Treat or Treaters Visit Story Time

Preschoolers visited the library on Tuesday, October 30 & Wednesday, October 31 for our annual Halloween story time in their costumes.

New Books For October

Our automatic list of fiction best sellers is displayed by the new books. The following are new fiction best sellers for October.

The Heir by Barbara Taylor Bradford, Mark's Story by Tim LaHaye, Three Sisters by James Doss, Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn, World Without End by Ken Follett, A Lick of Frost by Laurell Hamilton, Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon, Where Angels Go by Debbie Macomber, A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry, Kissing Christmas Goodbye by M.C. Beaton, The Gift by Richard Paul Evans, Pandora's Daughter by Iris Johansen, The Parting by Beverly Lewis, Now and Then by Robert Parker, Amazing Grace by Danielle Steele, Book of the Dead byPatricia Cornwell.

Trippish Weather To Go

I just checked this out this morning on a tip from my favorite site Sites and Soundbytes by Tasha at Green Lake Library. Thanks Tasha.

My husband and I are going to visit our daughter in a few weeks
and I was wondering about the weather on our trip to South Carolina. This would be a great tool to use just before you leave on a trip to check the weather and updates as you drive.

Trippish offers a service that I haven't seen on a map site before. It combines driving directions with weather information. This is great for anyone going on a long-distance road trip, because it offers a glimpse into what sort of weather you will be hitting on your journey. Want to avoid a large city during a downpour? Worried about snow in the mountains? This is the site for you.

My Wonderful World

National Geographic has a very exciting new campaign to get children aware of the world. My Wonderful World is a site that has special sections for parents, teachers and youth. On the site, you can test your global IQ, play games, print out world maps, or read the blog. Even better, you can mention this worthy effort to your patrons while pointing out your collection of atlases, maps and informational books on countries around the world!

National Boss Day

My staff surprised me this morning with a great card and a beautiful flower arrangement. I was truly surprised by their generosity and the great brownies.

To all that are bosses have a great day. I know I will!

Calling All Wordsmiths!

Words are the most powerful weapons of expression. They can make or mar relationships. So why not celebrate these mighty friends of ours ? October 16 is National Dictionary Day established to commemorate the birthday of Americanlexicographer Noah Webster.

Noah Webster, called the father of the American dictionary, was born on October 16, 1758, in Connecticut. Believing that American students should not have to use British textbooks, he wrote A Grammatical Institute of English Language, which became the main source for spelling and grammar in the United States.

He then began work at the age of 43 on the first American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, which contained nearly 70,000 words by the time it was completed in 1828. It took him more than 27 years to write it. In this first "American" dictionary, Webster introduced distinctively American words such as "skunk" and "hickory" and "chowder."

........Improve your vocabulary.
Grab a sticky note or a little pad of paper and track, just for one day, how many unfamiliar words you find in your reading. How many words you could look up (but don't) in a day? How many new words could you learn in a year if you did just look up a few unfamiliar words every day?

What Did You Eat Today?

"a Calorie Counter allows you to search the USDA food nutrition database in the quickest and easiest format it has ever been made available in. A search of any food will bring up the full nutrition facts for that food such as calories, protein, carbs, fat, sugar, cholesterol, sodium, vitamins, and MUCH more.

Try this site it's great. I tried it this morning and was shocked at how much fat content my muffin had this morning. Why is it all the foods I like are bad for me?? Enjoy the site!

Minds Stretched Here!

Use it or lose it is an old saying that I heard while growing up and the older I get the truer that statement is. I ran across this web site yesterday and enjoyed the brain teasers and mind stretchers.

Thinks.com is full of games, puzzles, codebreakers, jigsaw puzzles, trivia games, wordsearch puzzles, sudoko, kids games (including an online Mr. Potatohead), and more.

ENJOY!!

Tooth Fairy Letter

Yesterday a young girl about nine was showing me her loose tooth. This started me thinking about my own two children(now 28) and their teeth and how they pulled or lost their own teeth. Nice trip down memory lane.

Today while looking for an item to place on my blog I ran across this wonderful site. I plan on using this site to give both of my grandchildren (2 and 4) a letter from the Tooth Fairy. Enjoy!

