Post Tornado

I feel like I'm finally back in the twenty-first century.

The Brooklyn tornado took out my cable, phone and internet Thursday night and ever since it's felt like living in an earlier time.

I never thought to ever experience a tornado in Brooklyn, but Thursday's literally passed right over my house. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen.  Apparently we had what's called a rain-shrouded funnel cloud so instead of the traditional funnel cloud, all  you see is whiteout conditions with swirling bands of rain. All I know is that suddenly everything was going sideways. Since we'd been out walking the dog only 5 minutes earlier, I'm counting my blessings.

Most of the damage was to our gorgeous old trees. So sad, but it's amazing only one life was lost. So many people were caught outside in it.

Just a few of the pictures I took walking around my neighborhood over the weekend. Most of the major cleanup was done, but the tree damage was visible. 

 

Windows from this church steeple ended up in my front yard - a block away!

 

Somewhere under all these mangled trees are my cable lines!

And the winner is....

I really wish I could afford to give away 288 gift baskets because that's how much I appreciate all of the people who stopped by during blogfest and left a comment. I hope you'll all come back and visit now and then.

Alas, there could be only one winner. That winner - comment number 173 - adge.  Congratulations! I'll be in touch to get a mailing address.

Saturday Healthy Writer

Hello to everyone stopping by for Blogfest. My Blogfest post is the next one down, but I'm also blogging today over at Healthy Writer so come on over and say hello there too.

Also, as a New Yorker and an American and just a fellow human being, I can't let today pass without sending my prayers and thoughts to all those families who lost someone nine years ago today.

Welcome to Blogfest

You know what they say about the road to hell and good intentions, right? That's me and Blogfest.

Back when I signed up for this blogging extravaganza, I was in the midst of summer vacation, was blogging regularly, and was eager to find a way to draw new friends into conversations about books and writing. I imagine I noted the date, but apparently it didn't register that September 10th would be the Friday of my first week back at school. Don't get me wrong, I love my work as a teacher and I love talking about books and writing, but if you read the preceding post, you'll note that at the end of this week I'm lucky to be able to manage a coherent thought let alone an engaging post that's going to make you all want to come on back and chat again.

So I plead for your mercy and please don't give up on me right away.

I'm going to attempt to draw inspiration for this post from this crazy first week. It may be exhausting getting back into the swing of things, but it's exhilarating as well.

One of my favorite parts of teaching is the opportunity to sit with children and discuss books. I love nothing more than reading a story to my class and hearing the chuckles at a funny part or the gasps when something scary happens. I know I'm planting the seeds of lifelong reading pleasure. It gets even better when they start really thinking about their reading and making all sorts of amazing connections and expressing real insights into the stories. That's when I know they're hooked; they get the true joy of reading.

Today we were sharing information about ourselves in a project called "All About Me Bags". The idea is to take a plain brown bag and decorate it with something to reflect who you are, and then you fill it with things that are important to you. I decorated my bag with pictures of the ocean and lighthouses (surprise!) and filled it with a book I loved when I was their age (9) and a teabag to represent how I love to curl up with a pot of tea and a great book.

For my giveaway, I'm offering a slightly better version of that - a $20 Barnes and Noble gift card in a mug with tea (or coffee). Enjoy!


Finally, it's my pleasure to link you to the next step on our blogging whirlwind. Bitten by Books is a terrific site dedicated to reviewing Paranormal books so if you're looking for the best vampire or shifter novel out there or you want a taste of something different, hop on over to Bitten by Books.


ETA:  Thanks to everyone who has visited or followed me today. I really appreciate you coming by. One of the comments gave me an idea.  If you'd like, tell me what you'd put in your brown bag if you were doing an "All About Me Bag".  That sounds like a fun way to get to know some of you.

Dog Tired a/k/a Back to School

It's the first week of school.

I love my job but I am


It happens every year and I know in a week or two I'll have settled in and be able to think seriously about some writing time, but for this week, I'm managing to keep up my 100 word a day commitment and that's it.

How's your week going?

September already

So now that school is opening up, my writer's mind is more often on hiatus as the teacher's mind takes over. I'll try to figure out some regular schedule though.

In the meantime...
Did anyone else grow up eating green bean mushroom soup casserole with fried onions? Today's Healthy Writer post is on healthier and more appetizing ways to eat Green Beans.

Healthy Writers

Blogging today at Healthy Writers about the awesome health benefits of broccoli.

In researching, I found this adorable video of a son filming his father cooking broccoli salad.