Ugly Sweater Contest

Can't you hear them singing: "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With hot, itchy sweaters layered over our Christmas clothes, we lined up to model our ugly sweaters so the voting could begin.  Those that didn't wear a sweater (mostly the men-but Brad did wear one and opted out of the contest because he decided a pilly sweater just didn't qualify) got to vote for the "Ugliest Sweater".  The question everyone asked was, "What's the criteria?"   We had none.  I suppose we could have spent hours searching online to see what others considered the criteria to be, but we just told everyone to vote for the one they thought was the ugliest.  Some ugly sweater creators (Mom and Ro) went above and beyond ugly and had to attach lights and sing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"

Here's a preview of the other sweaters.  Can you choose a winner?  

I'd actually buy Kelsey's and wear it to school...only if it came with the bell crown!  Poor Karen.  Mona and I wanted the sweater off her back to make mittens!  Mona got it.  The little cotton balls were hot glued, so if you get a mint green pair of mittens someday with little scraps of white cotton, it's just the remains of an ugly sweater.

Another keeper-are these really ugly or just festive? 

All the rest.  Well...you can't even see mine and it got the most votes (3)!!  Maybe it was "Butt Ugly"!

 

From left to right: Nikki-Ugly Sweater Organizer and buyer of gifts for prizes, Kim-Ugliest Sweater 2012, Kelsey-Ugliest Sweater Runner Up 2012.

If we do it again in 2013, maybe we need to call it something else. I don't know: tacky, creative, festive, hideous, obnoxious...What do you think? 

A Day in the Ocean with a Maine Lobsterman

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On a warm August Maine morning, Mark and I arrived at the Bucksport Town Dock to board the Jenny G II for a 3 hour lobster boat tour on a real working lobster boat, piloted by Captain Greg Perkins.   We immediately liked our captain when his response to our half hour early arrival was, “I love Mainers, you’re always on time!”

Once on board, we headed down the main channel, past Fort Knox and under the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.  After passing a few porpoises, Greg began hauling in traps.  First, he gaffed the buoys with a gaffing hook and hooked the line to the wheel pulley and once the trap was at the side of the boat, he easily hauled it up with one hand.  Once he opened the trap door, he began throwing crabs; smaller ones went back in the water, while the larger ones made their way to a crate to be sold.  After that, he checked the sex of the lobsters, measured them and either threw them back or wrapped elastics around their claws and threw them in a basket.  He threw the left over bait, herring, into the water for the waiting seagulls and filled it quickly and pushed the trap back into the water.  This all happened so quickly that if you didn’t watch closely, you missed some of the steps. 

Apparently, I hadn’t watched closely enough when it was my turn.  Just holding the gaffing hook in my hands with two oversized slippery gloves on was a task for me!  The whole time I was thinking, “What if this slips out of my hands and falls in the water?”  I succeeded in grabbing the buoy my first try, in part because Greg said he’d be nice and slow down and get real close for my first try. Then I proceeded to haul the trap in.  I’m strong, but this girl couldn’t do it with one hand.  I used all my leg muscles to haul that 50-pound trap up over the side of the boat.  As soon as I opened the trap door, Greg said, “Grab the crabs first and then it’s easier to get at the lobster.  Oh and did I tell you they pinch?  Really hard?”  

No…pinching never looked like it was a problem for Greg.  My first grab I got pinched and the crab wouldn’t let go.  A few crabs flew right in Mark’s direction when I began shaking my hand to get the pinch hold to release!  I never did get the hang of the just-right-place to hold a crab to get it out of the trap but I was able to comfortably take all of the lobsters from the trap without getting pinched. 

Each trap had an average of 1 to 2 lobster “keepers” and half a dozen crabs.  By the time I took care of the crabs and lobsters, emptied the bait net out and refilled it and threaded it into its hooks, closed the door on the trap and got ready to throw the trap back into the waters, Greg could have taken care of 5 traps.  He was very patient and explained everything about the business of lobstering, the surrounding area and his passion for this job he wants to do for a lifetime. 

 If you want a to enjoy a great morning on the water in a lobster boat driven by a great lobsterman, I highly recommend a day with Greg Perkins of Penobscot Narrows Lobstering Tours. 

And when you’re done, buy the load of lobster you caught and go home and eat lobster. As a matter of fact, help out the Maine lobstermen and eat lobster once a week-it’s cheaper than a pound of hamburg right now! 

Monday Warm Up

I'm a little behind on my "homework" for Teachers Write as I've been teaching writing at the University to a group of voracious 3rd and 4th grade writers.  Today I chose a prompt from Jo Knowles Monday morning warm-up board. My plan is to freewrite, a poem is speaking to me and I'll come back to it in a week or so and see what I want to do with it.


