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KidsBuzz & Political Rant & Where you can find me this fall

What is the New New Exciting Thing for teachers, librarians and readers this fall? Check out KidsBuzz!!!

Random political thought: How is it that anyone could be upset about our President telling children to work hard, listen to their teachers, take responsibility for themselves and their actions, and stay in school? Did you read the speech? I don’t care where you fall on the political spectrum: how in the world are any of those statements objectionable? What is happening to our country??

::waits for blood pressure to fall back to normal::

That suitcase has crawled out of the basement again. I am eyeing it with suspicion.

I don’t have any booktours for at least a year, but I do have a couple of appearances coming up.

Sunday, September 13,  1pm   Brooklyn Book Festival. I’ll be on a panel with Greg Neri and Gail Foreman

First weekend of October – NAIBA Booksellers Fall Conference

Nov 6 – 8 – American Association of School Librarians Conference, Charlotte, NC

Nov 20 – 22 – NCTE/ALAN, Philadelphia, PA (There might be a couple of bookstore appearances in the Philly region, as well.)

Dec – banishing suitcase to the basement again.

I’m headed back to the 18th century. Am crawling through soldier’s diaries today. Stay in school, my friends. Apparently this is a radical and disturbing concept.

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RAINNing goodness & strength

Attention Writerlady Friends Who Live in the Washington, DC Area!!! You can help those who have been affected by sexual violence TOMORROW!!!

Join host Christina Ricci on 9/9 for a special fundraiser for RAINN – the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization.  Get your tickets now!

Attention All Other Writerlady Friends!!! You should make a donation to RAINN just because they are THE BEST resource for survivors of sexual assault. EVER. Whenever I talk to or write to survivors of sexual assault, I always recommend they contact RAINN. Many of these readers got back in touch with me to tell me how helpful RAINN was, and how much better they are doing.

Personal note of pride: I am a platinum sponsor of tomorrow’s RAINN event.

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Harvesting

I pulled most of the onions from the garden last night. Now they are "resting" (drying a bit) on a screen in the garage. Assuming I can figure out how to store them properly so they last through the winter, I am going to plant about ten time as many next year. They were totally maintainence free and I think they helped keep the pests down.

I have also started to pull my cranberry bean plants. They also have to dry in a dark, dry place for several weeks. (These are the kinds of beans you dry and then put into soup or chili in the winter.)

Alas, my tomatoes have been striken by the blight, though not as badly as some folks I know. I think this is because I planted heirloom seedings, not the kind you can buy in big box stores. I am busy roasting them and making salsa. I’m not sure if I have enough to make spaghetti sauce. I might pick up a couple crates of Romas to do that, if I can get all the other chores done. I have to destroy my blighted tomato plants and sterilize the earth they grew in to reduce the chances of having to deal with this next year.

My eggplants are trying. This is a little north to grow them easily, and the cool, rainy summer we had did not help their cause.

My basil is taking over the planet.

In other Forest news, BH almost has the floor done in my cottage. This has been a huge job. We started with 125-year-old floor boards, of various widths and lengths. He had to sand off 125 years of varnish and grime and figure out how to make them fit into the cottage, given that they had no uniformity at all. Now they are all in place. He should finish the final sanding today, then he’ll put a couple of coats of clear finish on it. We’re still waiting on the roofers to install the slate tiles on the roof.

Because I am so behind on work, we’re going to leave a lot of the finishing touches until next year. Right the goal is to get me in there so I can write!!

If you have no harvest to deal with, check out this article about the popularity of YA literature by author Paula Chase-Hyman. Stop by her blog, too.