Callie's Blog

Lest you think all we do is serious reading around these here parts, I will confess to the “beach reads” that the girls and I participate in from time to time.  You know beach reads, right?  Those types of reads that one might find herself getting to know a character named Edward Cullen, for example.  Or, in Hadley and Harper’s case, Strawberry Shortcake and the My Little Ponies.

Harps in Barnes and Noble looking at S. Shortcake and L'il Pony books.

I’d like to state for the record that I detest the My Little Ponies.  I detest them as much as my mom detested the Chicken McNuggets I begged her to buy from McDonalds when I was a kid slash high schooler.  I wouldn’t eat her meatloaf, chicken, or pasta, but something that loosely resembles chicken?  Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Every once in awhile I got to eat the nuggets and clearly I turned out JUST FINE so it is in that same vein that every so often Hadley and Harper can read My Little Pony books and watch the dreaded show.  We’ve racked up about 700 miles since the Spring Reading Challenge began, so this week we read some trash.

Earlier this week during Harper’s nap, Hadley and I poured ourselves something chocolatey to drink and read some magazines.  (Chocolate milk for her, a “poor man’s mocha” for me: one Starbucks Via, one packet of hot chocolate mix, hot water.  I highly recommend it.)  Hadley read her Highlights, which is not trash at all.  She was busy reading poems about spring, and birds, and kids playing at the beach while I read People Style Watch.  Note that there is a Sharpie pen in the picture.  That’s because I mark what I like, then cut it out and put it in a notebook I call, “Stuff I Like, a.k.a. Old School Pinterest.”  So there was some responsive/reflective activity involved.  While I did that, Hadley would read a poem then look out the window at the bluejays building a nest outside and wonder if they had enough materials, when the babies would arrive, and worry that they’d be safe in the nook of the tree the nest is in.

So it’s the same, what we were doing.

Anyway, all this is to say that sometimes, here in the Feyen household, we like to kick back with some easy reading.  Which is what we did this week.  It was the equivalent to laying on a lumpy towel, swishing your feet back and forth in the sand, and listening to the waves crash nearby.

Rainbow Dash and Strawberry Shortcake would, like, totally do the same thing.

Here are a few thing that I said I’d never do:

“I will NEVER have a DVD player in our car.”

“My kids will NEVER watch The Disney Channel.”

“Once I become a mother, I will NEVER go back to teaching.”

“If I ever go back to teaching, I will NEVER teach my own kids.”

Here’s the truth:

-When travelling to the midwest, we try to make it to Breezewood, PA before we turn the DVD player on for Hadley and Harper.  An hour and a half of no TV for an 11 hour car ride is good, yes?

-Handy Manny speaks Spanish and Mickey Mouse and his gang are problem solvers so what’s the big deal?  Just no Hannah Montana or any of the other girls who wear more eye make up and glitter than  Wet n Wild can keep up with (is that still a brand?).

-I lead a Book Club once a week to a group of very cute kids.  Hadley’s in my class.

It’s the perfect job, really.  I get to read stories and ham it up to a group of people who try to sit still but as the plot unfolds they’re sitting on their feet, hands waving in the air because, “OOOOOO!  Hadley’s mom!  Hadley’s mom!  Ummmm…..Mrs.  ummm….HADLEY’S MOM!!!!  That same thing happened to me!”  Dear me, they get so riled up.

We do a little project after we talk about a book we’ve read.  Sometimes we’ll draw while I play ”Dolphin Dance” by Herbie Hancock or “Volare” by the Gipsy Kings.  We’ll talk about why one picture is more “loud” then another, or why we used different colors for one song.  Once, we pretended to dive for seashells after we read the book Wave by Susie Lee. Another time we looked around the room for the mouse from A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker. Once we found him, we invited him for tea because, as we learned in the book, it’s good to invite folks over for tea (I’d serve coffee, but that’s another story).

