Melissa Wiley's Blog, page 188

Poetry Friday: The Triangle Factory Fire

It's still (Poetry) Friday here on the West Coast.

The other day I mentioned a book that was ghosting in the corners of my mind:

I wanted a few days to savor the novel I finished earlier this week: Lost by Jacqueline Davies, a spellbinding account of—well, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, sort of, but really that's a backdrop to an achingly moving tale of loss and grief, from the point of view of a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl (whose narrative voice may be my favorite of the year so far

Betsy-Tacy Convert Week

Y'all know I'd do just about anything to introduce new readers to the most wonderful wonderful, out of all hooping Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace.

And I think I've mentioned how excited I am that the six high-school-and-beyond Betsy books are coming back into print in September.

(Remember how I wept when they began going out of print?)

Well, it's almost September! And I am giddy with glee. Here they come!

I'll be participating in the Betsy-Tacy book blog tour, an event that promises to be en

Rilla-My-Rilla

All my best Rilla material—the stories and quotes I want to save forever—winds up on Twitter and Facebook these days. (That's the fastest way to jot something down.) But just in case Twitter goes kaboom someday, I think I'll start a Rilla-page here for easy future memory-laning. Like most three-year-olds, she is one funny little monkey.

***

Rilla, drinking water from a mug, asks if we can pretend it's coffee. Me: "Sure! How is your coffee, ma'am?" Rilla: "I don't like coffee."

***

Rilla: "Mommy, can

Reading My Summer

I was looking at my reading log for the past three months and laughing at how aptly it characterizes our summer.

June: Regular activities wind down; we're home for long, lazy days, hanging out in the backyard, enjoying the sunny evenings. I read nine books.

July: Whoosh! How'd we get so busy? Every day's a new adventure. Comic-Con munches up a solid week. I read (to completion) one, count it—one, book. Bits and pieces of many others, but from beginning to end? A single book: an old favorite, savor

Jane of Lantern Hill

"Jane, it's the wreck of a fine man that you see before you," he said hollowly.

"Dad . . . what is the matter?"

"Matter, says she, with not a quiver in her voice. You don't know…I hope you never will know… what it is like to look casually out of a kitchen window, where you are discussing the shamefully low price of eggs with Mrs Davy Gardiner, and see your daughter…your only daughter …stepping high, wide and handsome through the landscape with a lion."

Remember when you first realized the author

This & That

My Shakespeare Club is having a week of "camp"—four mornings of theater games and Taming of the Shrew scene rehearsals, gearing up for a performance next week. We are having a blast. Gosh I love this bunch of kids.

Afterward, when everyone goes out back to play for a while, I wonder if the rowdy fun is audible in the elementary-school classrooms on the other side of our back fence. And then I remember that twice a day, the school's rowdy recess fun is extremely audible on our side of the fence…an

Links for August 24, 2009

Once again, I'm using my Delicious autopost thingie to flag some things for Jane's perusal. Will probably do this more and more often; it's such a handy way to bookmark interesting pieces for my teen to read at her convenience.

Jane love—a couple of related articles—this piece by Michael Pollan (I loved his book, The Botany of Desire) and then a farmer's rebuttal to Pollan's article.

The Food Issue - An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief - Michael Pollan - NYTimes.com -The Omnivore's Delusion

Weekend Quilting Project: Snuggleblanket

Technically, this isn't a quilting project at all because I didn't do any quilting and didn't use batting. It's just a pieced quilt top backed with fleece.

We adore it.

I had some Moda Objects of Desire charm packs and used everything except the prints with shoes on them. Found some green fleece that matches the green prints exactly: joy!

The charm pack pieces are 5″ square. I pieced them into nine-patches (the girls loved helping with that part) and assembled the blocks into a 4 block x 5 block re

Links for August 21, 2009

Flagging a few things for Jane (and anyone else who's interested):

When it comes to our lawns, brown is golden — latimes.com
Soap Souffle - How to Blow-up Soap in the Microwave at Steve Spangler Science—Add Ivory Soap to the shopping list, please.
YouTube - Simple Gifts— Lovely. HT Mental Multivitamin.

I'm No Jean Grey

Rilla: "I have an idea! Let's play X-Men."

Me: "Okay, Starfire!"

Her face falls. "Oh, Mommy," she quivers, utterly crestfallen, "that's my Teen Titans name."