I am thrilled to be joining in with this great giveaway hosted by Baby Costcutters in order to bring it to you!
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This giveaway ends Nov. 15, 2012 at 11:59pm est.
Open only to the Continental US.
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a Rafflecopter giveawayDisclosure: I received no compensation for this publication. My opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. Tots and Me is not responsible for sponsor prize shipment.
Welcome to "Wittle People Wednesday," hosted by Ashley of Ramblings and Photos by Ashley Sisk.
I decided this would be fun to link up to as I am always taking pictures. I use some for Wordless Wednesday, some for the Scavenger Hunt Sunday (also hosted by Ashley) and some in my homeschool posts (the weekly review and the Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen posts), but sometimes there are pictures I would love to share that just didn't find a way into a post.
Here are some recent pictures of my "Wittle People."
A couple of weeks ago I shared our Bunk Bed Buying Adventure for Wordless Wednesday. We ended up buying a used set from a friend.
The girls were thrilled.
Tabitha got the top bunk and Amelia got the bottom bunk.
However, they all like getting on the top. No surprise there. I was surprised that Hannah could get up and down.
Eventually Baby Harold will have the crib.
Tabitha tucked her Suzy balloon into bed.
And read her a story.
The girls have had the bunk beds for a little over a week. Yesterday was Hannah's first day in the toddler bed. It took a few "reminders" but she eventually stayed in bed for her nap.
And she slept in it all night without falling out. Though she came close.
This morning she helped me make her bed for the first time.
Charlotte Brontë's The Professor has just been published in a new Polish translation:
ProfesorCharlotte Brontë Publication: 2012-10-09 ISBN: 978-83-7779-092-2 Wydawnictwo MG
Pierwsza powieść Charlotte Brontë, wydana w Anglii dopiero po śmierci autorki.
Głównym bohaterem i narratorem jest ambitny młody mężczyzna, który wszystko, do czego doszedł, zawdzięcza jedynie własnej pracy. William Cromsworth odrzuca swe arystokratyczne dziedzictwo i wyrusza do Brukseli, by tam znaleźć szczęście. Zostaje nauczycielem języka angielskiego w szkole z internatem dla młodych panien. W książce tej znajdziemy wątki autobiograficzne. Charlotte Brontë, podobnie jak jej bohater William, uczyła angielskiego w szkole w Brukseli. I podobnie jak on doświadczała miłości. Jednak jej obiektem był żonaty właściciel szkoły, co nie mogło zakończyć się happy endem.
Niezwykła opowieść o miłości a zarazem krytyka relacji damsko-męskich, które w epoce wiktoriańskiej niejednokrotnie sprowadzały się do walki o dominację. Pytanie tylko, czy tak wiele do dziś się zmieniło?
I found this recipe for Chicken Pot Pie from allrecipes.com. It had been awhile since I made it, so when I realized I had leftover chicken I planned to surprise hubby with this yummy favorite. I did make a few changes from the original recipe and this time I used a store bought refrigerated crust because I was short on time (go figure, short on time with 4 little ones).
Crust: 2 cups flour 1 TBS onion salt 3/4 cup shortening 1/4 cup cold water
In a large bowl, combine flour and onion salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add water and stir until it forms a ball. Divide dough in half and shape into balls. Roll one ball out to fit a 9 or 10 inch pie plate. Place bottom crust in pie plate and roll out top crust.
(Of course this time we used the store bought crust)
Filling:
1 Tbs butter
2 cups chicken-chopped
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 can green beans
1/2 can sliced carrots
1/2 can corn
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
In a large sauce pan, heat 1 tablespoon butter. Add chicken and onion and cook until mixture is just browned. Stir in veggies and season with garlic powder, pepper, and oregano. Stir in condensed soup. Heat mixture, stirring constantly, until it just begins to simmer.
Pour into pie crust
and cover with top crust. Fold top crust under edge of bottom crust, seal and cut slits in top crust.
I made the changes the way I did, because we didn't really like the sugar in the mixture and we felt there wasn't enough liquid, so I added an extra can of soup. I cut out the onion salt in the filling because I felt there was enough onion with the chopped onion and we like garlic, so I added the extra garlic.
Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the finished pot pie.
by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
As we struggle through the aftermath of the worst storm in New York’s history, my thoughts turn to the first responders- firefighters, police officers, EMS workers- and the role they played in the last great tragedy to strike New York, the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11.