For our first Book Club, I read Dotty by Erica Perl.  I’ve written about the book before, but if you’re not familar with the story it’s about a girl named Ida who has a friend named Dotty.  Dotty is a huge rhinoceros sort of thing with gorgeous glittery pink polka dots on her body.  At first, it seems that Ida’s classmates can see Dotty just as Ida knows about the friends her classmates bring.  But with all great books, there is a trial, a bit of heartbreak, and a lovely ending that makes one see that real or imaginery, good friends are worth holding on to.

We talked about imaginery friends the day I first met my Book Club kids and read them Dotty.  I gave the kids each a little card with a glittery border and a string attached to it (a leash because Ida walks Dotty on a leash) and they made a little creation on it.  When it was time to go, the kids lined up with their bags on their shoulders, and their new friends at their sides walking them out the door together.

What the cards looked like before the kids drew on them.

When I first started teaching in 1998 I was nothing short of terrified of the 8th graders that stared at me as I tried to speak to them above a whisper (maybe if they couldn’t hear me I could go home).  One morning, when I was asked to pick the kids up from the playground (“If you can get those kids to walk in a straight line quietly up three flights of stairs you can do anything,” my cooperating teacher told me.), I walked down the stairs terrified.  Gripping the banister as I walked, I considered other jobs I would apply for the minute I got home.

That’s when I thought of my college buddies.

Here's a couple of them with me along the Potomac River. Aren't they cute?

After graduation, all of us had scattered and began our careers. I missed seeing them everyday. I missed our jokes and late night or early morning discussions. But I didn’t mind the vacancy that came when we all left Calvin because they brought me so much happiness as I took my first wobbly steps into adulthood.  Just like Dotty was with Ida as she made her way through school.  Real or imagined, our friends help us see that we are good, and that gives us the confidence to walk by ourselves when we need to.

My roommate Sophomore year. She and I plotted all sorts of ways to leave Calvin until we decided maybe it wasn't so bad.

So even though I was 22, I imagined my friends were picking up my students with me, and imagining that gave me some confidence to do what I really wanted to do: teach.

My friends give me confidence to dance like a fool, too.

I brought my students up three flights of stairs that day.  They weren’t quiet,  but they did stay in a line.  As we walked, some of them talked to me about Sammie Sosa.  They told me they hoped he’d hit 62 before Mark McGwire.  Others stopped by the windows at each platform between flights.  I’d lean in and look too, then ask, “Can you see the Sears Tower from here? I love looking for it.” We’d lean closer until our noses pressed on the glass and we might see a faint black line pointing towards the sky. One student asked what we would be doing that day.

“We’re going to start the book To Kill a Mockingbird,” I told him. “Have you read it?”

“Nope.”

“I hope you like it,” I said as I opened the door to the classroom so the kids could walk in and we could begin the day. I wasn’t thinking about my friends anymore. I was thinking about Boo Radley, Mayella Ewell, Atticus, and Scout.  I was looking forward to introducing these folks to my new students.

I have a hard time talking to kids about confidence, or the importance of an imagination, or how to keep trying to do something you love even if it’s really, really hard. So I read them stories instead. Because I think that if they read book like Dotty, or To Kill A Mockingbird and they can get to know Boo Radley, or  Ida and Ms Raymond, then they’ll know to say, “hey” when they see them in real life.

We had a booknic earlier this week as part of our Spring Reading Challenge.

I’m not sure why the girls are sitting at the end of the blanket but to each her own.

The last few days Harper has enjoyed paging through Sesame Street guessing game books: Big Bird’s Guessing Game about Shapes, Cookie Monster’s Guessing Game about Food, etc., so I brought a stack of those out for her.

Hadley read He Came with the Couch by David Slonim and then decided to draw a picture of whoever or whatever it is that came with the couch.

Kinda, kid.

I read a few pages of Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.  I bought this book at Calvin not because it won the Newberry, but because I heard Clare speak at the Festival of Faith and Writing. “I’ve always had a strong need for story,” she said in her talk, “The Transformative Power of Story.” When I heard her speak, I couldn’t wait to get her book, and so far, I love it.  I think the main character, Abilene, would be great friends with Scout Finch, which suits me just fine. There are also characters with the names Hadley Gillen and Hattie Mae Harper so I don’t think I can go wrong.

