Book Lover's Meme

My friend Dee challenged me to do this. Frankly, I don't have a clue what a meme is, although I found an explanation on this link. Bottom line - here is a list of questions that I'll answer and challenge the rest of you to respond or repost. Be sure to send me your link if you post your responses. Here goes:

1. Do you remember how you developed a love of reading?
I don't remember not reading. We visited the library regularly in elementary school, and I read a lot then. In junior high, the library was adjacent to the study hall room, so I was a frequent visitor. I don't have memories of lots of trips to the public library as a child, but I know that I always had plenty to read from school libraries and books we had at home.

2. What are some books you loved as a child?
Henry and Beezus (anything by Beverly Cleary), A Wrinkle in Time

3. What is your favorite genre?
I don't have a favorite. I like mystery, romance, adventure...I've even read some science fiction and fantasy that I like. I've read more non-fiction in the past few years than ever before, and I have really enjoyed many of them.

4. Do you have a favorite novel?
To Kill a Mockingbird

5. Where do you usually read?
In the car and in bed

6. When do you usually read?
Any road trip; just before falling asleep

7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
I do now. I never used to have more than one book going, but lately I find myself with a fiction and a non-fiction going at the same time.

8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
Not really. When I get into a book, where and how I read doesn't really change based on the kind of book it is. I do try to read books that I plan to learn something from while I'm in a sitting position rather than lying in bed. I try to either highlight or take notes as I'm reading, so I need a more active reading environment for those books. I don't always read nonfiction to learn, so that's the difference. Gee...does this response make any sense at all???

9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?
Good question. I probably do a little of all three. I buy a lot of books, but I don't borrow many from friends. I'm usually the loaner; I love sharing books with my friends! And, of course I check books out of the library. I try to keep something from the PHS library on my bedside table all the time, and I usually read from the Paris Public Library during the summer.

10. Do you keep most of the books you buy?
Yes, I keep most of what I buy unless the people I loan them to don't return them. Many times I'll donate books to the PHS library that I think kids or teachers would enjoy.

11. What are you reading now?
My friend Cheryl loaned me a James Patterson novel - Mary, Mary. I have a partially read Max Lucado on my bedside table as well.

12. Do you keep a To Be Read list?
No, I don't have an actual list, but I do have some titles in mind that I'd like to read.

13. What’s next?
Another good question. I really need to whittle down the stacks at home before I buy anything else. And, I really have to bring something home from school to read.

14. What books would you like to reread?
To Kill a Mockingbird, He Still Moves Stones

16. Who are your favorite authors?
Max Lucado, Marilyn Meberg, Patricia Cornwell, John Grisham, Dee Henderson, Chris Crutcher

If you're interested in seeing what I've read recently, check out my reading blog at A Book is Good Company.

Perfect Day

I had been looking forward to today for weeks. The Kimball Art Museum in Ft. Worth has 92 works from the Impressionists collection from the Art Institute of Chicago that I was determined to see. The exhibit ends on Nov. 2, so I waited until almost the end of the exhibit to see it. It was wonderful. I'm sorry that I waited so late to go because I won't have time to see the exhibit again before it returns to Chicago.

Monet, Manet, van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas...what's not to love? Monet is one of my absolute favorites, and we were treated to several of his paintings. The Artist's House at Argenteuil and Poppy Field (Giverny) made the biggest impression on me today. Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day was quite impressive as was Seurat's Oil Sketch for "La Grande Jatte" . I would love to go to Chicago to see the actual,full-sized painting.

Just to make the day more enjoyable, I got to spend it with my friend Julie and her daughter Trish. We had a great lunch at Esperanza's before going to the museum. (If you haven't eaten there, you should definitely give it a try.) The weather was wonderful...couldn't have asked for better.

Here's the icing on the cake that has nothing to do with my wonderful day in Ft. Worth: The marching bands from Paris High School and North Lamar High School competed in Area competition (state qualifier) today in Longview. Both bands placed in the top 7 during preliminary competiton today and competed in finals tonight. NL qualified for state (YAY NL!!), but Paris did not advance. This may have been the first time ever for Paris to make finals at Area. I know it's the first time in at least 14 years. What a great day for the Paris and NL bands!

Too young

We lost a student this week in a car accident, and I just heard that North Lamar lost one this morning. Both were seniors. Is there anything more difficult than losing a child? I can't imagine it. My thoughts and prayers are with both families and with both senior classes. Like one of my friends said on her blog this week, it's time to hug our kids - both our own and those we teach - and let them know how much we love them and how special they are to us.

Is it really mid-October???

Has it really been three months since my last post? Maybe that's an indicator that we've had a pretty busy fall.

