It's Friday again!  This time last week, I didn't know that today, my daughter would be here visiting.  She studied in England this ...

In just a few months, I will be turning fifty.  Yes, fifty.  That is a big number. I have been aware for a long time of being thought ol...

Book #46 of 2017 was Boys Without Names , by Kashmira Sheth.  My 14 year old son recommended this to me.  It's hard to think about the ...

Happiness by Jane Kenyon There’s just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust...

Apparently today's Poetry Friday theme is Macaroni and Cheese.  Take a look at Tabatha's roundup.   I looked a bit for something on ...

I was traveling today, and I never got a post written.  Fortunately, lots of other people did post!  Here's today's roundup.

I just got my laptop back from being repaired today.  I've missed it like a limb!  Here's a bright and breezy summertime poem.  I ho...

Last night I dreamed that I was back at school. When I wrote that sentence, I realized two things.  One was that it made me think of Rebec...

Book #41 of the year was Passenger , by Alexandra Bracken, and book #43 was the sequel, Wayfarer .  I found the time travel world-building...

The second week of summer vacation is ending, and I can hardly point to anything I've accomplished.  I keep dozing off in the tropical h...

I've enjoyed the first week of my summer vacation very much.  It has featured naps and times with friends and time to write. Today I w...

Book #37 of the year was The Bride's Farewell , by Meg Rosoff.  The challenges the characters in this book face remind me of Dickens, bu...

Today I finished up my last day at work for the semester, mostly cleaning my classroom (Wednesday was our last day with kids), and then I co...

I was walking across campus the other day and thinking about the hundreds and hundreds of students that I have taught, and how at the end of...

One of my tasks in this last week of classes is to pass out the students' reading folders and have them count how many books they finish...

Days I Delighted in Everything by Jessica Greenbaum    I was listening to a book on tape while drivin...

We have the day off today for Flag Day (flag below, and national anthem in this post ), so I am celebrating by writing a Reading Update post...

Last week for Poetry Friday Michelle Kogan shared a poem about Mexico that included this phrase: "the red bougainvillea raves."  I...

During National Poetry Month, I got a poem-a-day email from Knopf, and on the 9th, that poem was Jill Bialosky's "Daylight Savings....

What with National Poetry Month and Lent and some rough emotional experiences in the past few months, I've had lots of opportunities lat...