I got stuck on the sentence, “….it’s best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you” when the girls realized pinecones had fallen from a tree nearby.

I watched them gather pinecones and thought about those words for a bit. I thought about weekday mornings when the girls and I wave at the neighbors as they go off to work or put their kids on the bus for school. I thought about going to the gym and knowing several people by name now because we’re there at the same time and how we talk a bit and laugh, too.

I like taking a good look at a place before it gets a look at me, but it feels good when it the place that’s looking begins to feel welcoming and friendly.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked after they’d moved on to another tree.

“We’re baking a cake for the dinos and the ponies!” Harper told me.

The girls started baking a cake just as I got to the part where Abilene finds out she has to write a story during her summer break. Due September 1.  Her teacher, Sister Redempta, gave her the assignment.

When it comes to roses, Abilene thinks, “….there’s some more rosy and some more thorny….[Sister Redempta] was sprouting thorns…”  I have a feeling Abilene will change her mind, and if I could talk to her, I would say one of the last things Clare said in her lecture.  That is, “You go on with that story and enjoy every last bit.”

I know I will.

We couldn’t find Bear a few nights ago. Those of you who know Harper know this is a big deal. Losing Bear is a 9-1-1 situation. Our babysitter, who’s been with us for two and a half years has called just once when we were out and it was to say, “I can’t find Bear!”  Glasses of wine had been poured, menus were being looked over, but after that phone call Jesse had his wallet out asking our waitress for the bill. Stat.

It quickens everyone’s heart when Bear’s lost, which hasn’t been often, I’m happy to report.  But this last time was rough. I was in the middle of a writing course I’m taking at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda when Jesse called to ask where Bear was.

“Do you have Bear?” I think was the exact question he asked and if I were feeling funny at the time I would’ve said, “Actually, yes.  I took Bear with me because I’m shy.”  But I wasn’t feeling funny, I was quite scared.  So much so that I was running towards the car completely forgetting that I’d left my journal and planner in class.  Never in my life would I forget a journal OR a planner but Bear makes you do crazy things like ask your spouse if they took him with you for a night out.

Just as I was unlocking the car door, I heard Jesse say, “Oh, THERE he is!” and Harper began laughing slash crying because they’d found him.  In our laundry basket.  What he was doing there, we’ll never know (although he is incredibly dirty).

I walked back into class feeling quite shaken.  It was hard to hear Jesse upset and Harper crying (and Hadley was in the background calling for Bear…always the helper). And there was nothing I could do to help.

The truth is, though, that I’m pretty attached to Bear too.  Before he was Harper’s, he belonged to Hadley.  Hadley happily gave Bear to Harper after she decided that Goofy was the best thing since sliced bread, but both of the girls chose Bear as a buddy.  And before Bear belonged to my girls, he was mine.

When I was pregnant with Hadley, Bear was sent to us and I sat him in our bedroom as a reminder for me to hope that the baby that was growing inside me would be born.  After having a miscarriage a few months earlier, it was hard not to wonder if it’d happen again.  Looking at Bear helped me begin to feel like a mother.  Sometimes, when Jesse wasn’t home, I’d pick him up and wonder what it’d feel like to hold my newborn baby – just as I would rush to put my wedding dress on when my parents weren’t home – I guess there is joy in pretending and preparing.  At least, for me.

So the fact that Bear has been a comfort for both me and my girls is significant.  But I wondered as I sat in class trying to pay attention to what the teacher was saying, What would’ve happened if we hadn’t found Bear?  If Harper had to go to sleep without him? The thought is so sad I can barely type it.

I think of all the things I’m most afraid of as a parent, heartbreak is my biggest fear.  When girls don’t want to be friends with Hadley and Harper, when boys don’t ask them to dances (although, let’s be honest, that’d be JUST FINE), when they’re the last to be picked for a team, or not picked at all.

