Category: Family (Page 21 of 24)

The Signed Book Collection of a Bibliophile

January 17, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve made it onto the web again! You may remember (or probably not) that I’ve blogged about appearing the web before (check out this post and this one). Unlike those other posts, though, this new one is ALL ABOUT ME! Check out a great–if I do say so myself–interview of yours truly on Kimberly Sabatini’s blog.

I mentioned in the interview that one of the reasons I like to go to writing conferences is to meet authors and have them sign books for me. Here’s my shelf of signed books:

I love all my signed books (call me a bibliophile if you must), but here’s a few that hold a special place in my heart:

Lisa Yee is a great writer and a really fun person. I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting her in person once, but we occasionally chat via her blog. It’s cut off in the picture, but she crossed out Stanford Wong and put in Katie!

I remember reading Bruce Coville’s My Teacher is an Alien back in grade school and loving it, so it was a real honor to meet him in person. I saw him speak at the SCBWI LA Conference a few years ago, and it was great.

Sid Fleischman is one of the cutest men I’ve ever met. He was in a humor panel at the LA conference. He was one of the quieter contributors on the panel, but when he did speak, it was definitely worth listening to. I later told him that I enjoyed his subtlety, and he said to me, “I’m sure you have a great deal of subtlety as well.”

As I was looking at my signed books, I realized that I have given away all my signed picture books, but there was some good ones. My favorite is How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Mark Teague (it’s signed by Mark Teague), which I gave to my little nephew. When you read it with him, he turns to the title page and says, “It’s signed by Mark (my nephew has a funny little accent like he’s from Boston or something, so Mark sounds like Mak) Teague and he drew a picture of a dinosaur.” Then he recites the whole book for you.And because there can never be enough links in one post, here’s one more for you. Agent Mary Kole is running another contest on her Kidlit blog, so check it out here.

Magnetic Poetry: Poink

January 6, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

Girls’ Christmas (my “sisters” and I get together every year for a girls-and-kids-only Christmas party) was relocated to my house at the last minute, so I requested that my guests create a sentence with the magnetic poetry kit on my refrigerator. Here’s what we came up with (as usual, I put a space in between each magnet to show the creative combinations):

love people like they a r e obedient prostitute s (I would think any obedient prostitute is easy to love, so this could be a new logo for world peace or something!)
experience perfect pleasure through bald chicken rhythm dance ing (I’d like to see bald chicken rhythm dancing…or on second thought, maybe I wouldn’t.)
spark random inspiration speak every thought investigate precious emotion (lather, rinse, repeat)
electric transgress ion s will burn holy fire (That’s what she said!)
the devil s skeleton is suck ing seed y sweet & sour soup (Nice alliteration…who knew the devil’s skeleton liked Chinese food?)

In other word news, my sister, niece, and nephews are trying to get the word “poink” into mainstream vocabulary. This started when my three-year-0ld nephew told my sister he didn’t want to sit in one of the dining-room chairs because it had a “pionk.” My sister asked, “What’s a poink?” So he showed her a broken chair rung that was sticking into his back. They now use the word regularly.

Poink has actually turned out to be very versatile. It can be a noun, as in the original sense: That needle has a sharp poink. It can be a verb, literally: Ouch! That needle just poinked me. It can be a verb, figuratively: Oh, you just got poinked. It can be an adjective: That needle is very poinky.

I checked out the urban dictionary and found some interesting definitions for poink and poinky. I recommend everyone tries to use poink in a sentence today.

Carrying on the Tradition of Christmas Cookies

December 14, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

Holiday traditions come in all shapes in sizes. As a kid, one of my favorite Christmas traditions was when Santa would leave our filled stockings for us at the end of our beds. It was so exciting to wake up on Christmas morning and not even have to get out of bed to find our first presents.

All five of us (my two older sisters, me, my younger sister, and my younger brother) used to gather together on one bed and open up all out stocking gifts. As my older sisters got older, us younger kids used to open up our stockings first, then we’d go wake up my older sisters and watch them open up their stockings. This was a nice tradition for my parents too because it meant they got to sleep in a little later.

Oh, and we always got oranges in our stockings, which seems like it would be lame, but I remember it as a nice treat. The orange-in-the-stocking tradition is one that carried over into my adult life (it seems Santa remembers about such things even as we get older). Many of the traditions I had as a kid have faded away, but many new ones have taken their places.

Making Christmas cookies with my niece and nephew is one of those new, but at the same time old, traditions. I used to make Christmas cookies with my Nana (my great grandmother). Then she stopped coming up north for the holidays because it was just too cold for her. She passed away at the ripe old age of 96, but I feel a little like I’m carrying on her tradition in a new way with my sister’s kids.

Unlike last year, we didn’t have any lady-licking incidences this year, but I paid homage to that by making a snowman and gingerbread lady the centerpiece of my cookies.

(These are the cookies I decorated…notice the snowman and his gingerbread wife.)

(My ten-year-old nephew decorated these cookies. He and his friend also made a really cool gingerbread house of Hagrid’s hut, but I forgot to take a picture of it.)

