Tweet For Literacy = Reading families

(Part of this article was taken from Katie & Kimble Blog by Linda Thieman. To see her original article click Katie & Kimble)


In November I was asked to participate in The First Annual Tweet For Literacy campaign with four authors and three mom/book bloggers using the Social Media platform of Twitter.  


On Twitter as @LindaThieman, author of Katie and Kimble, and I (@susieqtpies) co-chaired the  giveaway events, and ended up with 19 winners who divided up almost $2000 worth of prizes amongst them. The donated prizes consisted of literacy-related items: large numbers of children’s books contributed by authors, publishers and sponsors; books on parenting, reading skills, and building vocabulary; and other items like flash cards, puzzles and more.


We gave away a prize set every other day.  These items were all to encourage literacy and reading amongst families. 

In the end, we had over 4,400 entries and created a lot of excitement about getting books into the home and making reading together a frequent fun family activity. In January, 2010, Tweet for Literacy will announce the winner of the second half of the grand prize package—one elementary school has been chosen to receive a classroom set of the first two books in the Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story series for third grade. Free classroom materials can be downloaded from the Katie & Kimble blog by teachers and homeschoolers to accompany these books. 



In this world full of electronics, we need to make sure that we are continuing to encourage our youth to use their words to describe what their eyes are seeing.  You can do that by discussing with your child what they are seeing on the computer.  When they play video games take time to ask them to describe what they are playing.  Encourage them to write a story about the characters in the game.   No matter what they are involved in encourage them to not just sit and watch but teach them to interact and think beyond just seeing.  


This post is part of the MAT@USC: Masters in Teaching Hope for the holidays event. Did you have an experience or witness something in 2009 which gave you hope for the future of American education? If so, please see this post for more information on how to share it.

Merry Christmas Kitty

Eating Well Should be Healthy Too!

CLICK TO ENTER THE Healthy Bread in Five Minutes Giveaway!

Eating Well Should Be Healthy Too!
by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François,
Authors of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

(Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for offering this article and sponsoring the Book Giveaway)

After the release of our first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, in 2007, we started hearing from our readers. Many of them wanted to share their experiences with our innovative, time-saving, based on long-term dough storage. Many others had questions, so we set up a website and blog that were designed for questions and discussion.  Most of the questions directed at me sounded something like this: "You're the doctor, what's with all this white flour in the bread?"

Good question! The recipes in our first book were based on the traditional European repertoire, which meant lots of white flour. When people challenged me, I had to admit that I love a well-made white baguette, though I eat more whole grains than ever before. Variety is the spice of life, and I'm not ready to completely give up white flour. Every slice of bread doesn't have to represent a completely balanced meal. But, people asked for recipes with more whole grains, and they were backed up by some heavy hitters in the nutrition world. The American Diabetes Association now endorses whole grains as a preventive for the development of diabetes. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture is similarly pushing for more whole grain intake. We decided to write a second book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, to give people more nutritious alternatives to white flour.  

Whole grain nutrition: So how does whole grain flour stack up against white flour? White flour is milled strictly from wheat's endosperm, the white part of the wheat kernel containing almost exclusively starch and protein (mostly gluten). There's nothing wrong with starch and protein, but you're missing all the benefits you get from whole grain's "germ," and all the fiber from the bran (the dark outer coating of the wheat kernel). Whole wheat includes the germ, which is packed with vitamins, anti-oxidants, and healthy oils. It's a particularly rich source of Vitamin E, which, when combined with Vitamin C-containing foods, make one of the most powerful anti-oxidant combinations known. Please pass the homemade orange marmalade on whole wheat bread!

Whole wheat also includes bran, which doesn't have vitamins and anti-oxidants -- that's wheat germ's chance to shine. But bran has its own very special role to play, and I'd love to tell you all about it. Unfortunately, it seems that food professionals have some sort of gentle-person's agreement about talking about the digestive tract, so if you're interested in learning more about bran's role in digestion, here's a great website for you: Fiber: How to Increase the Amount in Your Diet, from the American Academy of Family Physicians. The family doctors seem pretty clear that fiber from whole grains prevents a wide range of health problems.   

