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I just got back from a wonderful vacation to my home town of St. Louis, Mo. It's my favorite vacation spot and the only one where I can completely relax. My kids love it and my husband gets to play golf on the cheap. Reconnecting with my cousins, aunts, uncles is the best part and why I keep coming back.

This year was even more special because I got to meet Mary Engelbreit!

Did you hear that?

THE MARY ENGELBREIT!!!!

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was. She's been an inspiration to me for so, so long, as well as being really kind and supportive to me on Instagram (how is this even possible?).

I've really wanted to meet her, so I used my 20 seconds of insane courage and asked if I could come by the studio and meet her while I was in town. Not only did she say yes, but she invited me to lunch.

LUNCH? With Mary Engelbreit? Um…YES!

Anyway, it was wonderful. I love her studio and the neighborhood it's in. Her staff is the best! Lunch was loads of fun. We talked and talked like two old friends. I felt like I'd known her forever. I got some career advice and I think I've gained a new friend. Thank you Mary!

Make sure to like her page on Facebook and follow her on Instagram. She shows lots of work in progress and sneak peaks of upcoming products that I'm sure you'll enjoy! She has something fun coming up that I'm not sure I can talk about yet, but I'll keep you posted.

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Yesterday we went to Nashville and picked up 50 cases of books for our organization that serves special needs and will be delivering them tomorrow at our basketball signups.

This is going to be such an amazing thing for these special children and I can’t wait to see the smiles on their faces when they get an early Christmas present of these wonderful books.

Rick Ryan
Challenged Athletes Playing Equally (C.A.P.E.)
Murfreesboro, TN
www.capetn.org

I just can’t believe all the books I got this morning!!!  I do believe I got everything I asked for and more. We know that doesn’t often happen in this game of life.   I’ve gotten books before, but never like  this.  I thank you for offering this opportunity and look forward to some great book clubs and organizing a book give away with our kids at Warner.  We’d love to have you back in Nashville anytime!

On behalf of the students and teachers at Warner….thanks so much!
 
Mona Bruey
Library Media Specialist
Warner Enhanced Option School
Nashville, Tenn.

One of the ways First Book gets new books into the hands of children from low-income families is through the National Book Bank. Publishers donate new books to First Book, and we distribute them to schools and programs around the country.

Our publishing partners have been even more generous than usual lately, so our National Book Bank team is working overtime, traveling to donated warehouse spaces from coast to coast.

Book distributions are one of our favorite things – we get to meet the teachers and program leaders, hear about the kids they work with, and load up their cars (and trucks and school-buses and even horse trailers) with boxes of new books.

But they are exhausting – a week of 12-hour days spent moving more boxes than you can imagine. Our staff and volunteers give it their all, especially our National Book Bank managers, Katie and Anna, who are in Nashville and St. Joseph, Mo. this week, and traveling (without so much as a day off) to St. Louis and Casa Grande, Ariz.

So thank you to all the amazing local volunteers that show up at warehouses to help get these books to where they need to go, and thank you to all the hard-working educators and community leaders who make sure every book gets into the hands of a child who will take it home and read it again and again.

PS – If you’re on Twitter, drop Anna (@AnnaInTheCity) and Katie (@IAmNotNancy) a note and tell them to keep up the good work!

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I'd seen a number of watercolor studies of feathers online recently and had a bit of an itch to do one myself. Fortuitously, I stumbled across this bluejay feather and thought it would be the perfect specimen:These little nature studies are really fun to do and much quicker to finish than my usual work. I hope to do more of these in the future. This one's available here in my Etsy Shop.

I didn't find any feathers... but hopefully our most recent excursion outdoors will give some inspiration for further studies. We just came back from our annual trip to St. Louis to visit my family, where we all set out on a short side-trip together. We clambered about on huge rocks at Elephant Rocks State Park:
Visited an abandoned lead mine at the Missouri Mines State Historic Site which was excellent reference for my husband in his video game work:

Took a boat tour through an old flooded mine at Bonne Terre Mine:

And circled back to St. Louis where we got to be kids again at the incredible playgrounds of City Museum:
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