Come Away With Me

come away with me
down the long dirt road
cicadas humming in the heat of the day
dew covered branches rain on your shoulders
as you crawl under them

come away with me
the rhythm of your breathing
the beat of your feet landing in the dirt
create their own music
no ipod needed

come away with me
break through the spiderwebs
that drape from one side of the road to the other
get lost in your thoughts
run, run, run faster

come away with me
down the long dirt road

Monday Morning Warm-Up 7/9/12

Hello, teachers! I can't believe it's already mid-summer! I don't know about you, but this does not please me AT ALL.

At the beginning of the project, I asked you all to describe a kitchen of your childhood. Today, I'm going to ask you to describe a room of importance to you NOW. It could be a family room, an office, a kitchen of your adulthood, your classroom... Whatever place makes you feel happy when you are in it, for whatever reason. Then follow these steps:

1. Make a list of all the important objects in the room. Write down as many things as you can. Don't worry if these won't make sense to anyone else. Just write them down.

2. Now look! You have a poem! Admire it.

3. But that's not all! Now you have a list of items that each tells its own story. Pick one now, and tell it. Then share!

Kitchen
Vitamix
Food Processor
Coffee Maker
FAGE Plain Greek Yogurt in fridge
Radio
Tea
Raw Honey
Daughters' pictures
Hardwood Floor

Greek Yogurt,
Oh, Greek Yogurt
I love you.
A sliced banana on the bottom
Smothered with a huge dollop of
plain FAGE on top
Cinnamon sprinkled all over
Creamy
Delicious
My kind of snack

Thursday Quick-Write Teachers Write

Quick-Write Option #1 is courtesy of guest author Barb Rosenstock. Barb loves true stories best and often pretends to live in the past though she’s thankful every day for indoor plumbing, instant cocoa and the Internet. Her picture books include: The Camping Trip that Changed America (illus. by Caldecott Medalist Mordicai Gerstein), The Littlest Mountain (illus. by Melanie Hall), and Fearless (illus. by Scott Dawson) Upcoming: Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library (illus. by John O’Brien), Vasya’s Noisy Paintbox (illus. by Mary GranPré) and The Streak. You can find her at www.barbrosenstock.com or on Twitter @barbrosenstock.

“What in the world am I writing about?”

I was in the middle of a picture book draft and had just pasted in and deleted essentially the same two sentence six times. I thought I’d created pretty interesting characters, a cool setting and the basic plot outline, but where was my THEME? (I can still hear my 4^th grade teacher Mr. Fornek.)  Was this a story about friendship? Or courage? Or plain cleanliness? Here’s a way that might help you figure out what you’re writing about when you’re stuck…
Go to http://www.wordle.net. It’s free, you don’t have to fill in personal information or sign up. If you haven’t used WORDLE™ before, it’s a tool that generates a graphic word cloud from text you insert. The WORDLE™ is based on frequency of use in your text. Click “create” and paste in a good chunk of text from your work in progress (at least two pages.) Hit the “Go” button. SURPRISE! You’ll see a pretty WORDLE™ graphic generated from your very own writing. Now look at which words are bigger and which smaller or missing all together. Are you writing about what you think you’re writing about? You may find that the word “friend” shows up the largest, that nothing describing your setting shows up at all or that a minor character’s name comes out larger than a major one—all useful stuff for finding a theme and revising.
If you’re feeling super motivated today, write a letter to or from your main character using the seven largest words in your WORDLE.
My theme is invention, what’s yours?
Note from Kate: You can do this with any writing…your journal, your work-in-progress…even one or two of your quick-writes combined.

Quick-Write option #2 today is from me (though I am away this week with super-limited Internet, so I may not be able to reply to comments on this post) and it’s about exploring points of view.
For those working on a piece of fiction, or nonfiction that involves people…
Choose a scene in your story that’s important to the main character or primary figure. Write that scene from a completely different point of view — the antagonist, or the character’s childhood friend who shows up, or the clerk at the grocery store. How does the scene change?
For those still brainstorming ideas or working on something without a main character…
Choose a scene from one of your favorite books that you’ve read, and rewrite it from a totally different character’s point of view. You might try this from a few perspectives. For example, a character who is friends with the main character is one option, but what if you wrote from the antagonist’s point of view?  What if you wrote from the point of view of a child? Or someone much older? Or the family dog?
Sometimes, this writing prompt will lead you to discover something you never realized before. Other times, it may help you to see your character through someone else’s eyes.
If you discover anything interesting or fun or important, stop by later on and let us know with a comment!

