Basking in a Little Sunshine!

Sunshine Award!

Thanks to Irene Latham over at Live Your Poem for nominating DoriReads for a Sunshine Award! There is something very special in knowing that you have made someone smile. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, like sunshine on warm day.


These are the rules, but you can change them if you want:

1. Acknowledge the nominating bloggers
2. Share 11 random facts about yourself
3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger creates for you
4. List 11 bloggers
5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they've been nominated. (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.)

11 Random Facts:
I love to swim, but never learned to breathe. I do a reasonably good back stroke. I love peanut butter. My daddy called me Doodle. My dad-in-law calls me Charlie. I hate being cold. Not a pet person. Hate to shop. I still love getting old-fashioned letters in the mail. Twitter makes me nervous (must get over that). I love pottery dishware.

11 Questions from Irene:
1. Favorite food to bring to a potluck event?
Cheese and crackers, or something else I don't have to cook.

2. What do you do to relieve stress?
Swim. Pray. Walk. Stretch. Breathe.

3. Favorite quote?
"Surprise me, Lord, as a seed surprises itself..."    George Herbert

4. What is the story behind your name?
My parents were listening to a mystery program on the radio in their car. Apparently one of the characters was called, Doraine. My dad said, "That's going to be my little girl's name." My mother added Pamela before it, but my dad insisted I be called by my middle name.

5. Chore you abhor?
House cleaning. All of it.

6. Cinderella or Snow White?
Snow White, ever since about second grade when there was a story in our reader about Snow White and Rose Red.



7. Do you plan blog posts ahead of time, or real-time posts only?
Some of both. Would love to be more of a plan ahead type blogger, but I keep forgetting to plan ahead.

8. Other social media you enjoy?
I keep up with my scattered children (Texas, Oregon, Nigeria, Mississippi) on Facebook.

9. Introverted or extroverted?
Need you ask? Introverted!

10. Title of the last book you gave as a gift?
I give 2 books to each of my grandchildren on their birthday. (I have 8 now, so that's a lot of books.)  I read them onto my computer (Audacity) and record them on CD to go with the books. The grands are far away (Texas and Nigeria), so they have my voice. Samuel is 3 this week. His books are Little Bit of Winter by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell and Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan. Just got them in the mail today!

11. Happiness is a steaming cup of tea and the company of friend.


Passing the sunshine on to these bloggers:

Violet at Violet Nesdoly/poems

Linda at TeacherDance

Nancy at Blogzone

Janice at The Other Side of the Story

Susan at Writing Memorable Words

Laura at Writing the World for Kids

Mindy at mindy hardwick's blog

Cara at Cara's Blog

Jeannine at Views From a Window Seat

Sarah at her blog

11 Questions:

1. Where do you wish you could go?
2. Favorite quote?
3. Do you listen to music when you write? If so, what kind?

4. Last good movie you saw?

5. Best thing your mother taught you?

6. Favorite book you read in high school?

7. What do you do first thing in the morning?

8. When you're in a crowd, do you find a corner or work the room?

9. Something you like to cook/bake?

10. Beach or mountains?

11. What makes you smile?

Thanks again for the sunshine, Irene.

Happy Poetry Friday

Just want to say thanks to Irene Latham, who nominated my blog for a Sunshine Award. I promise I'll play along. Maybe tomorrow I'll manage to think about those questions!

Our Poetry Friday today is Keri at Keri Recommends. Stop by for lots of poetry-riffic posts.

I'm dipping back into explorers a bit this week, so I thought I'd share a poem from Elizabeth Bradfield's wonderful book, Approaching Ice, published in 2010 by Persea Books. This is one of my favorites.

Why They Went

by Elizabeth Bradfield

  

that men might learn what the world is like at the spot where the sun does not decline in the heavens.
                                                                    —Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Frost bitten. Snow blind. Hungry. Craving

fresh pie and hot toddies, a whole roasted

unflippered thing to carve. Craving a bed

that had, an hour before entering,

been warmed with a stone from the hearth.

Always back to Eden—to the time when we knew

with certainty that something watched and loved us.

That the very air was miraculous and ours.

That all we had to do was show up.

The sun rolled along the horizon. The light never left them.

The air from their warm mouths became diamonds.

And they longed for everything they did not have.

And they came home and longed again.

Read more of Bradfield's poems here.

