime is headed our way. I drove to Rock Springs and did a little shopping and it was beautiful weather the whole time. I know, not something earth-shattering, but oh well.

And while I'm on the subject of yesterday, here's some other awesome things: Bo took 5th in state wrestling, it looks like our high school team took 4th overall, I watched the Americans win gold in the bobsledding, I have almost half of the yearbook pages done, and (maybe the best thing) I watched Guys and Dolls starring the lovely Marlon Brando. :)