Shopping at the Wren’s Nest! Thursday, Nov 29 2007

Stop by and pick up some really awesome Christmas/Hanukkah/Holiday gifts!! I’ve been eying some stuff up and there’s a shipping special right now~ Place an order with standard shipping and get upgraded to priority!

Check it out~

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Wordless Wednesday #21- No TV for you!! Tuesday, Nov 27 2007

TV?? No TV for you! Not while cats are around!!

View more WW participants!

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Manic Monday- Rank Sunday, Nov 25 2007

 

Rank

When I think of rank while blogging of course the fact that my Google Page Rank has dropped from 4 to 2 in a week and that my Technorati Rank has dropped from the 200s to 38 in the last month are in the forefront… but I’ll leave that to Mo to talk about on The Mo Show this week.

Instead I’ll discuss interesting rank orders for my beloved city of NOLA

• Ranks #17 as Best city for singles.
• The port of New Orleans ranks 5th in the WORLD for trade.
• Ranks #1 in Travel and Leisure… gee, I wonder why?
• Unfortunately… ranks #8 for Dangerous Cities (but hey, Hartford, CT beat us for 7th place!)
• And, #50 for business… bring your money back to NOLA!

Visit Mo for more Manic Monday info!

 Header created by Janna!

 

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Award Season Saturday, Nov 24 2007

I’ve been seriously slacking in the posting of my recent awards and nominating others… Bad NOLA!!

SIX Awards compliments of dear Sandee at Comedy Plus:

 

1. (I cannot get the beautiful picture to stay… argh!)

The Color of Friendship Award

 

2.

 

Mel over at Monday Morning Power created a new award called Winning Attitude Award. How cool is that. This award ia all about having a winning attitude and here is what Mel had to say:

This award seems like a natural given what my site is all about. This award is based on positive thinking and is meant for those blogs who base their existence, in part or in whole, on Positive Winning Attitudes.

There are two ways to post this award on your site; the award only or the code and award. To get your preference go HERE. Remember, the creator of this award is Mel and a link back to his blog post is in order.

3. Trista at The Pumpkin Patch created this award in honor of the Halloween season.

Here’s Trista’s rules:

1. Once you’ve been awarded the Sweet Treat Award, make a post and award it to 3 bloggers who you deem “One Sweet Treat to Read” everyday.
2. Make sure you inform those who you awarded that they have won!
3. Grab the button and proudly display it in your sidebar for all your old/new readers to see!

4.

Colin over at Life, created a new award called the Best Blogging Buddies award.

Here’s what Colin had to say about this award:

Having received many awards I have decided that it was time I created one for ALL my Blogging Buddies. You are ALL awesome and contribute to the wonderful global communities that we have all created. Thank you

Feel free to pass this along, all Colin asks is that all recipients link back to his site as the original point of reference.

 

5.

AND

 Sandee and Bridget at And Miles to Go…

 both awarded me with this lovely award:

(another one that won’t stick)

The I’ve Got a Friend in You Award

So, I award these to my wonderful blogging friends:

• Altjiranga Mitjina (The timeless dimension of dreams)

• And Miles to go Before we Sleep…
• Books. Lists. Life.
• Brotherhood 2.0
• Comedy+
• Desert Songbird @ The Ice Box
• Down River Drivel
• Fluttering Butterflies
• G Bitch Spot
• Get Your Blog On!
• Island Life
• It’s a Blog Eat Blog World
• Lil’ Duck Duck
• Mimi Writes
• Mississippi Zen
• Still Life With Soup Can
• Trav’s Thoughts

Pick up your award and show it proudly!!

 

 

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Cool new site… Friday, Nov 23 2007

FreeRice is a site where you can play a vocabulary game to boost your verbal skills and feed hungry people at the same time. How awesome is that? I have to admit, it’s quite addictive.

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Heeheehee My Obituary… Friday, Nov 23 2007

‘What will your obituary say?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

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Thanks Thursday, Nov 22 2007

I am thankful today for my family, friends, pets, and wonderful hometown. 

I also want to give a big thanks to my blogging buddies.  Without you, I wouldn’t be here.  

Happy Thanksgiving!!

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Pics from NYC Wednesday, Nov 21 2007

Here are the pics from NYC…

The only view I got of the Empire State Building…

Both dark due to their strikes…

Times Square

And… the authors

Me and Jerry Spinelli, the king of YA lit!  I got his newest book– not yet out   Yay me!

Ishmael Beah, his memoir still sits with me almost a year later.

My friend Jess and Katherine Paterson… she told her about reading Bridge to Terabithia five times in 5th grade and leaving a pool of tears at her desk… and then she cried.

I HEART James Howe!! He asked me for a hug when I told him that I introduce Totally Joe to my 4th graders. Wow! When I sat down later and read his inscriptions in my books, I cried.