The heroism these men and women displayed then, and in our current circumstances, is not a surprise to me. For the fifteen years I spent coaching and running youth programs in Brooklyn in the 80’s and 90’s, civil servants, especially fire fighters, were an integral part of the coaching cohort I interacted with daily, both in my own neighborhood, and throughout Brooklyn and Staten Island, and there was never a doubt in my mind, based on that experience, that they would sacrifice their health, well being and if necessary their lives if called on to rescue people in trouble.
My relationships with many of these individuals, especially those who represented opposing parishes—in CYO basketball—or opposing teams—in sandlot baseball—was not always easy. They were, like me, stubborn, intimidating, over bearing and fiercely competitive and we had many arguments in the midst of closely contested games. But they were also selflessly devoted to their players, with whom they spent countless hours at games and practices, and whatever their private political or racial attitudes, were determined to maintain Brooklyn sports leagues as a place where young people from every neighborhood and racial and ethnic background could find an outlet for their talents.
Never did I see any of them participate in, or tolerate, the slightest amount of race baiting from their players and parents, even though some of them came from neighborhoods, such as Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge or Rockaway, then infamous for racial exclusivity. When push came to shove, they were as fair as they were loyal, and I never felt the slightest hesitation taking interracial teams from Park Slope into gyms or ball fields in all white neighborhoods because I knew we would always be protected.
This kind of quiet heroism, I felt, allowed for more dramatic forms of heroism when circumstances called for it. It surprised me not at all that some of my fellow coaches ran up the stairways of the World Trade Center to their death while other people were running down. Nor would it surprise me to see their counterparts today, some of whom might be their own children , run into flooded buildings to save a stranded families or risk being crushed when clearing fallen trees. This is the ethic of loyalty and sacrifice they grew up among, a New York working class tradition passed on from generation to generation among members of the uniformed services and among more than a few teachers, transit workers and other civil servants.
For quite a while, most of the attention by elected officials and the media have been bestowed upon financial and artistic elites who gravitate to our city. But it is the working people of New York who insure the city’s daily functioning, and in moments of crisis, sacrifice themselves for others so that the city can continue to survive, and when things improve, begin to grow and thrive.
We have always lived among quiet heroes, some of them immigrants working three jobs to support families her and in their home countries, some of them teachers and social workers serving people in the face of deep skepticism and contempt from the power that be; some of them members of our uniformed services who are asked to risk their lives for the rest of us.
I just wanted to take this moment to show some love for these people and hope you will do so as well.
***
Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.
USA Today has asked 'romance authors share the books that haunt them' and has found a Brontëite among them.
Deborah Grace Staley, Unforgettable, The Fifth Angel Ridge Novel "I have to say I loved The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I went through a period where I was loving reading classic Gothic romance. I just love the creepy settings, i.e. a gray, drafty castle in the middle of nowhere with things happening in it that defy explanation. It just makes the reader turn each page, anxious to see what creepy thing will happen next. Ah, and then there's the dark, mysterious hero whose tortured soul calls to the naive, innocent heroine who thinks her love can heal him. And it usually does. Sigh ..." (Joyce Lamb)
And this Battleboro Reformer columnist is a Jane Austen fan with a Brontë past:
I didn’t discover the genius of Jane Austen until my mid-30s. Blame my preference for historical non-fiction, and the fact that my high school and college literature instructors--who knows why--preferred the Brontës and George Eliot. I penned numerous papers on Jane Eyre and Silas Marner--all extremely uplifting and elucidating, I’m sure--but not a single essay on Austen’s books. I’m embarrassed to say my affection for Austen did not begin until I watched the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice--long after its first release. (Rebecca Balint)
The New Scientist's Culture Lab tries and see beyond that preference with the help of the book Louder Than Words by Benjamin Bergen.