Nick, Anglea, and Ethan have gotten settled in Jarrell and are doing well. We got to spend a short weekend with them a few weeks ago on our only free weekend until after football season. We went to Nick's football game on Friday night and to a marching contest on Saturday morning. We shopped with Angela and Ethan Saturday afternoon while we waited for Nick to get home. Unfortunately, we had to come back Saturday night because Chris had a rehearsal in Arkadelphia Sunday afternoon.

Ethan is officially a big boy. He has pretty much mastered potty training, is going to school, and can ride his bike just like the older kids. He also had an adventure at the ER with stitches! They went to the bowling alley for a family outing where Ethan fell onto a bowling ball. He had to have six stitches in his chin. OUCH!




Natalie and Brandon are great. Nat is taking 18 hours this fall and will take a class in January so that she will be able to graduate in May. They're both RAs this year in the same dorm/apartment complex. Wedding plans are moving right along. Her dress came in this week, and all of the bridesmaids have their dresses. We still have tons to do, but things are moving along pretty well.

Chris is super busy with marching band. Marching contest is next week, and we're deep into football season. He is the official truck and trailer driver for the band. He's still playing tuba with the Arkansas Brass, the South Arkansas Symphony, and a new group called Mass Brass. We're driving to Malvern, Arkansas tomorrow for a MB concert which should be lots of fun. We saw several old friends at the last concert a few months ago.

We're staying busy in the library. In fact, this six weeks is one of our busiest. We have research classes scheduled every day for the next three weeks. In addition to all that, our district technology director moved to Austin recently to work for TEA. I've been asked to coordinate all of our websites and work with each campus webmaster. It's been a lot of work, but I have enjoyed it.

Life continues to be good for the Kornegay's. We're thankful for that.

Overwhelmed!!!

There are times when God just brings us to our knees because of how He provides for us and loves us. Nick just called, and I'm overwhelmed.

Nick: Well, the truck is unloaded.
Mom: Great! Who did you call to help?
Nick: We started unloading and this guy from a few doors down came by and helped us. You won't believe this - the guy is a former professional mover. He's huge! The two of us (scrawny, skinny Nick and the burly fellow) unloaded the piano by ourselves.
Mom: WOW! That's great!
Nick: Guess what, Mom? He has a son who is 2 1/2 also. His birthday is three days before Ethan's! He and Ethan played in the waterhose and while we were unloading.
Mom: You're making me cry!!!
Nick: And, there's another family three doors down that has a 3 yr old son.
Mom (still crying): How wonderful! God has surely taken care of you, hasn't He?

So...can you count the number of answered prayers?
1. Jobs for Nick AND Angela
2. Awesome place to live
3. Not just help unloading the truck, but a professional mover!
4. Not one but TWO boys Ethan's age for him to play with!

Thank you, Lord, for taking care of my kids!!!!!

A really long day

We spent Friday helping Nick and Angela pack and move to their duplex in Jarrell. We left Paris at 8:30 Friday morning and returned at 5:30 Saturday morning. Yep...21 hours. The things parents will do for their children and grandchildren!!

Angela rented a moving truck which they had just gotten home with when we got to Bedford. Nick and Chris left pretty soon after we got there to get their stuff from their storage unit while Angela and I packed. She had these great boxes from Outback that were all the same and made packing and stacking go very well.

My main assignment for the day was to entertain Ethan. We took walks, ran errands, watched movies, and played in the truck while the others did the hard work of loading the truck. My favorite Ethan quote of the day was while he was "driving" the truck - "Look out all you peoples! Here comes Ethan!" He was so adorable. His absolutely favorite thing to say these days is "Is it?" which is 2 yr. old speak for "What is it?" We played "Is it?" with everything in the truck from radio to air conditioning to speedometer to signs and posters inside the cab.

We finally got on the road around 8:30 last night, obviously much later than we planned to leave. What a caravan we had! Nick drove the big truck, Angela followed in her car, Ethan and I were next in Nick's car, and Chris pulled up the rear in the Jeep. Ethan was asleep before we got one block away from the house, so I didn't hear a peep from him for a couple of hours. I discovered that my cell phone was dying and that Chris had my charger, so we stopped in West to get it. The next stop was even more unexpected - Chris got stopped and ticketed for having a tail light out. I pulled over at the next decent place to stop and waited for him to catch up. Sheesh! Just what we needed.

When we got to the duplex, Nick and Angela were walking around using their cell phones as flash lights trying to find the breaker box. The four of us wandered around for a while until Chris finally found it. What a relief to have lights and air conditioning! We spent a little while with them oohing and ahhing over their duplex and then unloaded the three cars.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay last night to help unload the truck today. (Chris has to be in Hot Springs, Arkansas, this afternoon with the Arkansas Brass for a wedding.) I made Nick promise he would get on the phone and find some teachers or coaches or kids or SOMEONE to help them unload. The boxes won't be a problem for them, but the furniture and piano will require additional muscle power.