Definitely the best session of the whole conference… Authors’ Readers’ Theater.

Avi, Katherine Paterson, Sarah Weeks, and Brian Selznick…. ahhhh…

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I’m back…. Tuesday, Nov 20 2007

Back from my trip to NYC, that is. It was super busy and I didn’t get to go to any of the fabulous places that Steven recommended. We didn’t get to our hotel until 2am thanks to delays in our flights. The rest of the trip was fully taken up by the conference, but I was so happy by that. I met and got to speak to some of my all time favorite children’s authors; Jerry Spinelli, James Howe, Linda Sue Park, Walter Dean Myers, Katherine Paterson, Laurie Halse Anderson, Avi, Sarah Weeks… Wow! what an amazing time it was. James Howe asked ME if he could give me a hug! Not the other way around!! So, all I really saw of NYC was the walk back and forth from the Convention Center to our hotel, but I saw Times Square, 7th Avenue, and Broadway. I guess that will do for now Plus, I got to eat some amazing Brownie Cheesecake at Lindy’s.

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Too overwhelmed… Monday, Nov 12 2007

I guess that would put it mildly.  I’m exhausted because I volunteered all weekend at our school’s booth at the town fair.  Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast… but now I’m paying for it.  The big girl was sick today and my dear mother left work early to come and get her and take her to her house so we could both go to work.  Tomorrow interim reports go home.  Wednesday night is Family Math Night (of which I’m in charge) and I’m leaving Wednesday afternoon to go to NYC for my conference so I’m busy getting the entire thing ready now.

And, the worst news of all, my darling nephew-to-be has been diagnosed with cancer.  My niece will be 26 in two weeks; he will be 30 next month.  He has malignant melanoma and went through his second major surgery today in a week.  Next week he starts chemo and radiation.  This shouldn’t happen to anyone, much less a healthy, vigorous, young man.  He is an Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Deputy… you know the ones that you saw pictures of standing on the interstate guarding the prisoners because the prison was under water???  That was him.  They were supposed to get married on Leap Day.  He will just be finishing his rounds of chemo and radiation then so they have had to postpone the wedding because he just won’t have the energy for any of it.

Life is just not fair.

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Be the Blog Award Sunday, Nov 11 2007

Sandee at Comedy Plus has bestowed upon me yet another award!

Mark from Me And My Drum, who created this badge has this to say, “This badge is for bloggers who make their blogs their own, stay with it, interact with their readers, and have fun!”

I now bestow the badge on:

Steven @ Get Your Blog On!

Desert Songbird @ The Ice Box

John @ Altjiranga Mitjina

and last but not least, our beloved Mo @ It’s a Blog Eat Blog World 

Present and future recipients of the award are encouraged to drop by HERE and pick their favorite flavor to copy and paste the code (intact) to their blogs. Now go out there and spread the love.

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The Nonesense Meme: Part Deux Sunday, Nov 11 2007

Stine over at Mother’s Got A Dot Com started a cool meme some time back and just posted an updated version. She started this meme on Mother’s Home and found the meme on Grow Rich along with Me. She has altered the rules a bit and has launched this fun meme again. I just have to participate. Here’s how:

Copy and paste the rules below on your blog.

Write a sentence or short paragraph, using the titles of the blogs you’re tagging or any word(s) associated with them as keywords for the links you include as part of the sentence. Remember # 4 below!

Rules:

1. Copy and paste the story below, and the rules, on your blog. (In “Compose” for Blogger, and in “Visual” for WordPress – saves you a lot of work with linking!)
2. Find out who you’re going to tag. (2-3 people, or more, if you wish)
3. Write one or two sentences to continue the story, and use the titles of the blogs you’re tagging or any word(s) associated with them as keywords in the links you include as part of the sentence.
4. Remember to tell your taggees that you’ve tagged them!
5. Feel free to use this and start your own viral link story.

Please link back to Stine @ Mother’s got a Dot Com as she is the author of this meme.

Now – to the story – enjoy!

Mother’s Home! the cave troll yelled. I have been out all day strangling chickens like CRAZY! for the evil Empress. All i want now is a MOment to myself, but i keep getting Linda talking Drivel, but that is better than a certain someone Mooing. Then suddenly what should appear but the NOT evil Empress and all her strangled chickens and Mags cooked them all up and made us a lovely cake to eat. Gracie wanted all the cake for herself but the NOT evil Empress was able to hack off a good sized slab for herself!!! Ha ha ha, Gracie belched loudly after eating all the scrumptious cake that Mags had baked and watched Callie scrappin’ with Sarge about who was gonna win Big Brother 8. Sarge started humming “Dixie,” and almost choked on the bite of cake in his mouth! So he got some coffee to go to wash down the cake. The coffee helped a bit but he had to vocalize before he started singing again so he began, “Mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi…”…who heard him all the way from Bloggingham Palace and said, “Where is that awful noise coming from? Is there a sick wailing Wacky Mom loose in the woods?” She said, “I’ll bet Songbird can teach him to sing!” but she was busy BONDing in the desert with Kathleen who sat writing heresy in her diary. She was absolutely no help. So Mi-Mi asked Kat to put him on the PP&P list to save his sorry soul. Alas, Ralph the Airhead made a new batch but the Patti-cakes fell in Polliwog’s Pond and nobody got to eat cake after all! It was all Bee’s fault (somehow). Feeling sorry for herself, she pranced over to Odat’s for a dance but she only heard strange mumbling…

