library-loving blog challenge update

March 26, 2010 ~ jama

Hey, everybody!! Thanks SO much for your sweet, sweet library loving support! I’ve reached my 150-comment goal, so I’m raising my cap to $200!

Come on, help me spend my money! If you haven’t commented yet, please do so at this post. A few seconds of your time is worth $1 for the Fairfax Library Foundation, even more if you help spread the word. Every dollar counts, and each and every comment lets the world know how important libraries are to our lives, our futures, our families, our communities.

This challenge runs through midnight tomorrow (EDT), March 27th.

To see the full list of bloggers from around the country participating in this challenge, visit the writerjenn blog. ♥

friday feast: happy birthday, robert frost!

March 26, 2010December 25, 2017 ~ jama

“A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.”

“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” ~ Robert Lee Frost

Frost in 1910 and 1962 (photo by TedSher).

To celebrate Robert Frost’s 136th birthday today, I’m sharing an early poem I only just discovered recently. Since my knowledge of Frost is somewhat limited to the well known poems usually found in anthologies, it’s always a treat to read something “new.”

“A Line-storm Song” first appeared in New England Magazine (1907) when Frost was 33, and was later included in his first collection of poetry, A Boy’s Will (1913). This is a different Frost from the one I first encountered pondering “The Road Not Taken,” and I like him. It’s lovely to meet this poet as a young man, passionate and romantic. I was reminded of Marlowe’s, “Come live with me and be my love.” I’m all for an entreaty to brave the elements and ride out life’s storms in the name of love.

A LINE-STORM SONG

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift.
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz-stones lift,
And the hoofprints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods, come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch, shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when, after doubt,
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
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looking for a few more sweet, good looking library lovers!

March 24, 2010 ~ jama

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday at my Library Loving Blog Challenge post! I’m about a third of the way there, which means I still need 100 comments to reach my goal. That’s right — 100 smart, caring people who know how valuable libraries are in our communities!

In case you haven’t commented yet, please do! Just a few seconds of your time will earn $1 to help the Fairfax Library Foundation.This challenge runs through Saturday, March 27th. Please help me spread the word in whatever way you can — Twitter, Facebook, blogs, emails, etc. Thank you very much!!

Meanwhile, here’s your mantra for the day:

Available as a 5" x 7" mini wooden plaque here.

PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR LIBRARIES!!!

Copyright © 2010 Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan’s alphabet soup. All rights reserved.

2010 Library-Loving Blog Challenge!

March 23, 2010 ~ jama

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

If you love libraries, please leave a comment!

Welcome to the second annual Library-Loving Blog Challenge! I’m not asking for any money, just your support. For every comment received at this post (or on Facebook), between now and midnight (EDT) March 27th, I will donate $1 to the Fairfax Library Foundation, up to an amount of ~~$150~~ $200. Of course, if you shower me with sweet everlasting library love, I can easily be persuaded to exceed that amount. ☺

The Fairfax Library Foundation is a private, non-profit organization that seeks to provide supplementary support to the Fairfax Public Library by enhancing library programs and services for the community. Since the time we had our first Library-Loving Blog Challenge in 2009, the FCPL budget has been cut by 15% (elimination of 330 library staff positions + many program reductions), and is facing even more budget cuts in FY2011, which could reduce the workforce by as much as one third.

These drastic cuts come at a time when people need library services more than ever. They’ve been flocking to all 23 branches for help with their résumés, job certification tests, or to apply for jobs online. If the FY2011 Budget Plan is adopted, libraries would close two mornings and two evenings a week, with a 50% cut in book, magazine, and audio funding.

This year, rather than just send a check to the Foundation, I’ve decided to purchase books through their Amazon Wish List. Of course they will be children’s books! Titles I hope to donate include Henry and Mudge books by Cynthia Rylant, two Harry Potter books, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and some Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Park. I like seeing exactly where my money is going, and it makes me happy to know that a few more of these popular titles will be available to local children.

So please help! A simple "I love libraries" will do! Note that this challenge is "per commenter" (50 comments by the same person still counts as one), but you can do more by helping to spread the word. Please link to this post, tweet it, Facebook it, etc., and send your friends (or good-looking people in the grocery checkout line) here so they can comment and raise more money.

If you’re moved to make a flat-fee donation to your library, or want to start your own challenge, please leave your information in the comments, and we will add your link to the master list located at Jennifer R. Hubbard’s blog. Go there now to see all the participating bloggers (and to visit other sites where you can help libraries just by leaving comments)!

This challenge runs all week, so there’s plenty of time to spread the word and comment on as many blogs as you’d like.

Thanks for your help and support. Of course, you get a cupcake!

Fondant icing and sugar paste carnation by abbietabbie.

friday feast: at your service

March 19, 2010January 5, 2018 ~ jama

SOMETHING ON A TRAY

by Noël Coward

Advancing years may bring about
A rather sweet nostalgia
In spite of rheumatism and gout
And, certainly, neuralgia.
And so, when we have churned our way
Through luncheon and a matinée,
We gratefully to bed retire
To rest our aching, creaking vertebrae
And have a little something on a tray.

Some ageing ladies with a groan
Renounce all beauty lotions,
They dab their brows with eau-de-Cologne
And turn to their devotions,
We face the process of decay
Attired in a négligé
And with hot bottles at our toes
We cosily in bed repose
Enjoying, in a rather languid way,
A little ‘eggy’ something on a tray.

Advancing years that many dread
Still have their compensations,
We turn when youth and passion have fled
To more sedate sensations,
And when we’ve fought our weary way
Through some exhausting social day
We thankfully to bed retire
With pleasant book and crackling fire
And, like Salome in a bygone day,
Enjoy a little something on a tray.

When weary from the fray
Something on a tray
Sends weariness away,
Something on a tray,
Thank God, thank God we say,
For something on a tray.

~ from After the Ball, 1954

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To which I say, “Bring it!”

I’m a vertebrae crackin’, beauty lotion cartin’, neuralgic, weary maniac in my advanced years who likes nothing better than something on a tray.

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