Carey Family

Scott and Sue Family

O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction

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I have a long-standing goal of reading all the Newbery award winners.  This began when I was young and was renewed when Brian was in elementary school and decided to take up the challenge.  I read along with him then, but as he grew older and moved on to other reading material, I also moved on.  Again.  A few years ago, I decided that I would focus again on this perpetual challenge and try to knock out a few more each year.  To date I’ve read 64 of the 91 books so honored.  So I’m making progress.  Early in 2011 I realized that since my favorite genre (by far) is historical fiction, I should be reading the books given the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction.  (Because who doesn’t need more reading challenges in their life?)  To be eligible for the award, a book must have been published as a book intended for children or young people, it must be set in the New World (Canada, Central or South America, or the United States), it must be published by a publisher in the United States, and it must be written in English by a citizen of the United States.

Before I decided to read them all, I had only read 5 of the 29, so the rest have been read during 2011-2012.  Herein is the list with my star rating from my goodreads.com reviews.  I read some really excellent books and a couple of duds, but for the most part, the books that have received this award have all been worthy.  I enjoyed stretching myself and getting them all read.  Someday I’ll finish all the Newberys.

2012, Jack Gantos, Dead End in Norvelt, 2 stars
2011, Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer, 4 stars
2010, Matt Phelan, The Storm in the Barn, 3 stars
2009, Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains, 5 stars
2008, Christopher Paul Curtis, Elijah of Buxton, 3 stars
2007, Ellen Klages, The Green Glass Sea, 3 stars
2006, Louise Erdrich, The Game of Silence, 4 stars
2005, A LaFaye, Worth, 5 stars
2004, Richard Peck, The River Between Us, 4 stars
2003, Shelley Pearsall, Trouble Don’t Last, 3 stars
2002, Mildred D. Taylor, The Land, 4 stars
2001, Janet Taylor Lisle, The Art of Keeping Cool, 4 stars
2000, Miriam Bat-Ami, Two Suns in the Sky, 2 stars
1999, Harriette Robinet, Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule, 4 stars
1998, Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust, 4 stars
1997, Katherine Paterson, Jip, His Story, 4 stars
1996, Theodore Taylor, The Bomb, 4 stars
1995, Graham Salisbury, Under the Blood Red Sun, 3 stars
1994, Paul Fleischman, Bull Run, 4 stars
1993, Michael Dorris, Morning Girl, 3 stars
1992, Mary Downing Hahn, Stepping on the Cracks, 4 stars
1991, Pieter Van Raven, A Time of Troubles, 4 stars
1990, Carolyn Reeder, Shades of Grey, 4 stars
1989, Lyll Becerra de Jenkins, The Honorable Prison, 5 stars
1988, Patricia Beatty, Charley Skedaddle, 3 stars
1987, Scott O’Dell, Streams to the River, River to the Sea, 3 stars
1986, Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall, 4 stars
1985, Avi, The Fighting Ground, 4 stars
1984, Elizabeth George Speare, The Sign of the Beaver, 3 stars

Seedling bragging

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I’ve had some questions about my process for growing seedlings, so here’s the scoop.  I germinate them in Jiffy pellets which I put in trays with clear plastic domes.  I place these under basic shop lights and fluorescent lights bought at the big box home improvement stores, on heavy duty wire shelves purchased from similar places.  I have a hanging wire shelf above these, and on the right I have narrow plastic shelves given to me by a neighbor who got a real greenhouse.  (covet, covet)  These shelves are in my downstairs furnace room.

Once the seeds come up and have a leaf or two, I remove the domes and when they have two true leaves (or soon after), I take the pellets and place them in 4″ pots filled with Miracle Gro potting soil and put them back under the lights.  These photos were taken April 7 and they had been going for about 3 weeks.

Once the seedlings get all big and healthy-looking, I start moving them out to what I affectionately call my “theater greenhouse”.  This is the other half of the wire shelving, located in my garage with shop lights and bulbs.  A few years ago I wanted to encase it and couldn’t figure out what to use and Scott cleverly came up with this solution.

When Brian was performing in plays at Lone Peak HS, we were in charge of hanging vinyl signs on the fence across from our house.  We took them down when the show was over and the teacher didn’t want them back, so we accumulated a collection, thinking they may come in handy someday.  I put a long one crossways, and a shorter one over the face.  I close the edges with clothespins and it makes a lovely greenhouse that’s cooler than downstairs but warm at night when it gets really cold.  I can lift the side to water and it’s just really awesome.  This is the half-way house for seedlings on their way outside to face the cruel world.  Once it gets warmer, say the middle of April, I start the tedious process of moving trays out during the day and in during the night.  I usually drag the shelves out and uncover them, but I had so many this year that Scott built me a wooden trolley with rope handles for pulling trays in and out. Where I live it’s still too cold at night in April and early May so the plants get used to the warm sun and cooler days, but I protect them from the frosty nights.  By the end of April I check weather daily and if the nights are in the upper 40’s I start letting some of the annuals stay out.  Perennials don’t mind the cold and have been hardened off and in the ground by this time.

The accepted wisdom in Alpine is that you don’t dare plant before Mother’s Day.  I live by this wisdom and there have been cool springs when I’ve waited longer than that.  These photos were taken May 17, after I’d bravely begun to plant some annuals, hoping for no more frost.  Alpine has been known to regularly get June frosts.  Grrr.