The Accident

My nose hairs immediately froze when I stepped out the front door.  I quickly forgot about the cold as we ran into the old garage to grab the runner sleds.  We each grabbed a rope handle and trudged through the snow banks to cross the road to our favorite icy sliding hill over at Old Lady Haskell’s.  It took us forever to get to the top.  Rodonna would be almost there, then slide back and knock Karen and me down like dominoes so we had to start all over again.  By the time we got to the top, we were toasty warm and ready for a full day of sliding on the runners. 

Rodonna went first.  She was the oldest of the three of us, so we always let her go first.  She sat on her sled and placed her feet just right so she could steer the sled.  We watched from the top, as she became a blur on the fast ice.   She nailed the bottom turn just as we had all mapped out at the top.  “Yes, that was a blast,” she screamed from the bottom, “I’m doing it again!” 

Next it was my turn.  I thought it might be safer to lie on the sled.  Karen held it while I positioned myself perfectly:  belly on wooden slats, legs bent at the knee so my feet were up in the air and my mittened hands grasping the handles for dear life!

I yelled, “OK, let go”, and I was off.  I was flying down that icy hill.  I was flying out of control and I couldn’t think.  I was flying so fast I started screaming and just closed my eyes and let the sled take me for a ride.  My belly was tickling and I know I was smiling through my screams.   That’s how fun it was at that very moment.  The fun didn’t last.  As I approached the bottom, I heard Karen yelling from the top, “Go left, Kim, go left.”  Just as I began to turn my handles to the left, I opened my eyes and right there in front of me was the pile of lumber that we all had planned to carefully to avoid.  I didn’t even have time to plow off my sled.  I ran smack right into the lumber pile.  I screamed again, but this time it wasn’t a scream of joy.  It was s scream of pain. 

My face felt wet and I wiped my mitten across it and saw blood all over my mitten.  Rodonna reached me first and said, “Oh no, mama’s gonna kill us!”  Karen approached and said, “We’ll just clean it up and she’ll never know.”

Karen washed all the blood off my face with snow and Rodonna made me an ice pack with her mitten. 

For the next few hours, I was a queen sitting high on my sled pedestal, while Rodonna and Karen took turns pulling me around the lumberyard until we thought it was safe enough to go home. 

We didn’t take anymore runs down the hill that day and my face was all puffed up, but we went right back out to he hill the next day and I never hit that lumber pile again!  

Today's assignment I'll attempt:  Write that scene from a completely different point of view.  I am going to write this story from my sister, Rodonna's, point of view instead of mine. 

I flew down the icy hill in record speed, grabbed my rope and began dragging the runner seld back up the hill to do it all over again.  Karen was at the top holding the sled while Kim was getting into position.  What on earth was she doing?  She was laying flat on her belly on the sled with her legs, bent at the knees, sticking up behind her.  I heard Karen counting down just as I started yelling, "Sit up, you idiot.  Don't go down on your belly!'
"....2, 1..." Karen yelled and let go of the sled and off Kim went.  She was flying out of control and I knew what was going to happen before it even happened.  She began to rapidly approach me on the hill and I could see the big smile on her face slowly disappearing as she sled begin going down the hill with a mind of its own.  She closed her eyes and I knew right then, it was over.  I stopped on the hill and watched her go down.  Karen's screams of "Go left, Kim!  Go left!" couldn't be heard over the sharp runners cutting into the ice.  At that moment, time froze.  Kim flew right into the lumber pile we had all planned to carefully to avoid.  Before the blood curdling screams came out of Kim's mouth, Karen came sliding down the hill on her bottom but I was closer, so I got there first. She was laying comatose on the sled and I thought she was dead until I rolled her over. 
That's when I saw blood all over her face. She picked up her mittened hand and wiped the blood off her face and that's when I said, "Mama's gonna kill us!"
The wise one of the bunch said, "She'll never know, we'll just clean her all up and mama will never know what happened."
Karen washed all the blood off Kim's face with snow while I made her an ice-pack with my mitten.  For the next few hours, we dragged her all over the lumberyard until the swelling had gone down enough to go home.  
The next day, we all went back to the hill and Kim never ran into that lumber pile again! 

Tuesday Quick-Write

Author: Julie True Kingsley.  She tells us to find the character within by closing our eyes and envisioning a well-rounded, complex, flushed out character we know.  Think about the character in our own story-is it well-rounded? Probably not.  Julie suggests using mixed media to create our characters and their story. 

