Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

Inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s Late Bloomers.

Books I’ve finished this week: Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead – all of them are 5-star books and highly recommended

Seven days . . . what a difference it makes:

I have had a wonderful holiday — how about you? There were a few days during all the pre-holiday madness that I thought I was getting sick, but I’m grateful I didn’t. It was just my body telling me to slow down and rest. So I did — and it helped.

I’ve been reading a lot — and re-reading some old favorites. If you have kids in your life, I can’t recommend this book enough. I first read it when Erica was two years old and it helped guide me in choosing read aloud picture books. Eighteen years later, those books are timeless and still richly entertaining and satisfying for the boys. I’ve not been reading aloud as much as I should, but that’s going to change in 2010. I also ordered The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller and can’t wait to read it. I’ve gotten so much out of her blog and it’s helped me to source good books for my oldest son.

And just for me, the biggest treat was reading Amy Tan’s The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life. She writes a lot about her mom and the grandmother she never knew except through stories and portraits. Reading it was personal, poignant and real. Like Amy, I never knew my grandmother, but her presence is felt through what my mom shares about her own life and the choice she made to marry an American and leave Japan — and her mother. I’ve often wondered about my grandmother’s perspective and wished I could have known her. In her book, Amy acknowledges that there’s a level of “knowing” her grandmother that’s experienced in dreams and intuition and she channels that in her writing. There are stories that need to be told and perhaps the granddaughter is the one to finally tell them. I’m hopeful.

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I’m SO over 2009 and can’t wait for 2010. But the best thing about 2009? The best thing I did this year was make time for reading again. My “to-read” list is getting longer every day. And I’m looking ahead a lot more than usual as the year closes. I’m hopeful. Focused. Determined. And ready to be more in control. Less buffeted.

Ambition or adaptability? Which is more important? I’ll try to share my own answer to that in 2010.

You know what? I’m not a guy — so I didn’t know that it’s common that young guys struggle with reading. My oldest guy (he’s 11 now) wasn’t a reluctant reader; my youngest guy (9 years old) is. It’s been quite a challenge to light that spark in him — to instill a desire to read and explore books. Since I didn’t struggle to find reading fun when I was younger (left to my own devices, I would choose reading over almost any other activity), I didn’t quite understand until recently that some people would never “choose” to read. Now I’ve found that there are a lot of “guy” authors who identify with and write about their struggles and end up growing up to write excellent books for guys. Gary Paulsen, Dav Pilkey, Jon Scieszka and Jeff Kinney are just a few wildly successful authors who’ve shared their childhood struggles with reading. And I found this website today: Guys Read via this blog entry at The Book Whisperer (finally — a Texas language arts teacher who totally gets it!)

And the son who loves to read? He has a reading teacher this year who has emphatically stated that she doesn’t LIKE reading. I think she even said this on his first day of class. And her expectations and lack of understanding of “guys” is evident in the assignments she’s given to the class and in my son’s sudden lack of desire to read good books. This is a kid who will gladly read 5,000 pages over the summer without any external motivation or reward and now her criticism of reading as an enjoyable pastime is ringing in his (and my) ears.

I’m SO ready for some changes to the reading curriculum in our school district.

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There’s not a lot I hate. I hate racism and sexism. I hate abuse of power. And with a red hot passion, I hate the Accelerated Reader (by Renaissance Learning) when it’s being used incorrectly. I hate when its use in schools (Conroe ISD, I’m looking at you) is MANDATORY and a student’s grade is tied to their participation in the Accelerated Reader (A/R) Program. And I will continue to hate it until it’s a voluntary program that doesn’t carry unreasonable, exclusionary incentives. I’ll definitely continue to hate it unless and until it generates within my children a sincere and lifelong desire to read good books. And I can assure you that I’ll hate it whether my kids do well or poorly on A/R “quizzes.”

I believe it should be used as an assessment tool only, and/or an optional and fun tool for kids to gauge their comprehension of their favorite books — books they would have been reading anyway regardless of how many “points” were associated with it.