One Little Word for the Coming Year

I have come slowly back to blogging with the turn of the year. The end of December and the beginning of January are always a time of looking back, re-evaluating, and listening for new direction. I always enjoy my sweet poet friend Irene Latham's One Little Word focus for the year, but I never seem able to settle on just a word. For me, it's generally more a feeling or sense of something in the air that I just cannot cram into a few letters on a page. Although my inner editor admonishes me that I could get that one word if I sat down and demanded more of myself.

Yes, there's an argument going on, the editor correcting, pressing while the more gracious side of me, the one I listen to others with, says be patient with myself.

It feels like it's been winter for a very long time. What I sense is the anticipation of spring, renewal, a new adventure about to begin. Of course, there is no way to know what is around the corner, beyond the bend in the road, and all the other clichés I might think of.

For the moment I am feeling a bit like Pooh Bear.

Winnie the Pooh © Walt Disney

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.”

                                                                          ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

So, perhaps I have settled on one little word after all.

This is a beautiful song called "Anticipation" from the Winter Poem album by Secret Garden.

On a Cold January Morning

By Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel from Holmbury St.Mary, UK (Newlands Corner) 

This Morning of a Snow
by Donal Mahoney


To lie in bed
this morning of a snow
when neither of us
has to go
anywhere for hours

at least. To sprawl
and talk of what
we hope for.
Better, what we know
the years will bring

and contemplate
just knowing

Read the rest here.

It's Poetry Friday and Betsy is hosting the roundup at I Think in Poems.

Advent: God Comes Toward Us

May you be blessed with joy and peace, with sweet moments to remember, with the whisper of healing words as God comes near to you. 

Stained glass from St. James Episcopal Church, Perry, Florida

From The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp:

"This day, this night, the Light comes, and whose heart isn't kindled by ths Love that's a wildfire? The shepherds got angels, were lit by the angels. Everyone else that night got shepherds, heard the news from kindled, heart-burning shepherds who went and 'told everyone.' When your heart burns, you are a flaming match for other hearts. When you're a manger tramp who comes with nothing but your ragged heart and leaned close over that creche, when you've beheld his glory, the white heat of a Love like this--who doesn't tramp out of the manger and into the world with a heart glowing like hot embers in your chest?"

Wishing you Love.

Merry Christmas

Voices of Christmas

I love this beautiful book by Nikki Grimes. The Christmas story unfolds in the voices of all those who were a part of the miracle of Jesus birth. Eric Velasquez' illustrations capture the mystery and wonder in the faces of each character. A lovely addition to any Christmas collection.



The Innkeeper
by Nikki Grimes

"And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in band of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

See here!
My inn is splitting its sides
with travelers,
the spare rooms swallowed up
by Roman soldiers, merchants,
and who knows who!
Don't blame me.
The young girl with belly
round as a drum
was not the only one
forced to come to Bethlehem.
But, since her husband
rapped upon my door,
I led them to a dry spot
in my stable,
and a bed of hay
on which to lay themselves.
It was the most I could offer,
other than to share \my own, warm room.
And who would care
to do that for strangers?
It's's not as if they were royalty, right?
A stable would do for the night.

Tabatha hosts the roundup  at The Opposite of Indifference.

Pleasure Reading

I have quite a lot of projects going on at the same time, which is a bit unusual for December. I'm putting together a couple of proposals for an educational publisher. When I sent the query, suggesting three topics they might be interested in, I was surprised to hear back so quickly and to find that they wanted to see proposals for all three topics. So I've been pleasure reading children's books on my topics, formulating my ideas, and jotting lots of notes. Got one one them done and off today. Maybe we'll come back to this topic after the first of the year and talk about the process.

I'm also pleasure reading children's books for my nonfiction picture book that I wrote about in the last entry on this blogging/writing journey with Nancy I. Sanford. I've chosen Sequoyah as my topic for multiple reasons. I've already done a low level biography for State Standards Publishing, a small educational house, so I have already done some research and he's a pretty interesting guy to me, so why not use some of that research in another format? Nancy's latest post is about choosing titles from the pile of children's books I've collected to purchase, used of course, for referring back to when the need arises as I write.

I also have a pile of pleasure reading on the African country of Mali, on which I have a contract to write a third grade level book for State Standards after the first of the year.

My piles of books are taking over the house. And yes, I'm over my limit at the library, but shhhh! Don't tell anyone. I'm taking a stack back tomorrow. And yes, the weights are there for a reason. I need arm strength to carry all my piles from one place to another!