oh, those long summer days…

“every day i fight” – espn anchor stuart scott – this one is at the county public library – so great for my sportscenter guys – but very sad – b/c it was a goodbye book to his daughters – scott passed away of cancer early this year – the book talked about the hardest thing to do in life – keep hope when hope isn’t there – really good – and prayers for his daughters who will grow up w/o a wonderful father

“the art of character” – great book – the basic premise that we’ve lost humility in today’s world – we don’t admit to sin, personal sin – we inflate ourselves to be the center of the universe – now, those ideas aren’t new, they’re a large part of the conservative view, but the author made the ideas new in his argument – so it wasn’t just left/right political deal – and i’ve taken more to considering my faults daily – which i think is good and healthy

“saban” – great book coming out in august about everyone’s favorite football coach:)

“losers take all” – YA – i know, i finally got around to reading another one of those – of course, it was a disappointment – they all are:) in the book, a school forces all seniors to play a sport – one group decides on purpose to be bad – really bad – so it’s their story

i need Coach Tone to write an inspirational book in the middle of Binder Girl II…

maf

i’m amazed that my choices for “podcast of the week” in cspan are a huge list of presidential announcements – yawn…

“john walker: champion” – once upon a time, there was a miler who ran really fast for a really long time – from essentially 1972-1984 – often, biographies can be more like a subject – so rather than telling a story, it’s just giving advice on running – this book was good – even autographed straight from connecticut to the local library – it was a personal story – so i enjoyed the book more than i thought i would

“in defense of a liberal education” – the book that answers the question “why do i need to study _____ b/c i’ll never need it in life” – if you haven’t realized it yet, there’s probably a lot in life that you’ll learn that you technically may never need – so why learn it? because the process of learning is fun – and should be celebrated – tragically, we live in an age where everyone’s supposed to know what they want to do by 8th grade (become a detective) and then focus all on that – this book rejects a narrow/technical focus early in celebration of learning for the joy of knowing things – it was a good point

“2 hours” – book coming out in the fall on the marathon’s quest to break the two hour barrier – very awesome book

back to watching women’s world cup

mafeld

so the internet mice chewed out wires way back on friday – so i have dropped off the web for the time being

i’m so lost as a result… 🙂

it was good to hear from the bunny killer – everyone else, meh…

“long shot” – by piazza – 63rd round pick made it to the big leagues – and will more than likely be a HOFer some day (hall of fame for everyone NOT billy) – it was a whiny book though – lots of “everyone misunderstood how awesome i am” type stuff – giving the guy credit, he was sensitive – and most athletes don’t do that in a biography – but that said, he was really sensitive

“boston” – by higdon – book on the marathon in 1996 – good – some old stories – fit well with the demar book from the week before

“boston by the mile” – this one was the awesome book of the week – like great trivia – the second city we run through, ashland, was named after kentucky’s trees – there are no ash trees in Massachusetts – so that was a cool fact i hope to remember early in next year’s race

“natural born heroes” – another good one – the guy that wrote “born to run” has one that incorporates a crazy WWII plot to kidnap a german general with greek gods and goddesses – i was fired up to refind my edith hamilton’s mythology book afterward

sorry again about this being so late – i understand if billy is too swamped with VBS to respond – everyone else, great first week:)

mafeld

chelsea park was a ghost town this morning – not that the elem school is rockin’ when i go by running – but, sigh:( no buses out back today

by the way, sorry for this being late on sunday – it’s not like i have a good excuse like i’m at the beach or the lake – just reading – trying to finish a good baseball book

“bunker hill” – oh, where has this book been all my life??? 🙂 the cool thing about reading is that you can think you’ve read everything good and then lo and behold! you discover there’s a gem you overlooked – in this case, in 2013, this book came out – i should’ve read it heading to boston in 2014 – but i didn’t know about it – thankfully, i had it as “preparation” for 2016 – just great for Rev War reminders – boston trivia – by the way, bunker hill wasn’t fought at bunker hill – it was breed’s hill…

“my year of running dangerously” – great book – guy went from three miles to 50 mile races in a year – he’s a reporter for cnn – great book on the power of family – and what running looked like in this state in the 1980s (hint: it was pretty – and it had hills)

“the grind” – what’s it like to compete at the major league level? less glam than people think – this book was a DC reporter’s account – from multiple perspectives – players, wives, travel agents, gm, scouts – great for middle school

“marathon” by DeMar – again, where has it been all my life? published in 1937 – i read a reprint – really, still as fresh and current as back then – because it was the story of a SEVEN time boston champion – and didn’t have the odd training stuff that some running books have – demar taught sunday school as well – he kept boy scouts – he was a teacher later in life – all that was neat

hope summer gets off to a good start

mafeld

pet peeve of awards day – i could make a list – but most improved award is one of them…

“comeback” – by the pastor at passion city in atlanta – you may have watched his videos in youth group – great new book – an encouraging read – nothing very new to learn for me, but lots of good reminders – which is that regardless of whether one occurs or not, there’s a longing in the soul to make a comeback – but there are certain battles we need help with

