I uploaded pictures of books and nick-knacks I brought back from my boyfriend’s dad’s house. I have yet to photograph the posters I brought back- I haven’t decided whether I want to find a large flatbed scanner or just take a shot with my camera. Anyway, I’m still adding details about the books (copyright, edition, publisher, etc.) but I think I have some great cover art to look at now! Also included in the set are a few art slides I photographed in my light box.

In a few more weeks I’ll be adding more pictures to the set as we retrieve more items from the house. I hope I can remember to take my digital camera and light box with us next time!

First off, many thanks to San (www.san-smith.com) who gave me her pass to the Neil Gaiman reading at Agnes Scott. I totally fudged myself by not bringing either of my two Neil Gaiman books to be signed, but I really enjoyed the reading. And I got to see an Internet pal Jessi (www.casual-dread.blogspot.com) and thanks to Jessi for letting me sit with her and getting a great view of Neil Gaiman! We had to wait a good long while to meet Neil (he signed books for every person in the chapel- maybe 400 people!), but when we did get up to him, I said I was an English teacher (ok, little white lie, but I am in school to be one!) and that I was impressed by how his books get reluctant readers to pick up a book (which is quite true!). He hadn’t looked up to speak to nearly anyone before us, but he looked up and responded along the lines that he’d heard that a lot and was glad to encourage young readers.

So yay! That was very exciting and I’m sad that San couldn’t go, but feeling very fortunate that I got to meet him and get a picture with him. I have pictures of Jessi and her friends on Flickr, and she has a picture of us with Neil. Weird camera acrobatics last night.

Anyway. The other thing I wanted to post about today was Lion Brand patterns. I was flipping through some blogs and someone posted a few photos of the wonderful crochet patterns Lion Brand has for FREE on their website. I’m still very biased towards knitting, but the winds may be a-changing now that I’ve seen the fantastic patterns on their site.

I LOVE this granny square scarf. It’s featured with a soft mohair yarn which makes it look cute and modern. Granny squares have a tendency to come off kinda clunky and old-fashioned (or maybe I just always picture the afghans my Nana made in the 70s), but I really like how bright and fun this scarf looks. The picture links to the pattern, but you need to be signed into the Lion Brand site in order to view it.

I also really liked this scalloped, lacy scarf.

Last summer I made a cute knitted dress for a girl I’d babysat with a light linen yarn. This pattern is similar to the dress I made, but I’m really digging the new handpainted yarn from Lion Brand that looks like a Noro colorway.

What a cute little outfit for the winter? I want to make this as a Christmas gift for the little one I’m sitting for now. She could wear a long-sleeve onesie and leggings or tights under it. With a soft wool it would be perfect for winter wear.

I’m hoping to add a few more items to my Etsy shop this afternoon before I go out to babysit for the evening. I’m thinking it may be a much later update, but debating between adding handspun yarn and knitting up some of my handspun. I think there are so many established and popular handspun yarn sellers on Etsy that I may be wasting my time listing just plain yarn. I’ve had a raspberry colored yarn with over 250 yards (!) sitting in my shop since March. I’ve always wondered if I shouldn’t just knit up and see how that goes. I don’t know. Are there more knitters on Etsy or people who want already-knitted items?

One of the yarns I will probably list is a beauty I’ve been holding onto for a long time thinking I would ply it. But I really like it as a single.

It’s a little over-wound in a few spots, but I plan on soaking it and giving it a good WHACK and stretch before listing it. I spun this in January and didn’t intend at all for this to be listed so close to Christmas. It reminds me more of roses and leaves than Christmas. But oh well. Now’s the time.

I better get on with my real life chores today. Have a lovely day!

Lots of pictures and links tonight!

On Sunday I saw the matinee performance of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at my friend’s high school. Her kids did a great job and I was happy to see everything come together. I visited the school earlier in the week to attend their final dress rehearsal and take pictures. When the student who the Gigantor Pink Sweater was made for came out, I nearly lost it laughing because he pulled the hat down too far and came out like this:

I gave him a few pointers on wearing the hat a tad more “jaunty” and I was glad to see he figured it out for the actual performance! That right there is my very first sweater, ladies and gents!