The seedlings this year are my best crop ever.  Best germination rate, best harden-off without killing rate, and largest plants at planting time.  I learned everything I know about seedlings from my mother-in-law, the Master Gardener, and even she was impressed with my output this year.  Brag, brag!

Wherein we meet Karl Malone

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In general car shopping is not our favorite thing.   Root canals aren’t far behind.   Sue and I set out and our car shopping day didn’t start out so well.  Our travels took us to Karl Malone Toyota where we were helped by a nice salesman who was obviously uninformed.  Everything he told us about the car warranties seemed odd.  When we questioned him, he just dug a bigger hole for himself.  I don’t think he was intentionally misleading us, just didn’t really understand what was going on.

Eventually we decided to have him work up some numbers on one of the Toyota Corollas that we drove.  He had been telling us all along that Karl Malone was at the dealership that day and we could go in and have our picture taken with him.  Sue wasn’t interested in a picture, but I jokingly asked if he really wanted us to do that, because we’d need to tell him about the warranty confusion.  He said that was fine.  So we went inside and were introduced to Karl.

First off, I should say that he’s tall.  But you were expecting that.  He’s also still in good shape.  We didn’t really intend to lay our concerns on the table, but then Karl asked us if we had a good experience shopping for cars that day.  Wrong thing to ask!  Sue has no qualms about telling lots of important people what she thinks, usually in a kind manner, so she told Karl that she was frustrated about the information we were getting about the warranty.  Karl tried to help us, but it was quickly clear that he was in over his head and asked our salesman to get the manager.

When we started questioning the manager it became painfully obvious that our salesman was completely wrong about all the warranty details he was telling us (no, Toyotas don’t come with a 5 year, 60,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty; that warranty is 3 year, 36,000 miles).  I finally asked to speak with the manager privately and went off to express my frustration at the incorrect information we had been given.   The manager corrected everything and about that time Karl wandered over to see what was going on.

I told him he could get the details from the manager, but Karl insisted on hearing the issue in person.  After hearing everything, Karl apologized and said that he wanted people to have a good experience buying cars at his place.  If we weren’t having a good experience, he suggested that we not buy a car from him.  He didn’t want us walking away from the experience frustrated; that wasn’t what they were all about.  I thanked him, said we would finish getting numbers on the car and our trade-in, and then we would leave and look at some other cars, and if we decided we liked the Toyota, we would come back.

That was surprising to us.  So often we are pressured to buy at car dealers and to have the owner of the dealership tell us his first concern was a positive car buying experience was a fresh view of things.  To then have him back it up by telling us to walk away was completely unexpected.   He could easily have blown everything off or just let his manager handle it.  But he was personally involved to ensure we were happy and we really appreciated that.  He’s “The Mailman” and he wanted to deliver.

So did we eventually buy the car?  No.  That might have been a nice end to the story, but we weren’t in love with the Corolla, and eventually bought another car later that day.  But we appreciated Karl’s attitude and involvement.  When I told a salesman at another dealership that we had met Karl Malone, they were surprised that he was actually there.  “You mean, he actually goes to his dealership?” was one reaction.  Not only was he there, but he was interested in what was happening.  Karl’s manager told me that Karl expects things to go a certain way and for the customer’s experience to be a certain way and when it isn’t, the results are not pretty.

I know some of you are wondering why he didn’t just give us a screaming deal.  I mean, he can afford it, right?  I’ve thought about that and concluded that although maybe he personally can afford it, his dealership still needs to make money to support the employees and he can’t just go around taking thousands off for everyone who complains.  Otherwise, everybody would be in there griping.  Instead, he gave us a reason to return.

Karl, it was nice to meet you and thanks for your involvement and suggestion.  While we didn’t buy from you this time, we feel like we could return there for our next car and know what you expect.

Flashback time

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I am attending today’s Utah legislative Interim Committee meetings for the first time in almost a year.  I retired last June as a volunteer child advocate and have been watching from afar.  But today I’m back up in person and using my social media skills on twitter.  It’s been fun to see old friends and hear the discussions on a variety of a topics this morning and I’m looking forward to a fun-filled afternoon.

Getting ready this morning I had some issues that finally made me laugh out loud at the irony of the feeling of deja vu I had.  Yes, I had to quickly repair a shirt to wear, I didn’t have time to eat and had to eat on the way up, there was a massive slow-down on I-15, and it was just like the old days.  I guess some things never change!

1940 Census

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I have been resisting the urge to sign up to do records indexing at Family Search for a long time now because every time I have the urge, I think I should be spending time on my own languishing family history research.  But when the 1940 Census became available and the indexing project began to immediately digitize the census, I decided I should do both.  And my wise friend told me, “Indexing just makes you hungry to do your own research”.  So true.

I embarked on this new indexing adventure this week and did some Illinois census records because most of the personal research I do is in that state.  I have several family lines that all converge on Illinois.  It turns out that indexing is SUPER easy, as advertised, and very intuitive.  Also fun.  The records were released on April 2 and already there are states that are completely done.  You can see a map of the progress at Family Search’s 1940 Census site, along with other information about getting started.

Happy indexing!