Saturday, December 5, 2009

This Week in the Life of Siouxsie

Charlie Brown Christmas is playing in the background and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here. All we need is some snow. In the meantime, the kids put the Christmas tree up last night and there was only one bitter fight when three kids asked one kid for the Christmas lights that one kid had used to decorate his/her own space. Father Christmas came to the rescue once again, sending them off with a fistful of cash to buy new lights.

I am now the proud owner of a personal library database, thanks to my computer-generated, er, computer-savvy son, Joel. I've always dreamed of cataloguing and shelving my books similar to the way the library does it. And now I can. The books have been in the basement for several years and I am getting ready to bring them back upstairs so that we can be surrounded by their wonderfulness and pluck books off the shelf whenever we feel like it. This is also an opportunity to cull out any that have been taking up space that would be better used by other books or magazines. The library will open for business very soon.

I asked the kids to give me writing prompts this week. Joel's was: I hear music in my head. I wrote two pages. I want to write two pages of creative writing every day. During that piece, and several others, I have realized how much music means to me. As an outgrowth of that realization, I spent a few minutes at the library the other night just picking up cds that looked interesting, whether or not I had ever heard of the artist or heard their music. Music is just magical to me, and I am excited about the new artists I have found and am enjoying.

The tutoring session I had this week with my "Whiz Kid," a second-grade student I work with every Monday, was exceptionally rewarding. I had picked up the book, Click, Clack, Moo (highly recommended to every human regardless of age, gender, or religious beliefs), and put together several activities for her to do. For this little girl who usually doesn't like to read the assigned book, I saw a huge hunger in her to read. She read the book once, then asked to read it again, and then asked to read it to another student. We laughed and laughed at the antics of the cows and chickens and poor Farmer Brown.

I also enjoyed my meal of crow this week as I discovered that Joel's missing library book was carefully tucked into a box BY ME that I put into the BACK GARAGE.

And my last news item is that I resumed the practice of writing Morning Pages, a la Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist's Way. What a wonderful way to start each day!

Happy Saturday to you!

3 comments:

Dollymama said...

Those are all very wonderful things going on! Way to go!

Mindy said...

How yummy to awaken and then share in the joy of learning with your Whiz kid!

Grégoire said...

Many years ago I got upset at my daughter for "losing" a library book. I was about to be charged something like 40 dollars for a tiny paperback, so I complained to the librarian and she waived the fee.

I remember scolding her. "I gave it to you!" she whined, and I kept jabbering in an annoying and self righteous tone... "you gotta be more responsible!"

Six months later I found it under the passenger's seat in my car -- the one I drive to work, and to drop off library books, that she never rode in due to lack of a safety seat.