Secret Joys

You know those cheesy silly catalogs that come in the mail?

I can't throw them away without looking through them first. I love looking at all of the ridiculous things available for purchase.

Like this:

and this:

and all of these:

and I secretly want this, and this.

Go on, dish. What's your secret fun?

Inservice

I had a technology inservice on Friday, and we learned to use MovieMaker. It was a fun and helpful lesson, they gave us all of the things needed to make a video, and then showed us how to do it. I tried to use MovieMaker to make my Mom video in December, but got frustrated. I might try again now.

It was pretty simple, and I have loads of ideas for more things I could do with it for the kids.

Anyhoo, for MLK day, here's the video I made.

I decked the hall...

With Eminence Blue from Behr.

I'm not sure what it is about Matthew leaving town. It makes sense for me to do lots of projects when he takes Anna with him, but what kind of crazy person decides to paint with a three year old?

Here's a before, but after I took down the pictures. What a boring hall, eh?

Anna helped me wash the walls, after changing into painting clothes. She was VERY excited.

Here she's helping me with the tape. She held the tape, then I took some off, put it up, and she gently tapped it down. it worked pretty well. Then I actually let her paint some, but didn't take any pictures because of the hovering. She did a wonderful job and didn't spill or get any on the wood or in her hair or anything. Then she happily went to bed, and I finished up. This morning I took down the tape and put the pictures back up. Less than 24 hours! Can you see the blue? I think it's nice, but the "Kitchen and Bath" paint that I got shows the roller marks more than what I used in the bedroom. Good thing there are lots of pictures in the hall, and who looks at the walls when they're walking around, anyway?

I'm happy with it, but I think for the Laundry and the Kitchen I might have to do the taping and let Mr. Perfectionist do the painting. He's a good painter.

A project together? I wonder how that would work...

The Mantel Saga Continues...

I found some LED garland and some silver garland on the super Christmas clearance, and spread it around. During the day, there's silver snow, at at night, the ground glows eerily. It makes me giggle. Here's a dark photo, but you get the idea.

Accidental Perfection

I've often thought that the problem with loving your job is that you always feel that there's more you could be doing. Surfeit of ideas, deficit of time. I generally end up teaching by the seat of my pants.

Thursday, in 4th and 5th grade, we had an accidentally fantastic lesson. We're learning about food, and some other items, and stores. I had some posters for stores that I made when I was at the High School, so I pulled those out. We reviewed the vocab flash cards, gave each table a store, decided what store they would be sold in, and then talked for a minute about the peso versus the dollar.

Then we had some more time, so...

I gave each table a whiteboard and a marker and had them set prices and make a price list.

Then I remembered that I had some pesos back in my office, so I gave them a minute to write and went back to fetch them.

We counted out the money together, and then I went shopping. The kids got really excited, and started trying to sell me their items. I passed by the tables if they weren't speaking Spanish, telling them: "Lo siento, no hablo ingles" In seconds, the ENTIRE CLASS was engaged, in the language, trying to get me to buy whatever they had. It was loud and crazy and exactly what you would experience in a Mexican market.

Then at the end we had a discussion about culture, and the markets in Mexico, and the kids who have been to Mexico got to tell their classmates about it, and they all got to see the coins, and they're begging to go shopping themselves.

I wish I could plan a lesson like that, instead of just stumbling into it.

But I'll take it.

doe-c-doe

For Christmas Margaret gave me this beautiful embroidery collage for my sewing room. Isn't it sweet? Hopefully Anna and Matthew will go away sometime this winter for a few days, I want to reorganize and paint the whole room, I think I could use these girls as inspiration.


(photo from doe-c-doe)
The artist is from Wichita! Here's her blog, and her etsy shop.

African Proverb--

"He who runs away and escapes is clever"

Last weekend on the way home from school I thought: "There's nothing going on, Matthew still can't play for church because of his finger...we should run away."

So we did. This time we left Anna with Grammy Joan and Poppa Marion and headed to Wichita. Totally different from my usual escapes, this time Matthew and I were focused on being lazy in the Big City.