Step One:  Look for faces in magazines that call to you. Choose one.  (If you already have a character, you can sketch your character they way you imagine they look.) 
Here's Jim taken from a Fitness magazine advertisement for Honda:

Physical Traits: Blue eyes, beard, mustache, athletic, thin, in his 30's, starting to bald so he hides it with a hat
What is Jim thinking? Jim is shocked by what he's seeing.  He's also curious and wants to know more.
What makes Jim's heart tick? He likes adventures, climbing high and living on the edge of death.  What really makes him tick is his secret.
Jim's Secrets: He has many.  He works for a major film company documenting sporting events, but he secretly wants to be the athlete, not the cameraman.
He always wanted to be a naturalist as he has a secret passion for birds.  His parents wouldn't support him in college if he went into that field, so he settled for media.
He still lives with his parents, but on weekends and while he's "away on assignment",  he's really at a cabin in the woods his parents don't know he built. There he nurtures and cares for the many bird visitors he receives. 

Step Two:  This was hard for me.  What song would speak to the "secret Jim"?  I didn't have one in my head, so I had to take a break for a while and just think about Jim.  I came to this one. (Funny about this song, I've used it in another writing project, too.)  The World Ain't Slowing Down by Paul Ellis.   Jim's life is passing him by and if he doesn't follow his passion, he might be stuck where he is and doesn't want to be.
Step Three: Start this character's story.  Keep the music playing, put the beat into your writing, see what happens. Does the beat find its way into your words?

Here goes:
Jim shut the door of his Toyota Truck, put the key in the ignition and let out a big sigh.  He looked in the passenger's seat at the lunch sack his mother had packed him that morning, just as she had when he was younger going off to school.  Back then, he really went where his mother thought he was going.  He took his hat off and grabbed his balding head with both hands and clasped them behind his head and looked straight ahead at this house he'd lived in since he was born, the house he'd lived in for 30 years, the house where he lived one life, but secretly wished to live a very different one.  He drove out of the drive and headed towards his paradise but couldn't shake the strange pit in his stomach he was experiencing for the first time. 

Frustration-Teacher's Write Monday Mini-Lesson

Today's mini-lesson was brought to us by Ruth McNally Barshaw, author and illustrator of Ellie McDoodle.  She discusses how important it is to sketch out your writing work with illustrations before you begin writing. These words resonate with me: "And if you want to write better, draw first." 
Her drawing ideas are as follows:
"To use this idea with students:
-Have them draw storyboards of their work. Or their fellow students’ work. Or stories they have read.
Storyboarding is used in advertising for developing commercials, and in filmmaking. Limiting them to 6 or 8 small boxes for the entire story prevents minutia or perfectionism from creeping in. It solidifies pacing and focuses cause and effect. (Illustrators storyboard their picturebooks, one box per page. I do this, but I also storyboard my novels.)
-Tell them to close their eyes. Visualize the character they want to write about. Then draw what they see in their mind’s eye, their imagination.
-To add depth to the drawn character, add callouts to describe various personality and physical traits. Brainstorm negative as well as positive traits, for a more rounded character. Next they write a story using what they have drawn." 
Here's my attempt at drawing a picture of my frustration with biking lately.  I am a fit person and am very tough on myself when I don't live up to my own fitness expectations. Lately, my bike rides have been very difficult and frustrating for me!  After a 24 mile ride yesterday, I felt like this:

After drawing and letting my bike "talk to me, I already feel better and if it's not still raining out tomorrow, I'm going for a ride! 

Fiddleheadin' with Daddy

The crisp spring evenings and warm sunny days bring one of my favorite spring events: fiddleheading.  I love eating them but I love picking them even more!
The event starts off with either a late evening or early morning phone call from my dad.  He calls to say it looks like it could be a fiddleheadin' day and I should meet him at the boat landing. 
This year, we took Searle along (Searle and daddy do a lot together) and I was glad for that because I can never get the boat to do what my father thinks I should be able to make it do.  This year, daddy yelled at Searle instead of me!  It's fun to go with Searle, he tells the best stories. I marvel at all he has experienced and his vivid memory of each event.  I'm always telling my students to take the time to listen to their elders as they are the best storytellers and they will never experience the life their elders had.
We were all bundled up in our winter coats and I even wore my mittens on the boat ride to our secret spot.  As soon as we got there, we each grabbed our buckets and the "plunks" were soon replaced with a soft fiddle head bed for the rest to land on. 
It didn't take long to fill our buckets and just as we were about finished, we realized our secret spot wasn't so secret after all.  A wet dog, that looked just like Izzi, came running over at me and then I saw the dog's owner paddling in a canoe right to our spot. Soon after that, another man and his daughter walked over towards us with garbage bags picking fiddle heads. 
With full buckets, we headed back to the boat and began our ride back to the truck.  Searle kept me entertained with a few more stories, one being about the time Paul Lovett flew his airplane right under the bridge and another about the time he had a confrontation with the Indians.  Yes, we called them Indians in the boat. 
These are the days I love.  A boat ride, good company and good stories, no bugs, fiddle heads for supper, and the time spent with daddy.  I already can't wait for next year.

