A Truly Lovely Giveaway

Hi everyone! It's me again...Carolyn. I recently launched a little store on Etsy called Sweet Tea and Linen and as a small token of my never ending gratitude to both Tricia and you, her wonderful friends, I am giving away one of these

"True Love" Wedding Date Pillow

I can also customize it to say whatever you like. To enter, simply leave a comment on this post and let us know what you would like your pillow to say. We'll choose a winner Wednesday morning, Feb. 10, 2010. (I just have to figure out how to use randomizer :))

Many thanks again! Have a fabulous weekend!

Stay tuned...Giveaway Ahead!

I've never done a giveaway post before. Truth is I never had anything fabulous to give away...until now!

Stay tuned...

Tagged...

Look at these amazing tags that my talented cousin Carolyn made for me! I just love the typesetters font juxtaposed with the jute upholstery webbing. Y'all know how I lurve to label stuff...and there just has to be a few things in this house that I have not tagged yet...

Head on over to her ETSY store to order yours now!

Waiting for the postman...

Travis ordered this for us as our combined Valentine's Day gift. Then he admitted that he bought me something else too, which I thought we agreed we weren't going to do- stinker. I've always wanted one of these to use as a coffee table. I am falling deeper and deeper in love with the industrial look in decorating.
Travis plans to lightly sand the top and then give it a good slathering of wood oil. He wants to clean up the hardware and get some of the rust off. What do y'all think? Keep the rust or lose it?

Bedroom Mini-Makeover...

I've been less than happy with my bedroom for, let's see for...ever. It's never felt like a relaxing place to me, and let's not get all Freudian about it, my marriage is fine-thank-you-very-much. I just envisioned something softer than all that hard wood. Again, let's not get Freudian.

So my fabulous cousin Carolyn came up with a super inexpensive, super easy (for her!) solution. Slipcovers. Presto! Instant softness! Don't even get me started on the upholstery jute pillow...and as we speak she is working on some tags for my laundry room baskets from the same jute webbing. The best part of all this is that she is opening up her very own custom Etsy shop called Sweet Tea & Linen. I strongly encourage all of you to go take a look-see, because really as far as people go- my cousin Carolyn, along with her mad sewing skillz is just a good egg.

The ottoman came from Queen of Tarte, but that is a whole other story involving a bus depot in a shady part of town, homeless people and a near mugging.

*Sorry about the pictures, the only thing photo-able in this house that will cooperate with Mr.MAC is my Blackberry,so the pictures are just so-so.

Our son Samson...

Our oldest son David has chosen to wear his hair long for several years now. It has always been a bone of contention for my dad, which usually results in him asking me why I "don't take that kid to get a damn haircut?" Truth is, I really don't care how long his hair is as long as he is washing and brushing it on a daily basis, so I never pressed the issue. I figured there would be other bigger and more significant battles to fight in the coming years, and hair length would be the least of my worries.

David came home a few nights ago with short hair. I literally did a double take. He doesn't even look like the same kid. He looks older, taller, and more mature. Who knew he had eyebrows?? I didn't.

So here he is- the new and improved 15 year old boy/man in our house. It's going to take some getting used to.

The Reader's Notebook

This is the workshop that I attended on Monday- the one that while I sat there listening the heavens opened up, angels wept- and I tried not to throw my hands in the air and shout "YES,YES,YES!"

I've been teaching using Reader's and Writer's Workshop for three years now, and this is the first explanation of how to use the Reader's notebook effectively that I have seen.

What did I do after the workshop? After taking Hunter to Occupational therapy- I ran home to work on my very own Reader's Notebook.

The notebook is divided up into four sections: "My Reading Life"- which shows my reading time-line, books that shaped who I am as a reader, the last ten books I have read and what that says about me as a reader, book recommendations, book list, WHY I read, and my favorite section that answers three questions:
I'm the kind of reader who...
I want to be the kind of reader who...
My reading goals...

The second section is called "What I am learning". I posted a picture of the mini-lesson charts that I recreated onto index cards to keep in my notebook. I do not expect my students to do this, so after each lesson I will type up what is on our chart and then give it to them to put into their notebook.

The third section is called "Read Alouds". This is where we put our post-it notes during the time where I am reading to the kids. If I am doing a lesson on character development and I am reading the book Albert, the kids would be listening, then I stop and ask them to jot down a word that describes the character. I may ask them to stop and jot what is going on in the story. Later we can "write long" off of those thoughts about the character and how he changed over the course of the story.

The final section is called "Independent Reading". This section is for putting all of those great text to self, text to text, text to world connections, synthesizing post-its, questioning post its, determining importance, etc. Then there is a page titled: My smartest post-it. I might ask that they choose their smartest post it that best shows their thinking about their reading and then talk to them about it during our reading conference.

So there you have it- the Reader's Notebook, angels and all!