When Hadley was about 2, we were visiting my parents and I took her to the library next door to my house.  She was trying to play with two older girls that weren’t really interested in playing with her but Hadley couldn’t read their nonverbals.  It upset me to watch so I left, leaving her with Jesse and my dad.

I walked into the kitchen, to my mom cooking, a scene I know too well – me walking in the kitchen upset for some reason and my mom cooking something delicious.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, hand on her hip stirring something.  She didn’t even need to turn around to know the mood I was in.

“Hadley’s trying to make friends with older girls at the library and they aren’t interested. I can’t watch it.”  Saying it made me cry.

“Don’t let her see that it upsets you.” my mom told me.

And it was the best advice she ever gave me.

Because she couldn’t prevent the shame I felt when my tooth got knocked out in the dugout of a baseball game that I wasn’t playing in. Or the frantic sadness I experienced when a friend called me up days before sixth grade to tell me she hated me. Or the confusion of testing into the “low” reading and math groups all throughout most of my schooling.

It was OK to be upset about these things but it was also very, very clear that I was OK.  It might take awhile but I’d find a sport I was good at (that wouldn’t include a ball). It might take awhile but I would find friends. And while I never understand math, I know that it doesn’t matter what level reader I am as long as I stick with the story.

So when the heartbreak comes, I’ll help my girls stick with the story.  No matter how sad it might be.

But until then, I’m watching Bear like a hawk.

We are a couple days into the Reading Challenge and so far Hadley and Harper are hopefully learning how much we read on a daily basis.  The “miles” certainly add up at bedtime, and in the mornings the girls start their days reading at their lap desks that sit at the end of their beds.

The best part has been the new characters the girls have met.  Hadley is enthralled with Amelia Bedelia and extremely concerned about the consequences of Ms B not following the directions.  Hadley has also enjoyed reading Daisy Jane Best-Ever Flower Girl!  by Megan McDonald and Emma’s Strange Pet by Jean Little. Harper had us read I Wish that I Had Duck Feet several times and both the girls loved Wacky Wednesday (both these books are by Dr. Seuss).

I have to admit, Wacky Wednesday is a fun book.  On each page there is a different number of things to find that are “wacky.”  However, read it at your own risk.  After I dropped the girls off for carpool one morning I came back in the living room to find this:

Wacky, indeed.

I’ve written down several of the books the girls have read and we punched in the number of “miles” travelled into a calculator. (My strength is words, NOT math.  I’m not doing anyone any favors trying to add by hand.) After that, the girls moved their boats towards their destinations.

We also did a few “non reading” activities that I counted as miles.

Both the girls like to figure out what the picture will be in a color by number.  And as long as Hadley doesn’t make it into a race all remains calm and quiet.

We also made chocolate chip cookies.

Hadley read the directions and Harper stirred in the ingredients.  At the end, Hadley said, “The only thing we have to do now is let them bake.”

“How long do they bake for?” I asked.

“810 minutes.”

That’s when I had the opportunity to tell her what the dash means, as in “8-10″ minutes. So I guess I can teach a little math.

If you are participating in the challenge, or have just read a great book to your students or children, we’d love to hear from you.  Feel free to comment on Christian Home and School’s Facebook page or on this blog.

I don’t think I’m the only teacher who understands how long the days are when summer is around the corner.  Schedules, grading, procedures – all of it – gets monotonous and tedious.  The students think so, too.  I believe the day I came up with the Spring Reading Challenge was the day that a kid sprayed me in the face with a water bottle.  Or maybe it was the day one of them backed me and another teacher into a wall and mildly threatened us.  We all get a little tired of each other is all I’m saying.

So I see a fitness challenge in the gym I worked out in at Notre Dame that has to do with the students racing each other to their Spring Break destination.  Every hour they workout equalled one mile travelled towards the place they chose to go to for their vacation. As I’m lacing up my workout shoes and think, “Why can’t I apply this idea to reading?”  In other words, my students pick a place they want to travel to, figure out how many miles it is from their home, and the number of pages read transfers to miles they travel.  Look at me integrating math, geography, and reading all into one project!