 Daddy and Searle tying up the boat.

 How many you got?

 Beautiful!

 Another one of daddy's finds (paddle). Every time he goes fiddleheadin' he finds something!

Yep, this is the part where Searle didn't get it just perfect and Daddy let him know!  I'm quite sure Searle wouldn't call it being yelled at.

Surviving a Maine Winter (And Enjoying It!)

Believe it or not, this picture was taken just a few weeks ago, during Christmas vacation, while enjoying one of our year round sports in the winter-goecaching. Notice my Chobani and my cute little 31 lunch sack I had made just for geocaching! I don't go anywhere without a snack.

Now onto the real post:

According to my colleague and friend, Debbie, I'm an "outdoor girl." She's right. I love to be out in the fresh air and my day isn't complete until I get a little bit of sunshine on my face! I'm also somewhat obsessed with exercising outdoors, maybe even exercising in general. No matter the season, you will find me outside exercising. In the spring and summer, I'll jog in the rain and I've been known to bike on a misty day. Accidentally (and I don't recommend it), I have even been seen biking in thunderstorms! In the fall, I relish the crisp autumn jogs on "my" dirt road and biking in warmer clothing. When the snow flies, I am anxious for big snowstorms that provide a great cushion for snowshoeing or skiing. If the winter is like this year, I continue jogging. This weekend, I jogged on Saturday in several inches of snow which prompted my decision to ski on Sunday.
Debbie's facebook post inspired me to create this post the whole time I skied. She said she wouldn't be going out night snowshoeing because it was too cold and I replied she just needed to dress for the occasion. Here, I will share what I wear on a five below zero day so I can get my daily sunshine and exercise!
These pictures were taken after my 5-mile ski and I promise I will only disrobe to the last layer. Here's what I looked like right when I got back. Note my outer layer-a windbreaker, a hat, and unlined wind pants. See Boomer in the background? He and Daisy go, too. They have little neck warmers and they run the whole time.
The first thing I did when I got inside was get a mason canning jar (why do they call it mason? I'll have to look that up), put 8 ounces of skim milk in it, a squirt of chocolate syrup, put the lid on, shake it, and put it in the freezer. I'll come back to the chocolate milk later.
Here's what I look like after taking off my first 2 layers-remember, I only dress in this many layers when it's below zero and the wind is blowing. Otherwise, for winter activities, I usually only have on 2 shirts, one windbreaker and one fleece.

Left: I wear a red LL Bean fleece that I've had for about 15 years. It's not very thick, but it does the job. On a normal winter day, I don't wear the outer blue windbreaker. That blue jacket is not lined, so it's very thin. I wore my balaclava and a scarf today-I only wear those on windy, below zero days. The pants in the first picture are just a pair of Adidas running pants. Right: The pants in the middle are the next and last pant layer-a pair of compression running pants. And check out those socks. Mark got those for me for Christmas (or as our second graders say, "I got it from Christmas."). They are compression and they go all the way up to my knee and I love them. I only ever wear one pair of socks in the winter. For any other winter sport, I wear a pair of LL Bean Smart Wool socks. In the middle, I also have my biking windbreaker-just a thin layer and a little fleece neck warmer I made. The two places I can't stand any cold air hitting are my neck and my ankles. Lower: My compression socks!

Left: A wick away moisture type of shirt (an old one from Dicks). Right: Another wick away-Kohls has them cheap when they have sales. Lower: A wick away moisture shirt-from Target.

And that's the last layer! A tank top. I was a wash of sweat when I got home-just look at my hair! But...I never once got cold despite the wind blowing and the cold temps. So, dress in layers and you'll be all set to survive a cold Maine winter. Once you find something you love to do outside, Spring gets here before you know it.

One of my favorite parts of today's ski was seeing a deer on the way out and seeing beautiful Mount Katahdin on the way back. I always have to stop and marvel at its beauty. I'm in awe that I've actually climbed it 5 times and flown through it twice. I didn't bring my camera, so here's a shot from last summer when Brad took me on a plane ride:

Back to that chocolate milk. This month in my Runner's World subscription, they suggested drinking chocolate milk within 30 minutes after a jog to restore the protein in your body. That's what I'm doing. Drank my milk and went down cellar and did a 400 rep challenge with Lisa and arms with Sean. Now I'm off to log my daily exercise onto myfitnesspal to see if I earned a little treat!