The other frequent question from readers was whether our books are a good fit for vegans (those who don't eat meat or any other animal products, including eggs, and dairy). Most of our non-enriched recipes (that's the majority of both books) are vegan in the first place. While many other whole grain authors use skim milk powder in whole wheat bread to tenderize it, we decided against that, mainly to keep things simple (fewer ingredients = simple). For vegans, the second book includes alternatives to butter in the enriched recipes. In our first book, butter was the animal-based ingredient that appeared most often. In Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, we give alternatives to butter, including canola oil and zero-trans fat, zero hydrogenated oil-based margarines. We also talk about the new products being sold as "butter substitutes," usually made with vegetable oils, but also flavor-enriched with whey and other non-fat products of butter. Technically speaking, most of these are not vegan because of the whey, but check the ingredients as there are exceptions.

Fruits and vegetables in the bread: OK, who told the USDA to increase the recommended fruit/vegetable servings to nine (for a person whose ideal weight is 150 pounds)? I have a friend who says he can't even name nine fruits and vegetables! Those are half-cup servings -- is anybody really getting this much in their diet? I can tell you that I am not. There are some good rules of thumb, such as "two-thirds of the plate should be vegetable or fruit." That helps, but even so, I don't think I'm making my quota. That's why we included a chapter in Healthy Bread about breads that are fortified with fruits and vegetables, sometimes ground finely, and sometimes chunky. We were amazed at how well this works, despite our fears that this stuff would weigh down the bread. Every little bit helps.  

Gluten-free breads: I once interviewed a prominent gastrointestinal specialist from one of the country's finest University hospitals, where his practice includes the treatment of celiac disease (intestinal allergy to wheat gluten). We talked about celiac disease, but I also asked him about people who aren't celiac, but simply don't feel well when they eat wheat. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 1 out of every 113 Americans have celiac disease. They become unpleasantly ill when they eat even small amounts of wheat gluten. The science is pretty clear on how to treat celiac patients: eliminate all gluten from their diet. Chapter 9 in Healthy Bread was written with them in mind. But the science is unclear on what to tell people who say they don't feel well when they eat gluten, but don't have celiac disease. My gastroenterologist friend has a very clear answer for those people. He tells them "don't argue with success." If you feel better when you avoid gluten, then decrease or eliminate it. So Healthy Bread is a book for those people well.  

All this health talk makes me a bit wary. When I used to see patients, I turned over every rock to figure out how to reduce their risk of chronic disease -- quit smoking, get more exercise, do your routine screening exams, and eat a healthier diet. But I'd hate to see people become obsessed with their diet, and specifically, about the bread. If you can pack some extra nutrition into the bread, and you like the flavor, by all means, go for it. But don't let it destroy your appreciation for great bread and other foods. As we said in our first book, if you worry about the bread, it won't taste good.  

© 2009, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, used with permission of the Authors

Author Bios

Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is a physician with twenty years of experience in health care as a practitioner, consultant, and faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His interest in baking and preventive health sparked a quest to adapt the techniques of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for healthier ingredients.

Zoë François, coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is passionate about food that is real, healthy, and always delicious. She is a pastry chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America. In addition to teaching baking and pastry courses nationally, she consults to the food industry and is the creator of the recipe blog www.zoebakes.com. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two sons.

The authors answer bread questions at their Web site: www.healthybreadinfive.com.

Buzzed Driving IS Drunk Driving

It's holiday party season - time to celebrate all of the exciting winter holidays with our friends and loved ones.  Our mailboxes are flooded with invitations to parties and dinners and other holiday get-togethers.  With these parties come food, fellowship, gifts, and in many cases, festive alcoholic drinks.


If you host a Holiday Party please have someone in charge of seeing who is leaving the party.  They need to make sure the person can drive. If not someone needs to be the safe driver. 