I worked with a great bunch of teachers at the time I came up with this idea, and they decided that not only stories could count, but assignments the kids do for Science, Math, etc. could be logged as miles, too.  The idea was to show how much the kids actually read during the day.

It was a fun project.  We had a pizza party for reaching goals,and gave away prizes, but the point was to have a little fun at the end of the year with reading.  All the kids created a boat, plane, or car, set it on a huge map in my classroom and moved their mode of transportation towards their destination as they read.

This spring, Hadley and Harper are going to participate in the challenge.  Last week, we set up a map, picked a destination, and made some boats to sail away on as we read.

 Hadley decided she wants to travel to Spain.  Harper’s going to the Artic Ocean.  You know, because it’s blue.

Once we set up our map, made some goals, we set off for the library where we picked out stacks of books.  Hadley loves the “I Can Read” books, and has recently finished the Mercy Watson series so I introduced her to Amelia Bedelia.  Harper likes dinosaurs, aligators, lions, basically anything kind of ferocious animal.  So we looked for those kinds of books.

I picked out some books and magazines, too.  Since I’m starting school in July for creative nonfiction, I figured, How ’bout some decorating books?  That’s CNF, right?

I’d like to invite you to join in on this activity as the school year comes to an end.  Maybe you’d like to read a book as a family, or you’re taking a trip this summer and want to read about the area you’re travelling to.  Maybe you want to figure out how to work the new XBOX you got for Christmas so your kids can play “Dance, Dance Dora,” and you have to read the manual.  It all counts, folks!  And it would be fun to hear what kinds of books you and your children are reading.

If you’re interested in participating, Christian Home and School is running an article I wrote about the challenge on their Facebook page.  If you click on the article, you will find worksheets (free!) that you can print out and use with your kids.  And every Thursday in May, this blog and the CH & S Facebook page will have a post about what Hadley, Harper and I are doing with the challenge.  We’d love to have you join in on the fun!

“Children’s stories are not their parents to tell.”

A strong statement. I wrote it down and circled it last week as I sat in one of the lectures at the Festival of Faith and Writing. I looked up from my notes to see other attendees nodding, a few “Mmmm Hmmming” as well.

I didn’t listen to the rest of the lecture.  I was thinking about a Spring afternoon when Harper stepped on a caterpillar accidentally and sent Hadley into a fit. Or the time Harper lost a balloon in Target. I thought about the first time Hadley got stung by a bee.

Each of these incidents I wrote about on my blog. What’s more, I couldn’t wait to sit down and crank those posts out.

This idea about not saying too much, especially in regards to our children, taps me on the shoulder as I type all the time.  It sort of smacked me in the face at Calvin last week.  Have I done Hadley and Harper wrong? Have I defined an experience for them so that they are no longer able to interpret or remember it? In my hope to be a writer, have I used them too much in my practice?

The rest of the day I thought about another direction to take this blog.  Maybe I could go back to literature like I did with “Sit A While,” and only write about the H’s in regards to their reaction to a book.  Perhaps writing about writing should be the way to go.

Then Jesse sent me this:

Hadley had been looking forward to setting up the tent the entire week.

And when I got home from the conference that evening, my mother – in – law showed me the bouquet of wild flowers Harper had given her that afternoon.

I love the game box turned upside down so that the sprinkled grass is scattered around the vase.

Calvin has an overpass now so that students can cross the Beltline without having to play real life Frogger in order to get across campus.  I used it several times walking back and forth from The Prince Center, to the Chapel, or Commons, etc.  On one of my walks, I was behind a grandfather and his granddaughter.  They were holding hands.  With her other hand, the little girl was holding an apple. She was telling her grandpa about her snack: how many bites she’d taken, whether it was crunchy, how she doesn’t love the skin so much. As they got to the middle of the overpass, they stopped and the little girl said, “Grandpa, why’d we stop?”  He pointed to the cars driving underneath us and said, “What’s the most common color of car you see?” She held her apple close, looked at it for a second, then dropped it to her side and leaned towards the glass to find the most common color of car driving by. She wanted to talk more about her apple, but he was showing her something else to be interested in.  I think she decided the apple story could wait.