Considering how the brain embodies words - whether or not you have a strongly visual imagination, for example - might even explain a preference for the vivid imagery in Jane Eyre over the wordplay of The Importance of Being Earnest. (David Robson)
The Independent thinks there are at least three books in a league of their own:
Like Moby-Dick and Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein is a unique, sui generis work, born of obsession. (Philip Hoare)
Slater's talents were later transposed to BBC television, as it began to dramatise the English literary canon in serial form. In 1952 she played Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, with Peter Cushing as Mr Darcy (he was then considered as good casting for a dashing gentleman). Four years later, in another serialisation, she became the small screen's first Jane Eyre, in a performance brimming with passion, with Stanley Baker playing Mr Rochester. (Anthony Hayward)
And yet again the same newspaper recurs to Heathcliff for a football article:
Of all the words in Harry Redknapp's statement rejecting the chance to manage Blackburn Rovers, the most significant ones were: "I am starting to get bored. You can only play golf so often and I am losing too many balls at the moment." It was never likely Redknapp would go to Ewood Park. The furthest north he has managed in a 30-year career is Tottenham. In popular terms, he an Artful Dodger on London's streets not a Heathcliff striding the bleak northern moors. (Tim Rich)
The Irish Times compares some of the Irish heritage to some of the British heritage:
We’ve got Tayto, Gaelic games, Wilde, Yeats, the Irish funeral, red lemonade, Katie Taylor, and heading out for the messages. They’ve got Walkers, cricket, Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters, the royal family, ginger beer, Katie Taylor’s dad, and running errands. (Jennifer O'Connell)
But let's not forget that the Brontës were of Irish descent.
1. In Ferndean Manor at Moor Lodge, a Halloween party with some Brontë stuff by hUUjUU:
Warming up for our "Brontë electro rock science opera stage show with synths and stuff" Album and show, due out next year. Part 1 tHE LoNG cAUsEWaY It's a bit 'Brontë's meet alice in Wonderland ' The long causeway is mentioned in Emily Brontë's diary as a route she took from Thornton to Haworth. It is situated on the tops between Denholme and Oxenhope (where this image was taken) . In this story 'The Long Causeway' is a metaphor for the route (the rabbit hole) that leads to the underworld, underland, wonderland, parallel universe, dreamland ....(whatever you want to call it !) . This is the secret route that the Brontës had to take to discover their creative powers. Although Branwell is probably the lesser known of the Brontës, he played an important role in their 'evolution' and was a key link between them and their masonic benefactors. If yuou cant wait for it then dont miss this years show (it's all about space......with some horror thrown in for Halloween) and we'll be at Ferndean Manor on the 31st for this spooktacular event
2. A talk in Decatur, Georgia:
Dekalb County Public Library Wednesday, October 31 2012, 7:00 pm—8:30 pm Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Funding provided by the Friends of the Decatur Library.
Well, our little guy is continuing to grow and reach milestones. He has been rolling and scootching sideways for a couple of weeks in order to reach enticing objects. A few days ago he started creeping forward! So, of course we knew what this week's Wordless Wednesday needed to be.
Here I was trying to entice him with the lion cub, but the vacuum kept drawing his attention.
After rolling around for a bit he discovered my cell phone.
So we decided to use that to entice him.
Back and forth across the living room.
Then we tried giving him the lion cub again...
...you can see how well that worked.
As daddy was bringing in things from the porch in preparation for Hurricane Sandy baby Harold thought the open door looked fun.
Looking forward to seeing your Wordless (or not so wordless) Wednesday posts this week.
Now that Halloween is almost here, The Huffington Post lists 'The 50 Scariest Characters From Literature'. One of which is
42. Heathcliff ('Wuthering Heights', Emily Brontë) Heathcliff is scary from the start of Emily's bleak novel. Unpredictable and with an air of the wild, he identifies a little too strongly with the brutal moors in the book. However, it's the controlling egomaniac Heathcliff turns into that really freaks us out. (Alice E. Vincent and Sam Parker)
While Flavorwire finds out 'What Your Favorite Scary Movie Says About You':
An American Werewolf in London Wuthering Heights wasn’t gory enough for your taste. (Judy Berman)
The West Australian has talked to Chloe Hooper, author of the erotic thriller The Engagement.
Hooper says she felt both the Gothic novel and the thriller were perfect forms to explore modern attitudes towards marriage. "I love all of those Gothic classics such as Jane Eyre and Rebecca, stories of heroines trapped in spooky houses and heroes of dubious backgrounds," she says. "But I think those stories of women trapped in houses are often linked to women's ambivalence about domesticity and marriage. And the thriller, which is a genre that works on ambivalence about our fears and desires, is also a perfect way to talk about marriage." (William Yeoman)
The press release about Morgan Kelly’s Midnight In Your Arms describes the author as a Brontëite:
Morgan Kelly writes historical romance thanks, to an obsession with 19th-century Gothic novels that has plagued her (in a good way) since childhood, when she first discovered the Brontë sisters.