That mumbling, however, resulted from The Alien Next Door trying to clone Justin Stanely’s Weblog. The meticulous and risky cloning occurred throughout several millennia, past, present, and future. Or so it seemed; no one could keep count. It was just too much. The mind-numbing years had finally sublimed the earth into a pristine Bobbarama. All well and good, said Bob, but whatever happened to the rules? Before anyone got hurt, however, enough stars fell and crashed to alert Sci-Fi Girl, who grabbed her laptop and returned to the woods, where Mimi’s Dating Profile popped up, allowing a lion to lie happily next to a lamb…Now, the insane writer burst into the forest, kissing the dogwood and sat on the lion, spinning tales about sci-fi girl’s boyfriend, sci-fi guy, who had his eye on [her] DNA, which he was hoping to sell for anything goes. But just then the mad goat lady and the drowsey monkey pranced into the forest and sang a truly quiet symphony, which annoyed the insane writer.“What’s that funky sound?” screamed sci-fi guy.

“Well, it sure isn’t a raspberry-latte!” grumbled the insane writer. “Get a grip, sci-fi guy! You’re my main character! I expect you to know how to split an atom! Ignore that woman and her indolent pet! Now, go and do your dastardly thing!”Kissing the dogwood had been a lure, a trap set by the Mighty Morgan to take control of the BlogWood. Those petulant witches disguised as writers must be eradicated, them and their man slaves. She stuck her talons into the lion with A Twist and a Skewer till it rolled over and laughingly pleaded to go back to Neverland where it had been extremely happy. Her faithful followers, the Gargons grouped around her skirt folds, drooling and kissing her hem in adoration. “Here, take this poison” she commanded, “why? (asked) paisley“, the only rebel in the camp. “To blight their computers my little friends, it’s a special potion A Bit of This and a Dash of the Other“…she smiled mysteriously in her best Mae West accent and set off in search of the Englebert Humperdink Fan Club.Well they searched all over boricua in texas….till they found just write road… aha this was the place… if they could just get in the front row,, surely that was the place that screamed “flash your knickers here“… and oh yes… they would… in doing so they could only hope to distract the masses long enough for the twisted sisters to sneak in with the special potion they had cooked up………

Disguised as margarita’s with colorful umbrellas, they sipped the potion while sitting in a nice place in the sun until they were laughing hysterically and begging for more comedy. Meanwhile, a random Magus roamed the woods searching for the golden icon that was being guarded by the Priory of Firefox. The icon held all the secrets of the blogging world, and these secrets were to remain hidden for all time…We have to climb this tree of magically changing heights to get to the dangerous land of Greg’s Brain for there we can unlock the secret of the icon, the icon called Remedial Rumination – what did it mean?. They crossed amel’s realm but the passageway was really dark, where is Titania Starlight when you need her we could do with some of her shining, said Meleah Rebeccah.The two of them looked at each other and then gazing into the abyss…they had an idea, an idea so brilliant….they laughed hysterically – Rubyshooz…but of course they will take us there.

So they mumbled some sort of incantation to call the Dark Eagles. The Dark Eagles swooped down a few moments later and they sat on top of them. Then they flew higher and higher and higher to get to the dangerous land. Upon arriving on the edge of the land, they saw Crow’s Feet dangling on the gate. Then Choc Mint Girl came out of nowhere, telling them that they had to have a new perspective before they could unlock the secret of the icon. Then poof! In an instant she was gone. Then they heard a loud, terrifying shrill from the east side of the land. What and who is it, they wonder?

