Table for Eight

Today I wanted to share an excerpt from one of my favorite books: "Life Is A Verb," by Patti Digh (PattiDigh.com): "The book Art and Fear  brings us the story of a pottery teacher who tells half his class that they'll be graded solely on the quantity of the work they produce. He'll even use a scale to weigh their output and determine their grade. Fifty pounds of pots would rate an A, for example. The other half [of the class] would be graded on quality and need only produce one pot--a perfect one--to get an A. "The works of highest quality," the authors reported "were all produced by the group being graded of quantity . . . while they were busily churning out piles of work--and learning from their mistakes--the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay." I just LOVE that excerpt. For one: I love metaphors! And a po...

The Lorax movie comes out next week!  (c) Universal, 2012. I love to read. BUT, I didn't always love to read. ( Which is kinda funny for someone who teaches English.) But, it's true. It was only after marrying Dave that I became a "book reader." (Sorry mom and dad, I know you both read a lot.) And that had a lot to do with the fact that Dave was a reader--and therefore, gave me books for EVERY anniversary, birthday,and Christmas. The first few years of our marriage it was kinda funny.  "Oh, a book, thanks."  [Zzzzzz.] "Oh, another book. Thanks." [I  can see I better get a bookshelf soon.] And so on, and so on, and so on. Until one year he gave me a book that for some reason just SPOKE to me. You know the kind of book I'm talkin' 'bout? --A book you want to read and never put down.  --A book that teaches, helps, inspires, and changes you. --A book you WANT to write in. --A book you want to share with ...