Om Dödens jungfrur kan liknas vid en antik grekisk tragedi och Middlesex har karaktären av en klassisk bildningsroman á la Jane Eyre, så är En kärlekshandling ett kammarspel. En tät och intim historia om ett presumtivt triangeldrama där de tre huvudkaraktärerna kretsar kring varandra i en alltmer hårt vriden spiral. Boken är också full av referenser till många av de författare som har influerat Jeffrey Eugenides författarskap, som till exempel Henry James, Charlotte Brontë och Philip Roth. Utan att det för sakens skull blir för tungt och teoretiserande. Referenserna finns bara där, som en naturlig del av berättelsen. (Peter Olsson) (Translation)
The Spectrum features 'a modern printing press called The Espresso Book Machine, which allows individuals to publish and print their own books' and looks at its potential uses:
Professors could also create course specific texts by modifying public domain books. For example a literature professor lecturing on Jane Eyre could add annotations and notes specific to lesson plans and lectures from the course into the binding of the book [Carl Wichman, the assistant director of the NDSU bookstore] said. (Larisa Bosserman)
WalesOnline discusses why 'there are no longer barriers blocking female authors' and refers to Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own.Impresiones y andanzas posts about the Brontë sisters in Spanish. That Awesome Movie writes in Spanish about Wuthering Heights 2009. Boxamurai writes in Malay about Jane Eyre 2011. Busy Nothings discusses Helen Burns.
The Brontë sisters are among the most beloved writers of all time, best known for their classic nineteenth-century novels Jane Eyre (Charlotte), Wuthering Heights (Emily), and Agnes Grey (Anne). In this sometimes heartbreaking young adult biography, Catherine Reef explores the turbulent lives of these literary siblings and the oppressive times in which they lived. Brontë fans will also revel in the insights into their favorite novels, the plethora of poetry, and the outstanding collection of more than sixty black-and-white archival images. A powerful testimony to the life of the mind. (Endnotes, bibliography, index.)
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Left of Black S3:E7 | Hip-Hop, Religion & The Black Church
October 29, 2012
Left of Black host and Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Monica R. Miller, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark College and author of Religion and Hip-Hop(Routledge, 2012); Ebony Utley, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach andauthor Rap and Religion: Understanding The Gangsta’s God (Praeger 2012); and Emmett G. Price III, Associate Professor of Music and African-American Studies at Northeastern University and editor The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide (Scarecrow Press, 2012).
Terry Callier, a soul and jazz singer and guitarist who collaborated with Massive Attack and Beth Orton, died yesterday at his home in Chicago, Stereogum reports. He was 67.
Callier, a veteran musician who released a handful of critically acclaimed jazz-folk albums in the Seventies and toured with George Benson and Gil Scott-Heron, had scant commercial success at the time, and had given up his musical career in the Eighties to raise his daughter. He was working at the University of Chicago as a computer programmer in the early Nineties when his music was rediscovered in England, sparking a career revival.
Callier was born in Chicago and was friends with Curtis Mayfield and the singer Jerry Butler as a child. He began singing in doo-wop groups as a teenager and auditioned for Chess Records in 1962 when he was 17, recording his debut single "Look at Me Now." Callier told The Guardian in 2004 that although Chess invited Callier to tour with Muddy Waters and Etta James, his mother wouldn't let him, and he went to college instead, where he discovered folk music and John Coltrane. Callier picked up guitar from a friend in his college dorm, and began playing coffeehouses before signing with Prestige Records in 1964 to record his first LP, The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. He released five more albums, including 1972's Occasional Rain and 1974's I Just Can't Help Myself. His 1978 album, Turn You to Love, was his last for 20 years.
Callier gave up music in 1983 when his 12-year-old daughter came to live with him, and he worked for the University of Chicago by day and studied for a degree in sociology at night. In 1991, the London label Acid Jazz asked to re-release Callier's 1983 single "I Don't Want to See Myself (Without You)." The renewed interest in Callier brought him performing gigs in England, and he contributed to Beth Orton's 1997 Best Bit EP. The following year, he released a new album of his own, Timepeace, and kept busy recording and touring for the rest of his live. Callier's most recent album, 2009's Hidden Conversations, was produced by Massive Attack.
