Christa Allan

You Can Vote However You Like

Can you think of 26 words containing intact bigrams HA through HZ?  See if you can find 26 in 10minutes!
HA [...]

CHECK OUT THE NEW WEBSITE FOR THE MUSTARD SEED!
It’s totally awesome. Sarah is now a member of the Bells of Faith handbell choir.
And for the BEST Christmas gifts EVER…
Click HERE!

I just read a news story that researchers think honey bees, who have brains the size of a sesame seed, can count to four.
So, if a human brain is, give or take a few hamburger bun tops, equal to a gazillion sesame seeds, my students should be able to memorize the eight parts of speech. [...]

Orson Scott Card is the author of Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead. Some of my students have “bought into” reading because of these three novels. He’s also written contemporary fantasy, biblical novels, and plays.
In this opinion piece he takes on what’s happening in journalism today. And, for the record, he’s a [...]

 
INDEXED
It’s been too long since my last visit to Jessica Hagy’s site.
Sample her sense of humor!

My freshmen are starting George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published in 1946 and, considering the yammering political rhetoric of today, the allegory’s becoming uneasily familiar. Here’s the Amazon review:
Amazon.com Review
Fueled by Orwell’s intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. [...]

Election news is plummeting faster than the stock market when the focus is how much money candidates are spending on their clothes. As my friend Carole says, “Seriously?”
Now, if we’re going to chat about clothes, here are some too-cute t-shirts from Debbie Ridpath Ohi [aka INKYGIRL], cartoonist extraordinare.
She now has GIFTS FOR WRITERS (and editors [...]

Nothing to It
Each of the clued answers has the letters NIL (intact) embedded therein.
1. A blue dye [...]

NOTE FROM CHRISTA: After Hurricane Katrina, I received an abundance of books for my students from strangers who answered my email pleas. If you can help, it would be truly appreciated. This note came from Alesia Holliday on the teenlitauthors Yahoo group.

One of the places in Galveston that was badly flooded by Hurricane Ike
was Rosenberg [...]

In the introduction she wrote to Lee Gutkind’s anthology, In Fact: The Best of  Creative Nonfiction, Annie Dillard suggests new writers “follow their own weirdness.”
Fortunately, for me, that’s a short trip.
In fact, my mother always used to say that I attracted quirky, weird friends. [But, of course, not any of you who happen to be [...]

Rachelle Gardner, agent extraordinare, has a Mini-Contest [25-75 words] of SHOW, DON’T TELL.
Check it out at her site, Rants & Ramblings.

I have a story in here:

And in here:

And you can buy them both HERE!

Ginormous federal bailouts, Nancy Reagan’s broken pelvis, Somali pirates, Guy and Madonna divorcing, David and Tea separating, AIG spending close to $550,000 for a resort retreat and a hunting trip after they’d received BILLIONS in taxpayer-funded loans, and now this?
According to MSNBC:
Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk has thrown out a Nebraska legislator’s lawsuit [...]

CLOSED FOR LUNCH
CHECK OUT THIS PUNNY GAME FROM HOADWORKS HERE

Enjoy the giggles. Thanks to ROBIN HATCHER for the heads up on this!
more about ““, posted with vodpod

Erin, Sarah, and John

BELLS OF FAITH, Mustard Seed’s Handbell group under the direction of Debbie Burnham played during the opening ceremonies. Sarah’s the petite one [not paying attention to the director!]
Sarah and friends doing the Chicken Dance warm-up before the walk.

John, Erin, and I model our Buddy Walk t-shirts as we wait for Sarah to [...]

Take On Me: Literal Video Version

Dustin McLean, a California-based animator/film maker/musician’s lyrically literalized version of a-ha’s beloved 1985 video, “Take On Me.”
“McLean took the original a-ha video and replaced the vocals with his own impression of singer Morten Harket’s pretty boy croon and lyrics that literally describe the action in the video. Two other “SuperNews” [...]

REVERSE VERSE…..with thanks to HOADWORKS
Each of the couplets below defines two words, the first the reverse of the second in spelling but otherwise unrelated to it. Guess the words. 1. [...]

Could I have a show of hands please for those on board for the following changes in political advertising:
1. No political candidate, no family member of or even those unmarried persons of interest who live in $3 million mansions when the [married] politician has no idea how that happened, will be allowed to purchase television [...]