Here’s a succinct quote from the website for The Read-Aloud Handbook (my all-time favorite book about reading and choosing quality books for your family — and incidentally, the book I used as a guide when purchasing at school book fairs)

As I see it, the real problem arrived when districts bought the programs with the idea they would absolutely lift reading scores. “Listen,” declares the school board member, “if we’re spending $50 grand on this program that’s supposed to raise scores, then how can we allow it to be optional? You know the kids who’ll never opt for it—the ones with the low scores, who drag everyone else’s scores down. No—it’s gotta be mandatory participation.” And to cement it into place, the district makes the point system 25 percent of the child’s grade for a marking period. Oooops! They just took the “carrot” off the stick, leaving just the stick—a new grading weapon. . . .

I just spent my entire morning going through our books to identify whether we own books in my child’s “reading level” (determined by testing that takes several weeks of a teacher’s instruction time). And we do own many — I just had to identify the number of points each one carried. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of books purchase through school book fairs (you know — the ones that benefit the school library and increase their collection of good books?) and I’m not surprised that I already own several that fall in to his range. The frustrating thing is that I was told that my son couldn’t take an A/R quiz unless he had checked out in the school’s library. Nevermind that we already own the book or could purchase a book. Whatever — it doesn’t matter now because I’ve already made the decision that it’s the one rule I’ll not comply with — I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars over the years accumulating books that I’ve moved across a few states over the last decade. If there’s an A/R quiz for a book we own and he’s reading it (and enjoying it), then he should be allowed to take a quiz on it.

Before taking a quiz, he has to fill out a graphic organizer along with the “in-class log” — two barriers to quiz-taking that I’m still not comfortable with. He has a designated day every week on which he is “guaranteed” an audience with his teacher to go over his progress and his goals and then to take a quiz (or quizzes) on the computer, and is supposedly allowed to take one any time and any day he is ready (as long as he’s completed an activity sheet/graphic organizer and also filled out the log).

So my challenge is working within this system (while following the “rules” and encouraging my children to do the same) and engaging my kids with good books to read while at the same time confining them to a reading level that might or might not contain books in which they have an interest. Luckily, I’ve found some excellent books on the Kindle. The issue hasn’t been about the lack of good books — it’s the lack of district support for reading those books (“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s above his reading level. He can’t take a quiz on that one”). And now I’m anticipating some resistance to the idea of allowing my boys to read “A/R” books that I purchase for the Kindle when there’s no physical book to take to school with them. But if the book has a quiz available and it’s in their reading level, and they’ve followed nearly all the rules, then I think they should absolutely be allowed to take the quiz. Did I mention I hate this?

Edited to add: Read #7 from this page on the Conroe ISD site. What a blatant contradiction of their mandatory A/R program (and it also contains a grammatical error)

I fully support the concept of promoting Sustained Silent Reading (“SSR”) in schools and at home and would love to see the A/R program used as the foundation to support SSR.

I had to share this photo today — it makes me smile. This photo of my younger sister and me was taken in 1969 in Turkey when we were stationed at Karamursel AFB.

If you know me, then you know how much I love watching Mad Men; this past season (3) was my favorite so far. I was born during the time period in which the show takes place. We were living in either Torrance or San Bernardino when JFK was assassinated. That’s me in the photo below at about two years old in the pink pantsuit and black Mary Janes. My mom was probably pregnant with my youngest sister when this photo was taken — which means my Dad was in Vietnam while she had three daughters to take care of and one on the way.

My older sisters were 6- and 11-years old then — nearly the same ages as Sally and Bobby in Mad Men. It’s incredibly interesting to watch historic events unfold on the show and wonder how it mirrored my family’s experiences at the time. I love the rich details on the show along with the gritty reality of the racism and sexism — it’s jarring but accurate.

But far more than anything else on the show, I’m tuned in to all the women in their various roles. From Carla — the domestic helper, to Betty — the prototypical suburban sixties wife, I can’t help but compare it to how many more choices and opportunities women have now versus how few they had then. I feel that I can design my own role and make my own rules — it’s an incredible privilege wrought by the dissatisfaction of women in that era.