“fenway at 100 years” – this book even came with a dvd – i want to say 1912 is the birth – i think that’s right – anyway, great book with a history of boston’s ballpark – got me ready to start thinking about the marathon – which, at mile 25, one of the better sights is seeing fenway to the right – i’m a sucker for baseball history books anyway

remember, we must all continue to blog or else victoria will shame us

mafeld

special thanks to all the second graders that wished me a happy mother’s day today – i’m so happy to be celebrating my first…

“drama high” – great book – story of a pennsylvania town that has given its heart to high school theater – and an educator that stayed for 40 years and built an empire – there were a couple of things the director says before opening night – and before closing – that i’d love to copy and say to my eighth grade – we tried an icebreaker in second period from the book – it could turn into a good lit activity – while the rest of the nation does basically the same conservative play that was done 10 years ago, levittown pushed the envelope – again and again – you can’t do that without a teacher that cares – and without people that can trust – so it was pretty special to read about

remember sixth grade – you must blog five times a day from now until the end of the school year – or else you’ll repeat GT next year – and i’ve seen those kids – some of them are HUGE!!!

mafeld

just going to be an amazing concert this sunday, good people – i hear little Bri’s going to have a jazz band/hand tribute to the work of loki…

“common thread” and “25 years: Peachtree road race” – both books about the atlanta race that i’ll be running july 4 – it’s fun to me to read about places i’ll go – i can remember things when i run – they look more familiar – if nothing else, it just makes me appreciate that people have gone before me – and hopefully, there will be 59,000 people behind me that day:)

“wild pitches” – espn writer – his best of columns – enjoyable – made me realize how much baseball i missed a few years ago – i enjoyed the statistical oddities – like the brewers guy that “stole” first – when the rangers beat the o’s 30-3

“4:09:43” – book written right after boston 2013 – stories of the runners – so getting me fired up about running next year – just a very sad book in the sense that no one can ever look back on that day and just remember running a great race – there was so much ruined

happy last week

maf

so lots of books to cover this week…

“racing the rain” – a reread from a month ago – still awesome – merged well with schs track going to regionals this weekend – and i had kids that qualified for state – down at the beach – so it’s always good to have kids qualify for the beach – i bookmarked several passages this time around that i really liked – one about athletics, that the thing about athletes is the trying – that you try

“first class” – grete waitz won the NYC marathon in 1978 having previously only run 12 miles – she beat her husband up at the finish line b/c he conned her into running it – she went on to win the NYC marathon a total of 7/8 times – just unprecedented – tragically, she died of cancer a few years ago – this book came out in the mid 1980s when things were good for her – i got the book from auburn – i love old books that no one is reading – like that book has probably sat on a shelf for 20 years waiting for someone – i think that’s kind of cool

“never say no” – parents to switchfoot – or jon and tim foreman – great book with parenting advice – teaching isn’t parenting, but lots of parallels

“write back soon”  – writing strategies – for handwritten notes – irony that i’m blogging this

hope everyone has a great week – seventh grade can skip blogs and journals thursday night if they turn in their work thursday

mafeld

it was a good week to test – i had time to knock out books i’d rather not be solely devoted to…

“mark of the corripian” – we heard this lady a week ago at write in the middle – as i have told binder girl, WAY better than anna kathyrn davis – not that it’s a competition:) but we should’ve had this book before – and we’ll have it in my room soon – promise – anyway, future – dystopia – star-crossed lovers – but it moves along – honestly? it should be middle school BOB next year – should’ve been on the list already

“sub 4:00” – on to the good stuff:) a book about running – it took 30-plus years between the first high school kid to go under the 4:00 minute mile – and this kid – alan webb – the book was published in 2003 – which made it sad for me b/c i know what’s happened to webb – and a lot of the people in the book – they’re no longer what they were then – and that was sad

“believe it!” – story of the 2005 chicago white sox world series – as big a white sox fan as i was growing up, it was strange that i didn’t follow that season – the only one they’ve been good in for 100 years – so i bought the series on dvd – and this book helped me piece together stats – which was fun for me

happy blog-ing

mafeld

still poetry month – just sayin’…

“the radical cross” – by tozer – reprint of his work in what i’m guessing was the mid-20th century – he’s seen today as a well-respective Christian writer for conservatives – thus, he’s pretty harsh reading – that is, it’s not the lovey-dovey stuff – more harsh than positive – good intellectual points though

“mission high” – LOVED this book – reporter followed a high school in san fran for years – so instead of the “we need more money for public education” or “we need more tests for public education,” she reached the entirely sane conclusion that we need more time for teachers to learn how to be better teachers – to learn to work with kids – so teachers need more planning times – times to go over what’s working – and not – in the classroom – it was a powerful conclusion based on what she observed at this school – which was labeled a failure b/c of test scores – but a school that sent like 80 percent of its kids to college – really enjoyed reading the book

back to watching the masters

mafeld