Here are a couple of behind the scene shots of my essay, “Romancing the Rat” for Coffee+Crumbs.  You’ll learn a bit about my marriage, an unwanted visitor, and Bryan Bliss’s book No Parking At The End Times.  I think it’s a suitable little piece for Valentine’s Day. Read it here.

Around here, we’re fully immersed in Tolkien. Harper’s practicing Rune, and I’m reading about things larger than hornets. Never would I have picked this book up if I didn’t need to teach it, which once agains proves why someone ought to hire me to teach a class on scrubbing toilets or keeping house in general because if I have to… View Post

One of my favorite parts about road trips is listening to music in the car. I don’t mean the mixes – I guess they’re called playlists these days – I’m talking about entering a new state, hitting “scan” on the stereo, stretching my legs out on the dashboard, and listening to what music pops up. Our road trips usually consist… View Post

“Dear My Tooth Fairy,” Harper writes. “I have a very wiggly tooth. I just wanted to warn you. It started hurting in school. If you don’t know, ‘school’ is where kids learn.” “Anyway, I have a soft lunch but I am still worried. In case you weren’t using your sensors, I wrote you. Send a message on the back tonight…. View Post

{trying} to read aloud to the 8th graders this quarter.  I thought I’d start with Gary Schmidt’s latest book, Orbiting Jupiter because I think there are some similarities between it and Romeo and Juliet, which we are studying. I made this worksheet (above) for the students to fill out as I read because I thought giving them an exercise that is a… View Post