This Week's Top Ten...So Far

10. Paging through my Writer's Digest and finding them talking about YA!!!

9. The "college of Oz" that my girls built out of building blocks, complete with pillars, blonde Glinda doll, dark haired Elphaba doll, and Prince Eric standing in for Fiyero

8. Making it through three whole workouts without cardiac assistance

7. Listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (for the seventy third time)

6. Having another "AHA!" moment for my work-in-progress

5. Realizing that I'm ahead of schedule for my Hamline homework packet

4. Scoring airline tickets to Florida in October for $200 each

3. Reading "Linger"

2. Reading "Linger" author's blog and realizing just how normal Maggie Stiefvater is. Well, perhaps a little superhuman, and beastly talented, but normal in the wife-mom-has a dream sort of way

1. Dancing at my baby sister's wedding in a flapper dress and 1920's hair while my gramma drank beer out of a teacup.

My week in 60 seconds...

The highlight of my week
was to discover poetry
Where Ron and I could just hang out
and I would shake my head as he

would teach me about sestinas and then of villanelle
without me even knowing it as far as I could tell.

Sorry, Ron. Koertge doesn't rhyme with anything.
But Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs is...well....um.....


really good. Sorry, Ron, I tried. Really, I did.
You stick to the poetry. But I did write a Haiku in your honor...

Sestina Writers
masters of the written word
Koertge, Grabill. Praise.

WHAT???!?!? That was 30 seconds? Okay, the reader's digest version for the rest...

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko is a story about family. Family, I say!!! Yes, it's about baseball and loneliness and Autism (applause) but it's about family. How's that for theme, Hamline? :)

John Reynolds Gardiner surprises me with his ending and his title to Stone Fox. I cry.

Lois Lowry makes me cry while trying to read aloud to my kids. Again. I'm discovering a theme.

Knuffle Bunny Too seems safe from tears. **sigh**