In 2008, nearly 12,000 people in the U.S. were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes - and during the periods around Christmas and New Year's, this number was particularly high, with 316 people killed in alchol-impaired driving crashes.  In 2007, 162,493 women were arrested for a DUI, an increase of almost 29% since 1998.  You can't help but wonder if lives could have been saved if people thought twice before getting behind the wheel.  With the holidays approaching, it's important that drivers be reminded about the dangers of buzzed driving.  Who knows...it could save a life.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) and the Ad Council are asking everyone to drive smart this holiday season and to pledge not to drive buzzed. 

YOU can help us spread this message during the holiday season 

1) Post about the dangers of buzzed driving on your blog, sharing a story or experience you might have had with buzzed driving.  IF you don't have a blog post your comments here for my readers to read!

2) Follow Buzzed Driving on Twitter @buzzeddriving 

3) Follow Buzzed Driving on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/buzzeddrivingisdrunkdriving) to get the latest updates and news.  

4)You can also visit the Buzzed Driving website (http://buzzeddriving.adcouncil.org/) and sign a pledge to not drive buzzed, play an interactive game which demonstrates the difference between buzzed and drunk, and hear personal stories from people who have driven buzzed.



5) Join us Tuesday, December 15th from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST for a sobering discussion about #BuzzedDriving on Twitter

While at holiday events, it's easy to lose track of a drink here or there - but this can be fatal.  This holiday season, keep you and your family safe by spreading this message.

Have a safe and happy holiday and remember that buzzed driving IS drunk driving.

This post is a campaign through Resourcefulmommy.com

Drive Across the Country for Child Passenger Safety

 Time to Drive Across the Country for Child Passenger Safety! This post is part of the State of Illinois Blog Hop Stop with Momfluence.

With the holiday season moving into full swing, families across the country are in the car and on the go.  Whether you're driving across the country to visit family or across town to holiday shop, it is important that your child passengers are riding safely and that child safety seats are used correctly.

AAA estimated that 30 million people traveled this Thanksgiving holiday alone, and for many this is just the beginning of the holiday hustle and bustle.  Now is the time to utilize the Child Car Safety tools provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Ad Council to learn more about proper car seat use and installation.  You will find informative resources that include instructional videos.

Have child passenger safety questions that you need answered before you travel over the river and through the woods to Grandma's?  NHTSA is always available to answer your questions online through Facebook and Twitter.

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day Cookbook Giveaway

100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

By Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François
Published by Thomas Dunne Books
October 2009; $27.99US/$35.99CAN; 978-0-312-54552-9

From the authors of the groundbreaking Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day comes a new cookbook filled with quick and easy recipes for healthy bread

Their first book was called "stupendous," "genius," and "the holy grail of bread making." Now, in their much-anticipated second book, Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François have taken their super-fast method and adapted it for the health-conscious baker, focusing on whole grains and other healthier ingredients.

The method is still quick and simple, producing professional-quality results with each warm, fragrant, hearty loaf. In just five minutes a day of active preparation time, you can create delectable, healthy treats such as 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Whole Grain Garlic Knots with Parsley and Olive Oil, Black-and-White Braided Pumpernickel and Rye Loaf, Cherry Black Pepper Focaccia, Pumpkin Pie Brioche, Chocolate Tangerine Bars, and a variety of gluten-free breads. And many of the recipes are 100% whole grain.

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day will show you that there is time enough for home-baked bread, and that it can be part of a healthy diet. Calling all bread lovers: Whether you are looking for more whole grains, watching your weight, trying to reduce your cholesterol, or just care about what goes into your body, this book is a must-have.

Author Bios 
Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is a physician with twenty years of experience in health care as a practitioner, consultant, and faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His interest in baking and preventive health sparked a quest to adapt the techniques of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for healthier ingredients.

Zoë François, coauthor of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, is passionate about food that is real, healthy, and always delicious. She is a pastry chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America. In addition to teaching baking and pastry courses nationally, she consults to the food industry and is the creator of the recipe blog www.zoebakes.com. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two sons.

The authors answer bread questions at their Web site: www.healthybreadinfive.com.

GIVEAWAY (US only ends 12/23) ended

One copy!

ENTRY - Go visit  www.healthybreadinfive.com and tell me something you found on their blog! Post here and leave your email addy at least once.

