The November Resolution of the Month and Reflections on Planking

Color me happy!

I am super excited about my November Resolution-of-the-Month.  This month I am going to read every book to win the Caldecott Medal.  Just in case you aren't familiar, the Caldecott Medal is annually awarded to "the most distinguished American picture book for children."  Most are text and illustration, though some have no words at all and just let the illustrations speak for themselves.  Its been awarded since 1938--and my library happens to own every single one.

Its not every day I run into three people wearing suspenders standing in a row.

Many I have already read--you probably have, too.  Where the Wild Things Are is one title that most people are familiar with.  But most of the books are new to me.  Since they are children's books I am sure I will breeze through them.  I'd only need to read 2-3 per day to finish up the collection by month's end.  I am reading them in chronological order by award date, too.  I figure that way I can enjoy and note the changes in illustration style as well as they types of stories that win the award each year.  I bet it will offer me an interesting cultural perspective through this one facet of historical reference.

This oversized Jenga game was pretty amazing.  I think I will have to make one.  Or, rather, have Matt make me one.

With the start of this resolution ends the resolution from October.  Man, planks are hard work!  I, of course, knew that, but, I guess, I probably hadn't done the math--converting those seconds into minutes--before I jumped in.  I never made it more than 1 minute and 45 seconds.  That was taxing enough.  I wasn't ready to go further...so I didn't.  At the start the plank length was gradually increased, but soon it was increasing by 30 seconds at a time.  That was too fast of a transition for me.  I could tell that as I tired my form suffered.  I could foresee low back pain which I cannot afford to encourage.  So I listened to my body and stopped increasing the duration of the plank.  Even still I felt tremendously proud to be able to go 1 minute 45 seconds.  That was tough!  I can remember when I started out on October 1st thinking that 15 seconds was long!  It was pretty amazing how easy it was to build up to 60 seconds--after that was a totally different story.  It had its fun though.  I got to plank with a couple of my aunts.  I can tell my arms and stomach were being developed--and that is a good thing.  I don't really aspire to make it up to that 4 minutes 30 seconds mark, but I will keeping planking when the spirit moves me...but maybe just for a minute.

Its Lela from Futurama...and a very happy crayon!  Yellow has always struck me as a very happy color.

(All photos, which are totally unrelated to the post, are from Halloween.)