I'm having Today Show withdrawal! I usually spend my early morning responding to emails and watching Al Roker and crew. We rearranged the bedroom yesterday to make room for the new furniture and apparently the cable connection on the other wall is not "hot". Hopefully Steve can fix it tonight or I'll have to call and get someone out here. This can't go on for too many mornings or I may have to go back to sleeping in!

But, I did join the Kentucky Library Association this morning, along with the Kentucky School Media Association, a division of KLA, and have the site open to put in a proposal for a session at the KSMA Fall conference. Just need to get a bit more Diet Coke in me to get the wording right. :-) I am so glad this conference does not conflict with the NC School Library Media Association Conference as does the Tenn. Assoc. of School Libs. I agrees to present at TASL (not the one in Texas) and then realized it is the same time at NCSLMA in November. So I'll be in Nashville instead of Winston-Salem that weekend, but I am presenting at the NC Library Association Conference the week before presenting at AASL in October, so I should get to see some of my ECU students there. It is going to be a busy Fall semester! But, I am not complaining. When you teach online as I do, presenting is as close to the classroom as I can get. Although I love the flexibility teaching online gives me, I miss the physical act of teaching about and sharing books in a group setting, be it in a classroom or a conference session/workshop.

I stayed up and watching Over the Hedge last night. Cute, but not one of my favorite animated kids' movies. I kept comparing it to other books/movies. Like the cat and skunk - I prefer the old Pepe Le Pew cartoons, especially For Sent-imental Reasons, when he meets Penelope the cat and she falls head over heels for him. As far as turtles go, the level headed Vern is okay but how can you not love the turtles from Finding Nemo better? The concept of humans taking over the animals habitat may be lost to some of the youngest viewers, but it is an important theme, and has been for a very long time in children's books. Just think of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM by Robert O'Brien. Although this book starts off really slow, as do many fantasy novels, it is wonderful. Try to imagine being the size of a field mouse and knowing a tractor and plow is coming at you! Very scary stuff! Feels much more real than the wacko exterminator in Over the Hedge. I guess I am getting old! Did you know that Robert O'Brien was actually Robert Leslie Conly and that he died before Z is for Zacharia was finished? His wife and daughters completed this post-nuclear war tale from his notes. 62 comments about this book on B&N online - it is still live and well on the YA shelves and in the hands of teens. :-) As is Mrs. Frisby and clan in elementary and Middle Schools.

Okay, need to get busy on finishing up the handouts and presentation notes for the 16th. So much for summers "off" for professors. But, I did take all of yesterday off, even though it was spent doing housework and unpacking the last few boxes in the bedroom. Steve was very happy to see more socks. :)