BONUS entries

1) Follow my blog (right sidebar) with Google Friend Connect and or Networked Blogs. 1 entry each

2) Put my button your your blog (right sidebar)

3) Follow me on twitter @susieqtpies 

4) Tweet once a day, 1 entry per day; include link to giveaway and @susieqtpies

5) Follow @FSBAssociates on twitter

6) Blog giveaway and include link to giveaway (5 entries)

7) Post a bread recipe here for me to see! (5 entries)

8) Enter in my Holiday Recipe Exchange (top of page) (2 entries)

9) Buy the book! (10 entries) (show proof)


Thanks to Anna from FSB Associates for providing a book for me to review and one to giveaway to the winner of my giveaway at the bottom of this article!

Stepmonster misinformation

Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for providing this article.

One in two women in the United States will marry or live with a man with children, according to projections by experts who study divorce and remarriage. And the research is clear: it’s harder for women to be a stepparent than it is for men. Who are these women? What motivates them? Are they really wicked?

As for me personally, I had a step mother for a short time and I loved her a lot. I grew up without a mother and I was happy to have her as a part of my life.  My father was absent most of my life and I know that he didn't consider my feelings when he married her.  I would visit and spend time with them.  I know that my feelings weren't considered because they were only married a few years and divorced while I was in college. This woman who I thought loved me disappeared after the divorce and I never knew where she went nor did my father give me a way of finding her.  Parents please consider your children when you remarry! Do you have an experience with a Stepmother? Please post if you do!

Misinformation From the Stepmothering Industry

by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.,
Author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do

Books for stepmothers tend to perpetuate certain myths. The myth of the blended family and the myth of the maternal stepmother are the most glaring examples. These books' relentlessly upbeat tone can make stepmothers feel as though our own occasional negativity and impatience regarding his kids are freakish. Other books on stepmothering are so lighthearted, so insistent that we see the humor in our situation and in our responses to it, that reading them feels suspiciously like being told that our concerns don't matter and that we just need to lighten up. But the real problem with many books for stepmothers is not what they imply, but what they actually say:

Remember that his kids will always come first.

Leave the disciplining to him.

You will regret it forever if you lose your temper or say something nasty to your stepchildren, so whatever you do, don't.

With patience and love, they will come around.

The fact that these directives have become a virtual mantra, the unassailable golden rules of stepmothering does not mean that they are right. For example, a number of stepfamily experts concur that in a remarriage with children, giving the couple relationship priority is crucial (see chapter 6). It may jar us to learn that our concept that "the kids are the most important thing" is misguided, even destructive to our partnerships. The ideas that you should be second and should accept it, that his kids came first chronologically and so are first in his heart, and that his believing and acting on these ideas makes him a good person are powerful, deeply ingrained beliefs. But all of them can be fatal for the remarriage with children. They are even bad for the children, giving them an uncomfortable amount of power and focusing an undue amount of attention and pressure on them.

Andrew Gotzis, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist and therapist who works with couples, echoed the advice of a number of marriage counselors when he told me, "In a remarriage with children, the hierarchy of the family needs to be established quickly and clearly. The kids need to know that the husband and wife come first and that they are a unified team." Otherwise, Dr. Gotzis cautioned, the kids can split the couple apart and create tension in the marriage indefinitely. To remarried couples with children, the scenario of kids turning to Dad when Stepmom has said no, or vice versa, in an attempt to split the team is all too familiar. A woman with stepchildren may exhaust herself with her attempts to resolve such situations. For this reason, sociologist Linda Nielsen notes that a woman with stepchildren will have more success when she adopts the attitude "My main goal and my main focus is to build an intimate, fulfilling relationship with my husband and to take better care of my own needs, not to bond with or win the approval of my stepchildren." Nielsen notes that a shift like this cannot happen in a vacuum; the woman's partner needs to be on the same page with her. If the marriage is to work, Nielsen insists, "her husband has to be committed to creating a [partnership] around which his children revolve rather than a marriage that revolves around his children. Especially when his children dislike their stepmother, the father has to make it clear that the kids will not be handed the power or given the precedence over his marriage."