This week is all business, though. I have a presentation in each of my classes this week. One is a book presentation on Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl. I’m sort of winging that one. I taught myself how to play “Happy Birthday” on my new ukulele to play as I enter the classroom in character, just like Stargirl sings to people in the cafeteria. I also stitched up a little “Cinnamon” rat out of an old t-shirt.

I plan on getting a classmate to tape my book presentation tomorrow night so that I can save it for posterity’s sake. Actually, I live to embarrass myself on the Internet (see above). Really, I’m kinda excited about walking, playing the ukulele, and singing at the same time, and if I can pull it off, I’ll be damn proud of myself!

My other project is for my Content Area Literacy course on how to activate students’ prior knowledge on a particular subject, and ways to get them excited and motivated about the upcoming lesson or unit. My group covered four subjects of high school, and I made a website with iWeb to share our information. I got to cover English-Language Arts and am particularly proud of my motivation ideas. You can check out our website at: http://web.me.com/cassiecsmith/Interest_Ignition/Home.html.

After Thanksgiving, I’m turning in my completed list of twenty-four young adult books that I’ve read this semester. I just started Little Brother by Cory Doctorow this evening, and am extremely fascinated by its premise. The l337 speak and hax0r language in the novel makes me have to read certain passages a few times to make sure I completely understand what’s just been said, but so far (20 pages in) I’m enjoying the novel. And bonus that it’s an ex-library book from Cleveland!

Also due after Thanksgiving is another project for my young adult lit class involving the creation of learning centers. Like centers in kindergarten only for high school students and way cooler. My learning centers are all about comics and graphic novels. Again, I’m using iWeb to create a website to showcase my learning centers and w00t- iWeb has a comic book theme! So I borrowed one of Jason’s many superhero shirts and totally geeked out.

Tee-hee. Anyone know why I have those two super hero ladies next to me on the page? I’ll give you a clue- look in the blue box to the left.

Also after Thanksgiving, I may do a tiny neighborhood craft show. Key word is may. I’m not sure if I’ll have enough stuff to show, but really I wouldn’t be going to make a lot of money. It’d definitely be more for the fun of being around other crafters.

As for Thanksgiving itself, I will most likely be traveling to Carbondale, Illinois (home of the Southern Illinois University Salukis) to visit my mom’s entire family. My grandmother had a massive stroke this past Friday and is still in the hospital, but fortunately she’s been able to speak when she’s conscious and can recognize people around her. All of my mom’s siblings are up there with her, and my brother and I will probably be up there, too. My poor dad has to work next week so he’ll be home alone with the pets. I may stop off in my new favorite city of Nashville if my friends are in town, but don’t expect too much excitement. I haven’t been to Carbondale in over ten years so maybe there’ll be something new to see. I finished some pretty blue socks for my grandmother and it’ll be nice to give her those while she’s recovering.

I didn’t want to end this post on a downer. So here’s a cute picture of me and the little girl I babysit riding the kiddie train at Zoo Atlanta. Happy Thanksgiving!

Last Monday was my 25th birthday. I have such conflicting views about number 25- I feel like I’m at a point where I can’t make childish mistakes and yet I certainly don’t feel 25 compared to everyone else I know. Most of my friends are at least 2 years older than me and I feel close to some of the parents I babysit for who are in their 30s. I’ve always had people tell me they think I’m older than I actually am- when I was General Manager at the radio station, someone thought I was at least 27 when I was really only 22. Birthdays are weird. It’s just numbers.

I went out of town to Savannah, Georgia the weekend before my birthday (October 2-4) and had a lot of fun. I got to visit another great cemetery, Bonaventure, and did a little shopping. We visited the SCAD store and holy crap I wish I had money to burn because it would all be spent there. We also visited the Gryphon Tea Room across the street from the SCAD store and a nice little coffee shop called The Sentient Bean that reminded me of Joe’s here in East Atlanta. We sampled some scrumptious peanut butter chippy ice cream at Leopold’s on Broughton and even did a nice little tour on a trolley bus.