Watching the two of them reminded me of my girls and their walks with my dad to Rehm Park. He takes them over a bridge that stands above the Eisenhower and I know that on every walk, the three of them stop and see what there is to see.  Growing up, when I stood on that bridge, I looked at the Chicago skyline.  For Hadley, it’s the trains.  And for Harper, it’s blue cars or teeny tiny insects that she has to crouch down to look at.

I think that whatever it is we are all looking at, there will be a different story for each of us to tell.  I think there’s room for all of our stories, even if some of them overlap.

Yesterday, the caterpillars were on the sidewalk.  I pointed them out and the three of us bent low to the ground to stare at them. Harper creeped forward and Hadley sent an arm straight out in front of her to warn Harper.

“Don’t step on him!”

“I won’t, Hadwee,” Harper shoved Hadley’s arm out of her way.

I never bring the story of the caterpillar up unless Hadley talks about it first. I let her tell me she was sad or scared. I let her tell me that she didn’t want Harper walking on the blacktop after she’d stepped on the caterpillar. It’s her story to work out, to return to, to make sense of.

I’m just glad I can be a part of it.

Friday morning Walter Wangerin Jr. told a story about a hyena. I think the hyena was in a dessert. At least, that’s where I pictured him. What’s important is that the hyena was hungry and looking for food.  Eventually he smells food off to his right but as soon as “he lifted his right paw” he smelled food to his left. Which way should he go? Left? Right? Left?! Right?!?! LEFT?! RIGHT!?! He was so worked up that he died. I imagined him exploding but what’s important to know is that he died.

Wangerin told us that a friend of his told this story to a classroom of students, and I believe that the story was told in a classroom in Africa. I’m sorry I don’t remember what the specifics of the setting are, but what’s important is that in the classroom were two sets of listeners: those that believed the story was true and those that concluded, “it’s just a story.”

When the teacher asked those that believed the story was true, one student seemed to physcially struggle to say these two words: Greed kills.

The point I want to dwell on is not about greed. When I heard Wangerin tell about the struggle the student had to explain himself, my heart felt like it was being squeezed and I knew that if I had to explain why it would be a struggle for me to do so. Then Wangerin explained it for me.  He said that the reason for the struggle was that in order to explain the story, that student would have to come out of it.  Once he explained the story, he would lose part of the experience.

I made a mistake declaring I would blog everyday from the Festival of Faith and Writing.  While there is lots I want to reflect and share, I’m not ready to step out of the experience.  I will, and I believe I should but right now I think it will squeeze my heart too much in an attempt to explain.

On Thursday night I sat with a few others and talked with author Sarah Arhtur about stories that brought us closer to God.   After one woman shared an experience with a story that touched her, Sarah said, “That story happened to you.”

That’s what’s going on with me. Stories are happening to me and I’m not ready to struggle my way out of them just yet.  It’s not that I’m sitting comfortably with them, however.  I think when stories happen to you, “comfort” is not a word that appropriately describes the experiene. I’m restless and excited. I’m breathless and joyful.

I’ll get to them and I’m looking forward to exploring the stories have have darted their way into my view. Right now, I’m just going to stare at them awhile. No paws will be lifted, no decisions will be made. I’m OK sniffing the air for a time.

I’m leaving for Grand Rapids, Michigan tomorrow to go to the Festival of Faith and Writing hosted by Calvin College. This three day conference is a chance for anyone who loves stories to listen to some great authors discuss their craft as well as their faith. I love this from their website, “…the Reformed tradition balances strong confessionalism and a hearty confidence in the intellectual freedom afforded by grace….we welcome the work of writers in other faith traditions who acknowledge or seek spiritual understanding, grace, or transcendence.”

I’ll take some hearty confidence and intellectual freedom with some understanding and grace, thank you very much.  Hold the transcendence.  I don’t want to get greedy.

