Opening Day!

This past Saturday was the opening day of Farmers' Market and it seems to me that it was a great success. The rain held off, so we were all dry. Customers arrived, so we sold goods.The face painter painted Emily's face free for advertising. And I took pictures of everything.

 

The beautiful jams and jellies.

 The fresh strawberries.

 The child vendors.

 The wonderful vegetables.

 And works by local crafters.

As most of you can probably tell by my posts, I love to take photographs. So, I found it funny that the first book in my to read pile was a book entitled Photographer Mole.

It is the story of a mole who loves to take pictures of all his friends, local groups, families and so forth. But one day as he is admiring his photographs he realizes something is missing. To the regret of his friends, he leaves town in search of the missing something. At this point in the book, I still had no idea what Mole thought was missing so I kept reading in anticipation. When Mole finally finds what he was looking for and comes home, it isn't at all what you imagine it will be. At least it wasn't for me. I heartily recommend this book and I'm pretty sure that kids will keep reading with anticipation of Mole's discovery just like I did! This book is a bit older ( 2004) but well worth searching for.

The second book I read was called How to Find Gold. I wasn't nearly as impressed with this book and was left kind of confused as to if the characters were imagining all the incidents or not, but perhaps as an adult I was just over thinking the story. So my suggestion is, if  your library has a copy, check it out and see what you think. And if you figure it out, be sure to let me know.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days. 

  

Creativity Takes Many Forms

As you all know, I am a children's author, but I have many other passions as well. I love cooking, geocatching, bird watching, putting together puzzles, sewing, genealogy, crafting, reading, gardening, and photography, to name a few. All of these things seem to spark my creative juices, but I have to admit, photography and writing are my two favorites. When I write, I string together words in such a way as to fashion a mental picture (a picture that may be different for each individual reader); and with photography, I  tell a story without any words. Sometimes, I even combine the two.

That being said, I just wanted to share some of my favorite 2013 summer pictures. And thank you to the friend who said the wagon wheel photo was a framer, because that is exactly what I thought.

 

 

I am curious to know what story you think my pictures tell and what you think they say about me as a person. So jump right in and leave some comment love.

Signing off for now with wishes for a bright and beautiful day!

1000 Word Experiment

As you all probably know, I love words; but I also love photography. My late father was a writer and an amateur photographer; and so it would seem, the acorn didn't fall far from the tree in my case. Being a writer means that ideas usually come at the strangest of times like when I'm driving my daughter to school or when  I'm watching television. This morning an idea came to me as I was lying in bed, not asleep, but not quite ready to get up yet.

The statement, A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, kept running through my mind. Peacefully lying  in my semi groggy state, the writer in me longed to somehow connect my love of writing with my love of photography. And then it happened, I came up with my 1000 Word Experiment. My idea goes something like this: 1. Each participant must leave five unique words in the comment section describing the picture above. 2. Each participant is asked to share this experiment/contest with at least one other friend. 3. Each Participant needs to fill out the form below so I have the winner's contact info. I will randomly select a name from all the participants to receive a copy of my book Fern Valley. 

So let's get cracking and start digging deep for words, words, words; and remember to spread the news because we need your friends cooperation if we are going to be able to complete this experiment

Signing off for now with wishes for a bright and beautiful day!