Famous Little Gracie tombstone in Bonaventure Cemetery

One of two twin gorgeous Victorian “Gingerbread” homes.

What would Savannah be without gorgeous oaks with moss dripping from the branches?

Despite Jason’s expression, he was really enjoying that double scoop ice cream cone. It was 70 degrees in Atlanta, and 80+ in Savannah that day!

More Savannah pics are at my Flickr account.

As far as the real world goes, I’m currently compiling a list of the young adult books I’ve read so far into a slide show project for class. I’m using Apple’s Keynote from iWork ‘08 so I’ll be exporting it into a PDF for my teacher. If I figure out how to do it, I’ll post the PDF here if anyone is interested. We’re supposed to read 24 YA books this semester and we’re at the mid-point and turning in our first 12. Anything over 285 pages counts as two and I’ve got 10 slides at the moment. I just started The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and am really intrigued by the narrator’s direct, but detailed manner of explaining a scene.

And because she is just so freaking precious, I need to post this video of Nugget getting some love. (Turn the volume up!)

Nugget Loves to Love from Cassie Smith on Vimeo.

For those of you curious as to how Twilight ended up faring for me… um. I don’t like it….? Honestly, I don’t really know how I feel about that book except that all the references to Edward’s beautiful/perfect/smoldering/perfect/Adonis-like face/teeth/mouth/eyes/body got REALLY EFFING OLD. Fast. And then I had to go and watch the damn movie. I’m surprised my boyfriend was able to sleep in the next room last night because I was HOWLING. I could not stop laughing at how ridiculous the acting was, I mean, c’mon R-Pat! Angry kisses are sooo not hot, buddy. But enough of that crap. Onto a great book that actually made me cry.

This evening I gave a book presentation in my Young Adult lit graduate course on Sold by Patricia McCormick. It follows young Lakshmi’s journey from her agricultural village in the Nepalese mountains to a life of prostitution in an Indian brothel. McCormick exposes the truth and horrors about child sex-trafficking via a made-up character who faces many of the issues child prostitutes face: deception, abuse, depression, and hope. I made a video using GarageBand and iMovie about the first half of the book and the events leading up to Lakshmi’s stepfather’s decision to sell her.

Book Presentation on ‘Sold’ by Patricia McCormick from Cassie Smith on Vimeo.

I then linked to a You Tube video that exposes child prostitution in India (it won’t let me embed it). I only showed the first few minutes, just up to the part about Nepalese girls being prized for their light skin and virginity. Heavy stuff.

I have a bunch of books coming in the mail this week that I can’t wait to dig into. Right now I’m trying to decide on which book to start next. I’ve gotten into about 40 pages of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie & The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. I also have Persepolis sitting on my desk to tempt me. It’s so hard to choose!

I realize this blog is turning into something of a Young Adult lit blog right now, but hey, it’s what I’m doing ALL THE TIME. I rarely stop reading long enough to eat, sleep, and shower so this is what’s coming out right now. Shrinky Dinks have been on the back burner of my brain lately so next week you might see something a little nerdy pop up. ‘Til then, time to choose my next book, take a bath, and hop in bed!

Books shown (bottom to top):

- Maus II by Art Spiegelman
- Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
- The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
- New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
- Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Yes, I finally gave in and got Twilight. I won New Moon at Dragon*Con and I suppose that was the final impetus to go ahead and read the damn books. I’m sad that I actually spent some money on it, but a friend offered to give me her copy so I can return the one I bought. Most of the books in this stack are part of the 24 I need to read for my graduate course on young adult literature except for Jesus Land and Inheritance. I’d had those on my wishlist since the summer and went ahead and ordered them.

Also in the mail are:
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
- Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

I wish I had more time to talk about these books and the ones I’ve already read for class, but this week has been a desperate attempt to get life back together and catch up on everything after spending my entire holiday weekend nerding out and sleeping. And now this coming weekend I will be babysitting overnight and probably won’t have much down time other than to work on homework and read. I’d like to make a little book talk video for next week and highly encourage you to recommend young adult lit to me in the meantime!