My Favorite book this month

I have just read a wonderful book, it's, "Mister Pip", by Lloyd Jones. It's a story about a girl named Matilda, who lives in New Guinea, and what her life was like in the middle of a brutal civil war. The story tells how her teacher Mr. Watts, gives the gift of love of great literature to the children of the island by reading aloud to them, "Great Expectations", by Charles Dickens. Matilda's story tells how Mr Watts and Charles Dickens' book have a profound and lasting effect on her life.

Mr Jones has crafted a wonderful book, that should be read by anyone who loves great literature.

One of my favorite quotes from the book: "You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames."

Bored? Nothing to do?

I was a tad bored and looking for something to do, online. I found this site that is perfect for those of us, who are bored with nothing better to do. Check this out: http://bomomo.com/ .

No, I am not suggesting you do this at work. LOL However, I will warn you ahead of time it's fun and a bit addicting. Enjoy!

Prehistory book for children

I found a wonderful new book in our collection on prehistory for children. It is "DK Online Prehistory" by Peter Chrisp. The book has its own website that was created by DK and Google.
It gives children a chance to get more information on the articles in the book, by going to the website and typing in the keywords from the book. I was very pleased with the website, it is easy to use and would be a great help to children for study or doing reports. What a great idea to combine books with the web. I have always liked DK books (Dorling Kindersley), they have a great format, kudos to them for a great idea.

A tumble down the stairs

Have you ever had one of those days, where you just want to crawl in bed and stay there until its over. lol That is a bit what my Monday was like. It started out to be a normal Monday, I was ready for work and doing a last minute chore before leaving that house. I started down the stairs and missed a step, yep you got it, my keys, purse, books went one way and I went the other. Strange the things that pass through your mind as you tumble down the stairs, my first thought was, nuts I am going to be late for work. I was lucky, nothing was broken, I did manage to pull a muscle in my back, bruise my posterior, and bang my head. I made it back up the stairs, called the boss and said sorry I will not be in today. I am blessed with an understanding boss, and after I related my adventure to him he said get some rest. I am not sure of the content of the conversation, it's all a bit foggy, could have been the bump on the head.
Now you are probably thinking what a terrible story, well I try to find something good in all things. In this instance, thank the Lord, for the extra padding on my backside, I will no longer complain about it. LOL
I am well and back to work, almost as good as new. Keep smiling everyone!

Traveling the Swamp Road

Well the promised road construction has begun, which leaves me with only one route to town, the swamp road. Now I know some people would complain, our swamp road is a minimum maintenance road, (minimum maintenance road=travel at your own risk!). I view it as a challenge, how many miles of wash board road does it take to shake the muffler off the truck, or how far can you pull over to let someone pass without needing someone to pull you out. These and many more thoughts rush through my mind each night on the drive home. Aside from all that the good thing about it is, you have to slow down, which gives you time to observe. I wish I had taken my camera with today, because it was absolutely beautiful this evening. The sky was pure fire, red orange and glowing. There was a low mist rising over the swamp, with just the tips of the cat tails showing, and circling over head was an eagle. I would have missed all that had there not been road construction. =D

Collaboration Tools

My sister and I have started a new project together, we are writing a collection of family stories for our genealogy. We have been having a great time using Google Docs. Google Docs is perfect for this project, it makes it so convenient for us to work on the stories when time permits. It is not always possible for us to have time to work together in person, but this tool lets each of us add, delete, or edit the others work. Thanks 23 things on a stick for introducing it to me.

The mystery of the missing checker

Here's a strange but true tale: Our library has a checkers game in the children's area, with oversize checkers for little people to use. Monday one of the black checkers mysteriously disappeared, we searched all over the building hoping to locate the missing checker, but were unable to locate it. On Monday evening one of our library staff was returning home with her family, it was her day off, she saw something black on the side of a gravel road several miles from town. She pulled over to see what it was and it was a black checker. She brought it into work on Tuesday because she said it looked like a piece from our checker set.
Sometimes truth is stranger then fiction.

Reflections on Sundays

Sundays were always a family day when I was growing up. It was a time for children, parents, grandparents and sometimes aunts, uncles, and cousins to meet and spend time being a family.
We would all meet at a relatives home after church for a nice, large, sit down dinner. After dinner the adults would sit down and talk, catch up on what was going on in each others lives, while the kids would go out and play soft ball, kick the can or a million other activities. TV's were turned off for the day. There was no rushing off to the Mal to shop, because all stores, restaurants, gas stations, bars, public offices, libraries etc. were closed on Sundays. Did we miss having these places open NO. You knew that all work, all shopping, etc. had to be taken care of before Sunday. I know there are some people out there moaning, and saying but how terrible that must have been. Well, it was not terrible at all. Sunday was the day of the week I loved best because it was OUR DAY. The one day of the week, that everyone had time for God and for family activities. The day was filled with laughter, fun and bound the family together. I still love Sunday, it's my favorite day of the week. I make a point of keeping Sunday, OUR DAY at my house, some would say wow that is so behind the times, hmm, perhaps, but the family is still together, something that can not be said for many American families today.