"Things didn't improve until I let my daughter know that, even though I loved her, my ultimate loyalty was to my wife," one man who had survived a rocky early remarriage with children observed. We can only imagine the resultant fireworks in that household. But the outcome was a stronger marriage. This in turn gave his daughter proof that marriages can last. It also replaced what could have become profound confusion about her unchecked power in the family with a sense of secure belonging.

As for the advice "Leave the disciplining to him," whoever said it never went to a home while the stepkids were visiting and their father was out. Certainly, no one is saying to step right in and start issuing orders to your stepkids in your first days and weeks together -- and few of us are likely to do that, fearing that we will be perceived as wicked. But what works in theory -- you should hold back more or less indefinitely so that you don't seem like the villain, backing up your husband rather than doing things yourself -- doesn't always work in practice. What happens when a stepchild does something that crosses the line but hubby isn't around? Are you to sit on your hands and bite your tongue rather than issue a firm "That's not okay, and you know it"? Moreover, firsthand experience has often demonstrated that the longer a woman with stepchildren waits, the harder it is for her ever to draw the line or be taken seriously as an adult with authority. I can attest to this fact. Because I was more or less a fraidy cat in the first year of my marriage, I had to be a tiger for the subsequent two or three years, as my stepdaughters still occasionally tried to walk all over me, just to see if they could. This was hardly their fault; I waited ages to take a stand about things such as snide remarks, dumping suitcases in the middle of the floor, and ignoring me.

Sometimes it is easier and smarter to ignore a stepchild's annoying habit, to decline to get involved in an emotion-charged discussion over her sweet sixteen party, or to be the voice of reason when planning her wedding. A number of women with stepchildren have found that "disengaging" is, in some situations, far and away the best strategy for them (see chapter 4). Other times, ignoring bad behavior just feels like being stepped on and creates a breeding ground for more resentment. And then what?

The culture at large is eager to gloss over women's anger in general, and advice for stepmothers in particular is full of warnings that if we express it, the consequences will be dire and irreversible. This strikes me as absurd. It would be the rare stepchild who never went through a phase of wanting to provoke his or her stepmom. Of course we lose our tempers, inevitably. And although it can feel catastrophic -- What if they hate me? What if they think I'm wicked? -- expressing our anger is, in my opinion, something we should do sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we risk setting the bar too impossibly high for everyone and creating a situation in which kids, teens, or even adult stepchildren go on pushing our buttons forever in an attempt to see where our limit is. Most of all, we need to learn as soon as possible -- to experience firsthand -- that being disliked is an occupational hazard for stepmothers, not a referendum on our worth. "Dad's girlfriend Laura yelled at us once in the car," my stepdaughter told me solemnly in our early days together. I didn't know exactly why she was telling me this, but I knew how Laura must have felt, and I admired her for letting the girls know when she thought they'd gone too far.

You're not my mother! Most of us fear that it is yelling or disciplining or losing our tempers or not being nice enough or patient enough or selfless enough that will keep our husbands' children from accepting us or drive them away. If only we had so much control. Instead, unrealistic expectations about blending and being maternal, difficult developmental stages, competition that is largely inevitable and unavoidable, misinformation about stepmothering, and a host of other factors play a bigger role in the way a reconfigured family group coheres -- or doesn't. We are not, in fact, their mothers. Happily ever after and happiness all around are ideals -- unlikely ones at that, even in traditional nuclear families. Eventually, we may find that we have arrived at a place of comfort, familiarity, and real pleasure with our husbands' kids. But if our happiness is contingent on his kids being happy for us, being happy with us, and loving us, then we have given away our greatest power and put everything at risk.

The above is an excerpt from the book Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do

Author Bio

Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., is a social researcher and the author of Stepmonster: a New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do (2009). She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com) and blogs for the Huffington Post and on her own web site (www.wednesdaymartin.com). She has appeared as a stepparenting expert on NPR, the BBC Newshour, Fox News and NBC Weekend Today, and was a regular contributor to the New York Post's parenting page. Stepmonster is a finalist in the parenting category of this year's "Books for a Better Life" award.

A stepmother for nearly a decade, Wednesday lives in New York City with her husband and two sons. Her stepdaughters are young adults.