Having graduated from Calvin, I’m familiar with the FFW, and have been to two or three festivals previously.  The last one I went to I sat in on a discussion where we talked about something called “weblogging.”  Cool, I thought. Maybe I’ll start one of those weblog thingys someday.

I also had a run in with Lauren Winner.  Well, it wasn’t really a run in.  I was sitting down with a cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie at the Prince Center, and she sat down next to me. I looked at her as far as my eyes would move sideways without moving my head, then ran outside to call my dad and tell him, “IWASJUSTSITTINGNEXTTOLAURENWINNER!!!!!”

This year, since I’m going as a graduate student, I want to make the most of my time and get to as many lectures as I can, so I created a schedule for myself.

See me all hunched over looking at the screen?  I’m wearing my Calvin hat, too.  That seemed like the right thing to do.

Here is my spreadsheet, if you will.  It is currently covered in post-it notes with the titles of the lectures I am planning to hear. I chose to use post-its so I can easily remove or change a lecture in case it is no longer scheduled.  Also, when I get to the lecture, I can easily swipe off the post-it and put it on my notes, thus saving time. THIS IS HOW I RELAX.  I even have a post-it for the first day that reads, “Get coffee and make final adjustments to schedule.”  So no worries.  I’ll have exactly an hour and a half to make a change if necessary.

I signed up for a Festival Circle that I’m looking forward to.  This group will discuss the topic, “Reading Literature Devotionally” and will be led by Sarah Arthur.  She wrote one of my favorite devotionals called At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time. We will meet twice during the festival.

I’m also looking forward to hearing Gary Schmidt, Marilynne Robinson, Luci Shaw, and Paula Huston.  Since Paula is the last person I worked with before I go off to school, I sent her an email suggesting places to check out: Marie Catrib’s, Wealthy Street Bakery, Schuler’s. She helps me with my words, the least I can do is tell her about the good places to eat in GR.

Here’s what my schedule looks like now.

I don’t think it’ll look weird at all when I carry it around with me at Calvin.  I’ll be like Joey using his map in London.

Are you a Calvin fan? Or a Festival of Faith and Writing fan?  Or, hey! Maybe you’re a Callie fan!  If any of these are true, consider subscribing to my blog by entering in your email address at the top right corner of this website. This week I’ll be weblogging (or “blogging” as the hip people like to call it) every day with some reflections on my time at the conference.

And if I run into Lauren Winner, I have what I’m going to say all ready: “Hey, girl.  Totally digged Still. Also? I really like your glasses.”  I think that’s going to make my dad proud.

Now if only I could decide on what to wear…..

The end of the school year is around the corner, and I thought the girls would like to put together a little scrapbook to remember 2011-2012 by.

Since I wasn’t sure  this was something they’d like to do, I didn’t want to go out and buy a bunch of materials, so I looked around our place to see what I could use.  A few pieces of computer paper, a hole punch, rings, and the backs of coloring books for sturdiness did the trick.

Hadley and Harper were game for a l’il crafting.

They both work so differently.  Hadley wants to know exactly what it is she’s supposed to do while Harper has no problem coming up with how she’ll set down her pictures. Hadley notes which picture she’s on, “I’m on my second picture. What picture is Harper on? Is she ahead or behind me?” Harper sings songs she makes up, “I’m stayin’ in the lines today, yeah! I’m stayin’ in the lines all day!”

I’m not sure who Drew is. Or what he’s doing.

After awhile Hadley wanted to write her own caption to each picture.

And Harper likes to write her name on everything she creates.  Seems like a good habit to get into.

Harper decided she wanted to draw her own picture.

I think those guys belong perfectly in her scrapbook, as does the dinosaur.  This page will probably be her favorite to look at as she gets older.  And Hadley will get a giggle over the fact that she wrote “sticker” under the Dr. Seuss sticker she put on one of her pages.  We will also probably have a conversation about why she wrote the name “Drew.” She didn’t tell me why on this day but I bet I’ll learn more of the story in the future.

That’s what’s nice about writing down memories.  We can go back and see more from what we wrote down in the first place.