Then there was silence. So quiet that they can even hear their own breathing as if there is no other living things around them. Now both of them were terrified and confused. Who was she? Why should they listen to her? “We need Max,” one of them desperately whispered. At the said of his name, the magical cat from The Kat House appeared, but he greeted them with words of warning. “She was right! You will end up in the Sebastian’s Soap Box!!” At this point, they were so blinded by greed and somehow for the very first time they ignored his advice. They started to climb up the gigantic gate with evil grin, but all of a sudden they were shaken by a deep man’s voice…“ONLY ONE MAN’S TRAVEL BLOG CAN UNCHAIN THE SECRET OF THE ICON…”

But Max showed up, and yelled “NO! DON’T LISTEN TO THAT MAN! I know how to unchain the secret of the icon!!!”…then she started climbing to join them; and when she was at their level she commanded them to follow her to the top! At the top, Max took the “Grow Rich along with Me” book out of her pocket and started looking for the code…”where’s that bloody thingy?” she kept asking; the code was nowhere to be found! Then she thought “Oh, no! I have to get into the grove and bargain it with Drollery and Circumspection Twins: they have a copy of the code! This is going to cost me money! Let’s go!!”…and off they went! Will the twins help them?…

No way! Thought the twins. We’re going to bolt! Why get into trouble for helping others? We’d rather work from home !! That’s the way to gather success !!! Plus it won’t benefit us at all if we help. We just want to find A Nice Place In The Sun, miles away from here. But first I think we need to talk to Mama about looking for hope. You see, I have this friend named NolaDawn, who is a PalmTreeFanatic. Before we do anything, we need to go eat some Panda Curry.

Quick! Grab it out of the Ice Box! And if we don’t fill up quickly on that we’ll just eat some Mo’!

After eating, we gathered our things and headed to the computer to Get Our Blog On! We thought about what Mimi would write…. and decided to go from there.

 

I tag:

Desert Songbird at The Ice Box

Morgen at It’s a Blog Eat Blog World

Steven at Get Your Blog On

Travis at Trav’s Thoughts

& Mimi at Mimi Writes

 

 

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Friday Feast #24 Thursday, Nov 8 2007

Feast One Hundred & Sixty Eight

{Featured Flickr Feast by hjkaufmann}

Appetizer
Which snack do you like to get when you go to the movies?

Well, to start I haven’t been to a movie in AGES… *but* when I do go I like to get a small buttered popcorn and a large Coke.

Soup
What year did you start using the internet?

1995… I’m such a trend setter! heehee

Salad
What is your first name in Pig Latin? (Here’s how to speak it if you don’t already know!)

Olanay Awnday

Main Course
Name something you are picky about.

Boy is that a weighted question! Everything! Mostly food stuff, and people, and following rules, and…..

Dessert
Fill in the blanks: I got aggravated yesterday and I will ignore (it) today. ***so I broke a rule, I aggravate myself!**

 

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From the “pencils” of babes :-D Thursday, Nov 8 2007

In continuing with the peace movement…

In my classroom I do a Quote of the Day; where I write a quote and my students write what the quote means to them. Over the last twelve weeks of school I have included several peace quotes. These are four and their responses– enjoy!

Peace Talk

From Room 8

Our interpretations in our 4^th grade classroom of some famous peace quotes:

Nothing will bring you peace but yourself.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think it means that peace is in my body.

It means your self can bring you peace.

I think it’s about bringing yourself peace. Like when you go home and sit in the tub- that you bring peace to yourself.

You can’t let anyone give you peace. You give yourself peace.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

~ Gandhi

You cannot shake hands if they are balled up because you can’t shake with a fist.

You cannot shake hands if you are about to fight.

You cannot shake hands with a fist. I feel like that too because you can’t shake a fist. If you try to shake a fist you can’t do it.

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom.

~ Malcolm X

If you are not nice and the next day you want to be nice you will not get peace.

I think it means that you can’t have freedom without peace.

I think it means that you have to have freedom before you can have peace.

If you are mean, you can’t get freedom or peace.

You can’t separate freedom from peace, first you have to have freedom before you have peace.

You can’t break peace from freedom.

A man must have been a good man that people must have never had freedom.

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

~John Lennon

Peace is good for life it would be very good but give it a try. Give peace a try.

Don’t do anything to change the peace.

Have peace and take a chance. That’s why you need peace.

Give peace a chance. You might like it.

It means that you can give peace a chance to try it.

 

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Thursday Thirteen #18- The Peace Continues… Wednesday, Nov 7 2007

 

In continuing with the Peace theme this week…

 

My Thirteen Favorite Peace Quotes

 

 

1. There was never a good war or a bad peace. Benjamin Franklin
2. You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist. Gandhi
3. When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. Jimi Hendrix
4. All we are saying is give peace a chance. John Lennon
5. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom. Malcolm X
7. If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. Moshe Dayan
8. Let no one ever come to you without leaving feeling happier and better. Mother Teresa
9. For it isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it. Eleanor Roosevelt
10. Peace is not God’s gift to his creatures. It is our gift to each other. Elie Wiesel
11. Hope is a waking dream. Aristotle
12. How wonderful is it that no one need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Anne Frank
13. ….And from the mouths of babes…. my kids’ favorite saying…. Peace out!

 

Get the TT information here.

THE PURPOSE BEHIND THE THURSDAY THIRTEEN:
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. What do you do? Write Thirteen things about yourself, summarize your week in one entry, make it easy for other bloggers to get to know you on a weekly basis. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well!

See more TT particpants.

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