Arnold finds beauty with muted low contrast Earth tones that highlight velvety blacks and blues of capes and coats and at the same time can’t keep the camera from observing whippings, beatings, and more than one dead animal. This latest and possible the most accurate to the 18th century WH quietly watches Heathcliff and Catherine first as children and then as adults with the same intensity it observes the changing of seasons and windswept dales. (Michael Bergeron)
The Stranger Suggests describes it as 'romantic in the way that bar fights are routine oral surgery'.
Parfaitement menée, la première partie du film est un bijou. Les dialogues se font rares, la réalisatrice préférant suggérer l’idylle naissante en capturant, comme à la dérobée, les échanges muets des héros. Toute en retenue, la performance des acteurs incarnant Catherine et Heathcliff enfants, Shannon Beer et Solomon Glave, est criante d’authenticité. La narration, entrecoupée de plans rapprochés de la faune des landes, et de grands panoramas saisis sous tous les soleils, se déroule, suivant avec lenteur le rythme calme des saisons. Elevant le paysage au rang de personnage, le film d’Andrea Arnold est d’une rare beauté plastique. Les grandes étendues désertiques sont particulièrement bien mises en valeur, permettant au spectateur d’apprécier la violence du climat et l’aridité de ces terres sauvages, comme de deviner la manière dont cet environnement est susceptible d’influencer le caractère de ses habitants. Cette mise en image de l’atmosphère crépusculaire du roman de Emily Brontë est sans doute la plus grande réussite du film. (Aïnhoa Jean-Calmettes) (Translation)
Alicia Silverstone's impression of Jane Eyre is reported by Vulture.
Instead, she went to tech rehearsal for The Performers, her third Broadway play (now in previews); took a bath with her 17-month-old son, Bear; and read Jane Eyre. “It reminded me of when I was little, when I’d go to England with my family every summer,” she says. “It’s so nostalgic.” (Rebecca Milzoff)
An update on university life by a freshman on the Daily Breeze.
My Rites of Passage class is my favorite, primarily because of the professor, Arnold Weinstein. Picture a white-haired, white-mustached Southern grandfather, only make him the most contemporary and intelligent person you've ever met, and that's essentially my professor. No pressure to impress, right? His class, a freshman-only seminar of 20 people that explores the theme of coming of age across different cultures and time periods via novels written by Brontë, Faulkner, Balzac and many more, has definitely forced me to expand my thinking and analysis processes more than any other class I've ever taken. (Riley Davis)
The Bangkok Post looks at book covers and mentions the one Rubén Toledo designed for Wuthering Heights.Mutiny discusses Gothic Fiction. BlackBook agrees with a previous article that called Mr Rochester 'a creep'. Voir (in French) reviews Agnes Grey. Kosher Movies posts about Jane Eyre 2006. London Boulevard writes in Polish about The Professor. El faro del fin del mundo writes in Spanish about Wide Sargasso Sea. Flickr user Prusarn has uploaded a couple of historical pictures of Top Withins.
Scottish-born Margot Livesey, who is currently a distinguished writer in residence at Emerson College, will read from her latest novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, this coming Tuesday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m., at the South End Library [85 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02118]. She will be introduced by novelist Sue Miller, who invited her to The South End Writes program.
Patterns, Machine, Signs or Logos, Rocks or Stones, Sparkle Patterns
These cows are lined up around our nursery at church.
Machine
If it wasn't for this bread machine, we wouldn't have homemade pizza.
Signs or Logos
The girls love getting their faces painted before the Bills games. Last week Amelia wanted to get the logo.
Rocks or Stones
These rocks are right outside the Ralph Wilson stadium in the parking lot.
This week's prompt is
Smile
I just love his smile.
And their's are pretty cute too, especially when they get new bunk beds.
And I am joining in with Live And Love Out Loud and Bumbles and Light for the Nurture Photography Fall Photo Challenge again this week.
This week's prompt is:
Red/Foliage
And here is my favorite photo of the week:
(This picture was taken during baby Harold's 8 month photo shoot. The first time we tried earlier in the evening he wasn't in the best of moods. After Bible time, while the girls were getting ready for bed, I tried again and he rewarded me with this wonderful smile. I got some other great shots too.)