(My four-year-old niece decorated these. She was very meticulous and seemed to have a grand plan for each one.)

(These ones were decorated by my three-year-old nephew…he did most of the decorating by himself, but my sister did give him some help with the big gingerbread lady!)

(And because I didn’t want my sister to feel left out, here’s her cookies, including the big gingerbread lady.)

It was definitely a fun afternoon. What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Celebrating the Accomplishments Made Later in Life

November 22, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

The hubby turned 30 today, and he’s kind of been freaking out about this milestone birthday for some time. The other day he said something along the lines of, “Well, I may as well just die now because I’ll be 30 soon and my life will be over then anyway.” (He was kidding, of course, but I’m pretty sure there was a kernel of truth to him feeling that a certain aspect of his life would be over once he turned 30.)

In honor of this momentous occasion, here are some major accomplishments people have made after the age of 30:

As chronicled in the movie “The Rookie,” 35-year-old Jim Morris makes his Major League Baseball debut pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
At the age of 37, Julia Child begins her culinary career by enrolling in the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.
Also at the age of 37, Tom Hanks wins his first Oscar for his role as Andrew Beckett in the movie “Philadelphia.”
John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man to be elected into the office of President of the United States of America at the age of 43 years and 236 days.
At the age of 52, Ray Kroc, with the support of Maurice and Richard McDonald, franchises the hamburger restaurant McDonald’s.
In an act of civil disobedience, 61-year-old Mahatma Gandhi leads the approximately 200-mile long Salt March.
At the age of 73, Charlie Chaplin becomes a first-time father when his son Christopher is born.
The first of edition of “Roget’s Thesaurus” is published when Peter Mark Roget is 73 years old.
Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses begins her career as a painter at the age of 76 years old.

As for my thoughts on age, I maintain the argument that you’re only as old as you feel and that each birthday is a time to celebrate that you’re still here, alive and kicking. I, for one, can only wish that my younger sister (who died when she was 16) got to see 30. Imagine all the things she would have gotten to do with an extra 14 years. That’s why, although I don’t relish the idea of getting older, I try to embrace it as an opportunity. Not everyone gets the opportunity to grow old, so I am honored each time I reach another birthday and try not to let it bother me as I continue to grow old(er).

Celebrating New York Yankees Style

November 5, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

Last night (or maybe early this morning) the New York Yankees won their 27th World Series Title. Woohoo! If you know anything about me, you might know I’m a bit of a Yankees fan (that’s me a few years ago at the old Yankee Stadium).

How big of a Yankees fan am I? Well, this year I dressed as Derek Jeter, my favorite current player. I was boycotting having to dress slutty. (Since when did dressing up for Halloween for a woman over the age of 15 mean looking super slutty?) Halloween is about living out your dreams by pretending to be whatever it is you want to be. Well, I’m already sexy, so I don’t have to pretend to be that. And who wants to be slutty?

My Derek Jeter costumer really did fulfill one of my childhood dreams. When I was three, I used to tell everyone I was a boy (identity crisis…maybe?), but my reasoning was perfectly logical. I knew girls didn’t play for the New York Yankees. I wanted to play for the Yankees. Therefore, if I told everyone I was a boy, I would be allowed to play.

And it wasn’t just I wanted to play baseball. Nope, I wanted to play for just one team. I even went so far as to refuse to wear my red baseball cap. Red was Red Sox colors; no way were you gonna catch me in red. I was all about my little navy blue cap.

Some people might wonder why I’m so excited about a baseball team. What is so great about your team winning a championship anyway? The truth is, I’m not sure I really know. I suppose there’s the living-vicariously factor and the excitement of rooting for the best team in the world, but I think it comes back to making connections.

A sports game is a good excuse to get together with your friends (and eat crappy food without feeling too guilty about it) and getting a little rowdy. I love any environment where it’s perfectly acceptable to yell obscenities at the TV. Plus, when you watch or attend a game, there’s a certain camaraderie between all the people watching, even if they’re strangers. If you ask someone about where they were during a certain memorable game, they always have a story, and then you can share your story with them.

Last night I somehow ended up watching the game all by myself (the hubby a Red Sox fan…boo…so he went to bed). Just before the last out, my dad called from Florida (he and my mom are there on vacation). He asked, “You watching the game?” I replied, “What kind of fan do you think I am? Of course I’m watching the game.” I had taken my parents to the airport earlier in the week and my dad had mentioned that he told God that he didn’t care what happened with the NY Giants this year, all he wanted was for the Yankees to win the World Series.

I was really honored that my dad called me for the last out. I had turned the volume on my TV way down and had put the radio on to listen to the end of the game (something my dad does all the time). The TV was a good five seconds behind the radio, so I heard the call before I saw it. I was quick enough to hold the phone up to the radio so my dad could hear John Stirling (the Yankees radio announcer) yell his signature, “Ballgame over! The Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!”

Then I heard my mom whooping in the background (she had had a whole three beers!) in celebration. It was the middle of a night on a Wednesday in November, but the Yankees winning the World Series made it a special night. And I got to share a few moments of it with my dad.