Melissa Wiley's Blog, page 163
June 16, 2010
Notes on June 2010 (First Half)
So I'll remember, and since you asked…
Various interests swirling here:
The orthodontist's office is holding a contest. The person who comes up with the best name for the betta fish on the counter wins the fish. Rose's entry: Kalliope. (Get it? A Greek name? Betta sounds like beta, a Greek letter?) She has high hopes of winning. This has spawned (ba dum bum) discussions on odds/probability, subjective vs objective criteria, and breeds of fish. The latter necessitated a library trip yesterday...
June 15, 2010
Instead of Posting Tonight
I got caught up in the most excellent #booksthatchangedmyworld meme over on Twitter. I was honest! A number of my Maudly books made my list, but I tried to include less exalted but seriously influential reads as well.
June 14, 2010
Booknotes: Last Week's Reading
Finished The Whisper of Glocken, Carol Kendall's sequel to The Gammage Cup. It was even better than Gammage, though The Firelings still holds the top spot in my heart. I want to write at more length about Kendall's beguiling, quirky, suspenseful books, especially her fondness for bands of unlikely heroes whose faults turn out, Meg Murry-like, to be their strengths. For now I'll just say that I highly recommend all three of these novels as family read-alouds or as satisfying read-alones for...
June 12, 2010
June 11, 2010
Aesop, Shakespeare, Hucklebaby, Ben
Well, I just wrote a post-length comment on yesterday's post, so I probably don't have much more to say tonight. (Of course, having said that, I'll write a novel.)
Today was a good day. One of the things I got to do was direct a couple of very short skits based on Aesop's fables, to be performed by a small group of six-to-nine-year-old girls after their older siblings' Shakespeare scenes next weekend. None of the younger-sib boys wanted in. Hee. I had the BEST time working with these girls...
June 10, 2010
In Which I Use a Lot of Capital Letters
Our Season of Becky is just beginning. Summertime kicks off with Jane's birthday—she turned 15 on Monday, and a splendid day it was, even if something did go amiss with my frosting for the Rocky Road Sheet Cake. (Wasn't enough to cover the cake. Mom, where'd I go wrong?) Scott took the day off work; Jane and I stole away to go shopping, just the two of us—quite a treat! And then came the fun of a visit from Scott's brother John, who was in town for a convention. And later still, that...
June 9, 2010
Goldfinch
He was gone before I could get a non-blurry photo. A pity—he was posing so nicely!
June 8, 2010
"For them all is done."
Scott brought home a library book I had requested, though my memory of doing so is fuzzy. Someone, somewhere, mentioned something about Rebecca West, and I looked her up and couldn't find the book the someone was talking about (and I've since forgotten what it was), but there was this other book by West, and, well, you know how easy it is to click that "request a copy" box.
So here it is, a hulk of a book, approximately the size of my first car. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through...
June 6, 2010
Happymaking Things
Pennywhistle lesson videos via YouTube. I've been using the Clark Pennywhistle book and CD to learn, but I wish I'd found these video lessons, offered for free by a Jesuit priest, a long time ago. It's much easier to understand the ornamentation techniques when you can see them.
Scrivener. How is it possible none of my writer friends clued me into this sooner?
Listography, which is, at last, the internet notebook I've been looking for. The format just works for me.