Who else is watching? Thoughts?

(Vampire eyes and spooky photo effects courtesy of Picnik)

Happy Halloween!

We have no big plans for tonight other than passing out candy (Twix and M&Ms) and enjoying all the neighborhood kids in their cute costumes tonight.

Are you dressing up?

The long-awaited haircut wasn’t the huge change I had planned,
but I’m happy with it and still growing it out

I promised a book review and I’m sorry it’s overdue. First I’d like to share some quotes from the book so you can decide right away if this is something you’d like to read. It was timely for me personally because I feel like I’m in a transitional time of my life, yet some reviews of this book on Amazon indicate that not everybody got as much out of this book as I did.

Clutter, in the context of SHEDing is symbolic of our attachment to something from the past that must be released in order to make room for change

Clutter is anything that no longer serves you

Because something is organized doesn’t mean it’s active and dynamic in supporting your theme.

I learned something about myself with my first pass at de-cluttering a few weeks ago — I was holding on to a lot of stuff simply for “inspiration.” It was clear that I was hoping that the items I had gathered would enhance my creativity in some way. And I’ve been blessed to be able to enjoy several years of freedom to choose creativity as a goal. But the inspirational input wasn’t resulting in a lot of productive output — a lot of lofty thought, yes, but not a lot to show for it. I remember having been more productive when forty of my waking hours per week were already spoken for. Back then, even in spite of having far fewer choices, I actually made measurable progress on my goals. I’ve realized this in the past but I had never actually figured out what my next steps should be.

Thanks to the book, and the author’s strong suggestion that the reader decide on a theme before continuing, I have a clear picture now of what all this de-cluttering and organizing is supposed to accomplish. I’ve been operating under a very broad theme of “creativity,” and gathering about me all the items I needed to foster that. And it’s not been a total failure – it just hasn’t produced much. So I immediately knew what I wanted my new theme to be: Productivity.

First I had to take a hard look at all the STUFF. If it’s not serving me and doesn’t support my theme, it goes. How it goes and where it goes is something that can be figured out throughout this process, but it’s mentally tagged as gone as soon as I recognize it. For instance, I know where I want the old magazines to go and while they’re not physically out of the house yet, they’re well on their way. Same with the clothes. Gone. But the most important idea relating to my theme going forward is that nothing will come in from now on (physically or mentally) that doesn’t support my theme. So yeah, it’s a way of dealing with the OLD stuff (we all need to know what to do with the old stuff), but it’s critically important to know whether something needs to enter our lives at all in the first place.

This first back-to-school week for my kids has gone well. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and emails on my previous post. Back-to-school week has also been my first “back-to-me” week. I had low expectations for filling my time the rest of this month because things will step up gradually beginning in September. I have big plans but wanted to bookend those plans with some silence and stillness first. And the photo? Last week was supposed to be my haircut, but it was postponed. Big changes should require a hairstyle change too, don’t you think?

I’ve continued to read a LOT, though that has leveled off as well. Meanwhile, my Kindle has been hijacked by either my husband or my oldest son and since they’ve been reading more, and I’m finding turning to my stack of “actual” books — including library books.

If you’ve been keeping up with me at Goodreads, you might notice that I’m reading a couple of books that have been on my “To Read” list for ages: A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table and The Soup Peddler’s Slow and Difficult Soups: Recipes and Reveries. I’m also looking forward to reading The Wordy Shipmates. (I’m back to reading some nonfiction in between the novels). Finally, I’m hopeful that I’ll get a lot out of this book too: SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life: A Four-Step Guide to Getting Unstuck. I’ve hit a wall with this summer’s de-cluttering and organizing and I hope that this book will address one of the next steps I need to take – dealing with issues of old magazines! I have Blueprint, Domino and a handful of Mary Engelbreit magazines that are taking up an entire shelf of one of my bookcases. I want to reclaim the space, but for some reason, can’t bring myself to just recycle those magazines. Of course, if anybody wants them and is willing to pay the shipping, I’ll send them to you. That’ll be the ideal solution.