The duplex is fabulous!!! It's a two-story, three bedroom, two full bath unit with a galley kitchen, great pantry, and large living/dining area. It's 300 square feet larger than the house we built in Little Rock. I'm including a few pictures from another duplex that is arranged just like theirs. I'm thrilled that they found such a great place so quickly that is close to work for both of them. (Angela will be teaching middle school math in Jarrell!!) The only negative is that they're at least two hours farther away from us.

It was about 1 AM this morning when we left Jarrell. We stopped a couple of times for drinks and snacks and to replace the pesky tail light. I napped a little and made Chris let me drive the last couple of hours while he slept. We fell into our bed around 5:30 this morning. YAWN!!! What a day!

1st picture - Front view; they have the unit on the right

2nd picture - Living/dining looking toward kitchen

3rd picture - Ethan's room with the dormer window

Happy 4th!

Celebrating the 4th of July always meant a huge family gathering when I was growing up. Unfortunately, we've gotten away from that in the past few years, but I caught myself thinking about those fun days quite a bit today.

My grandparents hosted a 4th of July celebration from as long as I can remember until they couldn't do it any more. They had two daughters and a cousin who lived with them who was just like a daughter to them. Each of their daughters married and had children (two of them had 4 children, and one had 3), so when just our families got together we had 11 kids. I was the oldest of the group, but I don't think that distinction earned me anything. Mamaw and Poppa each had several brothers and sisters, so most of the time some of them and their families would join us. By the time my generation got married and had kids, we had four generations under one roof. Trust me, when the Woolard clan gathered, there were LOTS of people involved.

We spent the day outside eating and playing all kinds of games. I remember playing in Poppa's freshly plowed field making what I called "foot houses." We climbed trees and played in a wading pool. They lived outside of town and their water came from a well, so that dip in the wading pool was cold! My kids are mortified when they see home movies or pictures of us in the pool wearing nothing more than our underwear. No one thought ahead to bring bathing suits, so we just stripped down to our whitey-tighties and jumped in.

Food was always a major component of any Woolard family gathering. We didn't grill hamburgers and hot dogs like most people do on the 4th. We just pot-lucked it. I remember one year that we had some really good barbecue - barbecued goat, that is. I think a cousin brought a friend that year, and everyone watched to see what he thought about the barbecue! We had everything you could imagine to eat. Poppa built some extra long picnic tables for us, and one was always completely filled with food.

Poppa always grew watermelon. I never see watermelon without remembering Poppa's garden. He grew red and yellow watermelon and always had a cold one ready to eat. He was pretty particular about his watermelon - I remember him throwing out just-opened watermelon if he thought it was too ripe or if it just didn't taste right to him. I learned at an early age how to spit watermelon seeds particularly at my siblings and cousins.

After lunch, it was firecracker war time. Oh my, did we have fun! We each had packages and packages of Black Cat firecrackers to pop. It was a sign of maturity when we graduated from propping our firecrackers on the sidewalk or fence post to light and then run like the dickens before they popped to being quick enough to light and then throw them. Another rite of passage was twisting the fuses of several firecrackers together before running or throwing. Of course there were always misfires and firecrackers that were thrown in the wrong direction, but thankfully we never had any serious injuries. I remember one year when Uncle Ken threw several at me and I threw a hissy fit. He still makes fun of me about that. We never got really big stuff for after dark. We always had Roman candles and sparklers and bottle rockets, but we didn't get much that went "boom" with big displays. One year my Roman candle was a dud and sent balls about two feet in the air. I couldn't wait for the next year to come so that I could redeem myself. We had fun with various forms of "chasers" that chased all of our moms out of their lawn chairs more than once. About six years ago we went to my sister's house on the 4th and did some of these same things. I felt twelve years old again with my cup full of Black Cats and my "punk" lighter! I think I scared Natalie!!

Even though Poppa was a World War II veteran and my dad served in the Marine Reserves and Uncle Ken served in the Air Force, I don't remember spending time talking about patriotism. For my family, patriotism was something we lived, not something we talked about. We spent the 4th of July enjoying our freedom to gather as a family. It was always the highlight of our summer. I'm so thankful for my grandparents and my parents for making sure that we spent time together as a family. My, do I miss those days!

Here's a trip down memory lane and a picture of my sisters and me in Mamaw's kitchen on July 4 in 1981 or 1982. Sorry I don't have a picture of me in the wading pool to share!