Tooth Fairy Letter Generator. Give your child a personalized letter from the Tooth Fairy. A cute and fun way to celebrate a tooth falling out.

Columbus Day

Columbus Day commemorates the discovery of the Americas in Columbus's famed expedition to the West, in which he hoped to find a naval route to India. Instead, he found an entire continent that was mostly unknown to Europe, Africa, and Asia at the time.

Columbus Day is celebrated in the United States on the second Monday in October honoring Christopher Columbus, who is credited with discovering America on his first voyage in 1492.

Can you name his three ships?









Columbus' three ships; one larger carrack, Santa María, nicknamed Gallega (the Gallician), and two smaller caravels, Pinta (the Painted) and Santa Clara, nicknamed Niña (the Girl).

Tubes on the Net

I have some great musical tubes saved on my computer. Don't know what I did without them.

Tubes are a video hosting service, also said a video sharing video service allows individuals to uplink video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that video.

Youtube was the first and obviously the most with the $1.6 billion price tag but have you heard about some other tubes? TeacherTube is just what it sounds like-a place to put your class/educational videos. GodTube is for your Christian videos. BuscaTube is for your Spanish videos. FootballTube, The Daily Tube, 80’sTube, and the list goes on.

ENJOY!!

50 year Anniversary of Leave It to Beaver

As a member of the Baby Boomer generation my family and I watched Leave to Beaver. We saw the Beaver , his friends and his brother get into trouble and ask their parents for help. Who could forget Eddie Haskell, Lumpy and the gang.
Leave It to Beaver stared Barbara Billingsley, Hugh Beaumont, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers ("as The Beaver", as the opening credits put it).

Captain Kangaroo Debut

One of my favorite television shows debut on this day October 3, 1955, with Robert James Keeshan (June 27, 1927– January 23, 2004) as Captain Kangaroo.
I remember watching this show with my brothers and sister. We use to laugh at Bunny Rabbit and his carrots, dancing bear, Mr. Green Jeans. I did not know that it ran 29 years.

The format was simple: Each day, Captain Kangaroo, with his sugar-bowl haircut and uniform coat, would wander through his Treasure House, chatting with his good friend Mr. Green Jeans, played by Hugh "Lumpy" Brannum. He would visit with puppet animals, like Bunny Rabbit, who was scolded for eating too many carrots, and Mr. Moose, who loved to tell knock-knock jokes. But the show revolved about the grandfatherly Captain Kangaroo, whose name was inspired by the kangaroo pouch-like pockets of the coat Keeshan wore.

Little known fact: Bob Keeshan was the original Clarabelle the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show when it aired on NBC.
















"Captain Kangaroo" debuted on Oct. 3, 1955, and Keeshan remained in that role until 1993.

Using the Web for Better Health

For some of us losing weight is never easy. Fortunately, there are nifty online tools available to help you along the way.

I've found two that are recommended - FitDay and Nutridiary. They have similar features, and both are helpful. Set a target weight and track the calories consumed and calories burned. You can do this daily or, if that's too much of a time commitment, use these tools to occasionally look up the nutritional content of last night's dinner or find the approximate number of calories you burned working in the yard.


Here's how it works-

You enter basic information about yourself (height, weight, age, lifestyle level). Using this information, the website calculates an approximate value for daily basal (metabolic) calories burned and lifestyle calories burned. For any given day, you can enter calories burned from activity, which ranges from biking to household chores to yard work. The sum of these three categories equals the total calories burned per day.

Then you can enter the foods consumed on any given day. From this information, the website calculates total calories consumed, as well as where these calories come from and how they are distributed. It also creates a chart of all of the necessary vitamins and minerals and records how much of each you are getting, highlighting any that you are not getting enough of.

The only significant difference that I can find between the two services is that Nutridiary is also a social network. If you diet better with "community" support, perhaps Nutridiary would be a better choice for you.

Discovery Exercise:Create an account at Nutridiary or FitDay

1. Fill in the food chart and the activity chart for a typical day.


2. Find out how the number of calories consumed compares to the number of calories burned.


3. Find out whether you are meeting recommended nutrient requirements. Are there any nutrients for which you aren't getting the recommended amount?