Necessity is the mother of adorable headbands

One of the downsides of this small town reporter gig is the distinct lack of ready made entertainment available.

After spending much of last year eating my boredom while working my way through all ten seasons of Friends on DVD about four times, I decided this year I should really develop some new hobbies.

So, this year one of the things that's kept me from going stark raving through the rural winter months is crocheting. That's right. Your grandmother and I could totally be BFF.

After giving myself a refresher course via the internet, I began churning out hats like nobody's business. So many hats in fact, that at one point Sparta accused me of having a secret hat sweatshop somewhere in the apartment. Clearly he missed the memo about it being nobody's business.

In any case, he gave up on the wild accusations after I gave him a hat of his own.

So, now that I have acquired an army of toques, beanies, berets etc. I've moved on to hair accessories.

I whipped this bad boy up after checking out the amazing creations from the talented young lady over at the aptly titled Creative Yarn

I didn't exactly follow her pattern but I love how it turned out. In fact, I am considering wearing it to tomorrow's Reading Rainbow adventure, if only to use as a distracting conversation piece should the children start booing after I read a sentence or two.

Brilliant, no?

Just a girl who can't say no

I have done something stupid.

Last week, while at work I got a call from a teacher at one of the local elementary schools asking if we could come out and take some photos on family literacy day.

No problem.

Oh, and would the editor or reporter also be willing to read something to the kids?

Ever unable to say no to children, (even indirectly, apparently) I said, "Sure!"

How could I not support literacy day?

Stupid.

It's not like I've never read to a child before. During my babysitting heyday I knew all the words to Goodnight Moon, Mighty Machines and several other fascinating pieces of literature.

However, my audience was confined to between one and three tiny critics, whom I could ship off to bed if they weren't enthralled with my choice of reading material.

Recently, the only little ones I interact with are small enough that they are equally, if not more interested when I pretend to chomp their ears off than if I were to attempt to read them a story.

Monday morning, not only will I be reading to a group of Grade 1 and 2 students, because I was so damn cheerful about the whole thing on the phone, when that horror is through and they've finished throwing rocks at me or whatever, I'll also get to do the whole thing again with a group of Grade 3 and 4 kiddos, and of course, their teachers. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.

Stupid.

Anyway, what's done is done and it wouldn't be fair to back out now. The problem is, while I have gazillions of favourite books from when I was little, I can't for the life of me figure out at what age I loved them.

I was hoping to read something short and sweet, with lots of distracting pictures, like The Lucky Old Woman or The Lorax or something (except The Lorax makes me cry, so that might be a no go) but aren't Grade 1 and 2 kids already kind of beyond that?

So, my dears, this is where you come in.

Know any reading-inclined 7-year-olds? Remember being a 7-year-old who liked books?

Leave an awesome recommendation and help save me from the eternal shame nightmare of being booed by elementary school kids.

In other news...

Sadly, our little town lost some lovely buildings and vital services this week.

It was strange to stand there, out in front of the crowd, snapping away from my spot in the no-man's land between the firefighters, doing their best to keep the destruction from spreading and the people watching from the cordoned off sidewalk, some of them still in their PJs from a swift and unexpected evacuation.