Anne Spollen's Blog, page 10

Field Trips

On Thursday, I chaperoned my daughter's field trip to one of those colonial villages where people walk around dressed like colonists and we carry a list of 156 detailed questions (euphemistically termed "a scavenger hunt") to be answered in one hour and fifty three minutes. Aside from the fact that history always reminds me that I am glad I live in the present, here is what I learned:

1. We do not live in South Jersey like everyone says. If we live in South Jersey, we live in the northern region

Squirrel Children

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Right now, my daughter is glaring at me from the rocking chair in the living room between watching episodes of Sponge Bob. She is clearly not speaking to me. (This will only last until she gets hungry)

Normally, television would not be allowed on a perfectly beautiful day, but I am letting this one go. We just got back from our first tween moment.

I was outside at ten o'clock this morning, trying to figure out what, exactly, had to be done to our yard to make it not look like a DMZ. Emma told me

Teen Thoughts

If I had to describe the worst fear of a teenager, it would not be death or failing in school, or coming down with a terrible illness. It would have to be embarrassment . I distinctly remember embarrassment as being the central emotion of my life for about seven or so years during the teenage period. And as I've already confessed, even when I was alone as a teen, I worried people might be watching me.

I think if you want to write YA, and a lot of folks who read this blog do, you have to really co

Mother's Day Revisited

Mother's Day Eve is not a very well known holiday, but I was thinking it should be made more official last Saturday on Mother's Day Eve. Son #1 had gone bowling with friends, Son #2 was watching youtube videos in his room, and Only Daughter was creating a Mother's Day novella.

Even our Malaysian houseguest had agreed to stop watching Deal or No Deal and Wheel of Fortune as they had begun to drive me nuts.(Is there a channel dedicated to these shows? They seemed to never go off the air) We rented

Interview with Nicole

Nicole is an aspiring young adult librarian, and she writes a blog titled, "Through My Librarian's Eye," which features Nicole's experiences in becoming a librarian, book reviews and author interviews. She just started it, and she interviewed me.

I think the interview answers a lot of questions I get asked about The Shape of Water and Light Beneath Ferns which is my next YA.

Update: Light Beneath Ferns is due out in February, 2010. I'm official![image error]

Happy Mothers' Day!

Mothers' Day is fast approaching, and like most holidays, this one is high on the hokey list. A few people sent me email quizzes this morning. You could find out what kind of TV mom you are, what kind of animal mom you are, even what kind of flower mom you are.

I had to work most of today, so I never took the quizzes. That probably says more about what kind of mom I am than the quizzes. Anyway, I never found a quiz that really echoed my particular mom experience, questions like this:

1. You are

Bloggy Stuff

Sometimes I feel like blogging is to the early 21st century as CB radio operators were to the 1970's -- I remember going on trips with my family (to exciting places like the Poconos) and we would look in the cars to see who had a CB radio. They were a way of communicating that was pretty much alien to us. "What could they be talking to each other about?" was the common catch phrase. CBers were highly identifiable nerds.

I'm pretty sure a lot of folks feel that way about bloggers. When my kids te

Reading, Texting, Books

When people find out I write YA, the one statement that is inevitably made is: "If you can get teenagers to read." My boys don't read novels, not even the ones their mom writes. (Though I did catch Son #1 reading a draft I left open on the computer and he actually ASKED ME A QUESTION ABOUT PLOT - heart be still...)

Their reason is reading seems too slow, too quiet. They like movies and Spark notes. It was pretty much that way when I taught middle and high school. And they do really like it when

5 Things I Love About Being A Mom

Mary Whitsell, a kindred spirit in parenting, tagged me to write about five things I love about being a mom. Now, if I had sat down last night around 10:20, after the kids let the dog out, and the dog ran down to the house where the odd family (and we understand odd, so when we say odd, you can only imagine) lives, this would have been an entirely different post.

Of course, we were having a thunderstorm and of course the odd family keeps several donkeys on their property (you were warned), and ou

Blog Award Time to Close Out Spring Break

First I want to thank Nora MacFarlane for nominating me for this blog award! I am to think of ten unsuspecting bloggers who have great attitude/gratitude and nominate them. Of course, Nora beat me to a bunch of them I would have nominated, but for now, as long as no one calls the blogger cops, I'll just name the first few that come to my head.

Sarah Frances Hardy and Katie Anderson (that counts as two)

adrienne

Christy Raedeke

Stephanie

Marcia Hoehne

Terri Rainer

Ok, that's more than half. Two more day