Winter is here

OK, officially winter doesn't start until tomorrow but you certainly wouldn't know that by looking outside. We got a foot of snow yesterday and are expecting another foot tomorrow. People are still suffering from the ice storm 9 days ago. There are still over 20,000 people in NH that have no power 9 days into this. And some won't get power back until January. I feel so blessed that we have not had issues like that. The only worry I had was the chimney leak that let a bit of water into my bedroom. I just had to keep emptying the bucket. But the mason came on Thursday and now I have a brand new chimney at last. Also, the construction remains from the siding project were finally picked up and I'm feeling good about the home repairs.

But there are many people who still have lots of worries. Perhaps a worry tree would help them forget their worries for just awhile. In WORRY TREE by Marianne Musgrove, a young girl finds a worry tree painted on her bedroom wall and decides to give it a chance to take her worries away.

Musgrove, Marianne. THE WORRY TREE

Do you have to share a bedroom with a sibling? Are you living with a slob? Well, Juliet Jennifer Jones sure is. Her little sister is a slob and drives Juliet crazy. Finally her parents decide that she can have her own room. It's a room that her father now has all his stuff in so it will take a bit to clean it out. The girls are not allowed in that room now because of Dad's stuff. But he clears it out and Juliet finally has a place of her own. When the wallpaper is peeled away, a mural of a tree is revealed. Lots of animals are in the tree. It turns out that this had been her grandmother's room and this was her worry tree. Each night she gave her worries to one of the animals and let them take the burden off her. Can this work for Juliet also?

http://www.nancykeane.com/booktalks/mp3/musgrove_worry.mp3