it was all i could do to read with comprehension since i have pre-parade anxiety…

“calvin” – calvin and hobbes – i think billy is a fan – honestly, you all should be – anyway, this book envisioned a boy, 17, who imagines a pet tiger – and tries to hunt down the cartoonist to help solve his mental illness – the book was very atypical YA – as such, i really, really enjoyed it – would be a great high school BOB

“the lost art of reading nature’s signs” – cool book – i learned several ways to spot north – outside of a smartphone:) i also learned a bit about nature – birds and deer – and about weather – ooh, and i don’t feel as special now – i thought i was the only one that saw shooting stars – or space dust – but turns out, they occur a lot at parts of the year – and at a rate of like every six minutes – so i should seem them when i run early on the weekends

“missoula” – saved the best for last – although, not a young adult book at all – that said, it should be read by every high school senior going off to college – as a law junkie, i found the court coverage awesome – just like the book – but awesome in a way that the book is incredibly sad – unfortunately, i will probably be the only person that will read it at the public library – because people have this notion that if you ignore sad things, then sad things never come – which is completely absurd – but the book was really good about reminding me how important it is to take every elected office seriously – the county prosecuting attorney in missoula was a former defense lawyer – and the book reminded me of the somewhat tragic existence of freshman college girls

mafeld

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