Missouri Read-In Day (March 8th)

       It doesn't shock anyone who knows me that I'm an English teacher because they know I love books and reading.  I read through the entire fiction section in the library in high school.  I mean it; I started at "A" and read until I got to "Z."  And then I had to start over to catch up on the new books for the authors whose last names I'd already read.
       I have had any number of libraries of my own, too.  I don't want to start calculating how much money I've spent on books over the years.  I have stacks of books in my house I haven't even gotten to yet.  I have boxes of books still in my parents' attic (don't tell them; I don't have room in my house).  I have books everywhere: there isn't a room in my place that doesn't have books in it.
       Where did it start, though, this love of reading?  The love of the turn of a phrase?  The love of falling into a world of someone's creation and experiencing the joys and sorrows and celebrations and tragedies of those characters?  If I look back far enough, it was because of the books I loved as a child. One of my first favorite books was Little Cottontail by Carl Memling; a Little Golden Book about a baby bunny who wanted to grow up too fast.  "Not yet, Little Cottontail," the mother crooned...and those words still come to me when I am telling a student to be patient.  My favorite picture of me is a Christmas morning picture where I have unwrapped (you guessed it!) a book: T'was the Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore.
       I remember being so excited in elementary school when, because I was already reading chapter books stage when the others in my class were still learning how to read, I was allowed to check out books from the "older kids' section" in the library.  I devoured the Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and then The Black Stallion book series by Walter Farley (I was into horses then).  I moved on from horses to dogs and other animal stories.  The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder I read over and over again until I had to tape the covers.  Then I moved to fantasy.  I still remember fondly a book about a headstrong black-haired fairy named Bluebell.  I wish I remembered the name of that book; I don't, but that character has stayed with me for well over 30 years.  I still wish I had long dark hair like the main character did.
       When my sister and I were in the upper elementary, my dad read The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein to us as a bedtime story.  He even did the voices!  My, what a world was opened to me then!  I couldn't wait until I could read the whole series on my own.  It's still one of my favorite series to read.  I get something new each time.  Then, when I was a pre-teen, Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis overtook my imagination. I still own most of the first set my sister bought me for a Christmas present; I've had to replace a couple of the books in the series because students have "borrowed" them forever.
       I've already mentioned how I read all the fiction books in the school library, but I also made a nuisance of myself at the public library because during the summer (before I was old enough to get a job other than babysitting) I'd go through their shelves and borrow the maximum number of books I could--six--and then be back the next day to turn those in and check out new ones.  I was reading sweet romances --none of those Harlequin novels for me (yet)--about nurses who fell in love with their patients or the doctors they worked for.
       I then got into high school and college and met literary geniuses like Emerson and Wordsworth and Shakespeare and fell in love all over again with reading.  I couldn't get enough of those words "that take us Lands away" ("There is no frigate like a book" by Emily Dickinson) as I read the stores, poems, plays, and more that my own English teachers introduced to me.  It is little wonder that I love reading and sharing with my own students the literature that I hold dear.
       Each book (whether it be the actual book or on some e-reading device) is a ticket into a world away from our own.  I look at those books as portals that will wing me away to a ball in Regency England or to a futuristic world on Venus or back to ancient Rome or to linger on a hillside covered with golden daffodils.
       So, on this Missouri Read-In Day I encourage everyone to grab a book or magazine or anything that strikes your fancy: begin reading and enjoy the journey!

Giving Thanks....

We had our Thanksgiving dinner a day early since mom has to work at the hospital on Thanksgiving Day, and we did not want to rush through dinner before she had to leave (and I am very thankful for those people who give up their holidays so that the people in need are not alone).  Mom and Heather and I put together a marvelous feast including all our favorite foods. We gathered around a nicely decorated table, took a picture for posterity (and tradition), and my nephew said Grace.

I had seen on Pinterest (yes, I am one of those... big grin) a neat place card idea. In the original pin, a napkin ring with a clip held a card with the dining guest's name and a Thanksgiving quote. Since we sat in our normal seats, we did not need place cards, but I did create the cards with various Thanksgiving quotes and attached them to the napkin ring clips.

We each read the quote attached to our napkin before we began the meal.  We also then told one (or more) things we were thankful for.  I love quotes that make people think, and thinking about being thankful is an added bonus.  Below are the quotes that I put on the various cards.

“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.”― A.W. Tozer 

“Rest and be thankful.”― William Wordsworth 

“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.”― Harry A. Ironside 

“Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks.”― Thomas Goodwin 

“I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.”― A.J. Jacobs 

“This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”― Elizabeth I Tudor 

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”― Marcus Aurelius

We were thankful for many things...the food, family, friends, jobs, the military men and women who give up their lives and time with their families to protect us, our country that gives us the freedoms we celebrate, and many more things.

Most of all, we were thankful to be together.

And for the good food.  

But mostly for the together part.