We ate Chipotle, watched cable, shopped a teensy bit, went to the super cool car wash, crashed The Wheatland Mission, and saw LOTS of friends. Still not everyone we would have liked to, but seeing Heath and Jenny, Kent and Jenni, and Matt and Michele was just what the doctor ordered.

On the way home I read the Wichita magazine that was in our hotel room, and was irritated with this paragraph in an article about the rebuilding efforts in Greensburg.

--Greensburg lies 110 miles west of Wichita. You get there on a two-lane strech of U.S. Highway 54 that snakes through dusty antique towns and sprawling milo fields. The shoulder is littered with road kill and tumbleweeds. The sky is endless. The clouds are epic. The sky touches everything.--

Come on!

But being irritated does nothing-so let me just encourage you to visit some of the wonderful country west of Wichita, or south or north or east. Or cool things in Wichita.

How about 2009 is the year of the local escape!

Fun Poem

I like to listen to poetry podcasts. I think I heard this one on "Poetry Off the Shelf", but I can't be sure. I thought it was fun.

Anagrammer
by Peter Pereira

If you believe in the magic of language,
then Elvis really Lives
and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.
If you believe the letters themselves
contain a power within them,
then you understand
what makes outside tedious,
how desperation becomes a rope ends it.
The circular logic that allows senator to become treason,
and treason to become atoners.
That eleven plus two is twelve plus one,
and an admirer is also married.
That if you could just rearrange things the right way
you’d find your true life,
the right path, the answer to your questions:
you’d understand how the Titanic
turns into that ice tin,
and debit card becomes bad credit.
How listen is the same as silent,
and not one letter separates stained from sainted.

Peter Pereira, "Anagrammer" from What's Written on the Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2007). www.coppercanyonpress.orgSource: Poetry (September 2003).

Bake It Pretty

Before Christmas I entered a drawing on the Bake it Pretty website, and I won!

It was very exciting. I got Abby and me each a cupcake decorating kit, and decorated the cupcakes for Matthew and Joe's Birthday party with one of the tips. It was very easy and LOADS of fun. Truly. I want to make cupcakes all of the time now.

I'm trying to cut down on blog reading, but I really like the shop blog, and her personal blog is pretty too.

8 Wonders of Kansas Commerce

Here's the link to find out about the 8 Wonders of Kansas Commerce and vote for your favorites.

We have until February 17, 2009 to vote, so there's not much time to visit, but you can read all about them and make plans for the future.

I've been to Brant's Meat Market in Lucas, and of course I know about Brookover, but many of the others are new to me.

Yay Kansas!

Top 100 tutorials

Top 100 crafty tutorials of 2008





Thanks to CRAFT for the link, and The Long Thread for the list

January Rampage, III

I finally got all of the Christmas stuff put away. As I was carrying box after box into the basement, I thought about how a rational person would think that this was crazy, and would probably resolve not to do so much next year. I kept waiting to feel that way, but mostly I just felt excited to do it all again.

I moved into the kitchen and ran into two more messes: The freezer:

And the pantry:

And that was it for that day. I was tired.

January Rampage, continued

After the linen closet mess, I went back to folding clothes, and found myself straightening the closet. I didn't take pictures of that.

Then I started to put away the Christmas stuff, and tripped over something on the back porch, which looked like this:

Fast forward through the crazy...

It does make me happy, but I think days like this are hard on my family.

It didn't stop here...

January Rampage

We didn't make it to Streit Christmas Saturday in Salina, because little Anna had a bad cold. I had a big list of things I wanted to get done, but kept getting sidetracked by messes. This happens to me sometimes. Is it common?
I went to put a towel away and found this:The next thing I knew, everything was out in the hall, being sorted and tidied. This is not the best way to get a lot of things done.
But it is nice at the end. Once this starts, I know I'm in trouble for awhile. Stay tuned to see what else fell into my path...

Happy Birthday Abby!

We celebrated Abby's 14th Birthday a little early, so that Susan could be with us. Everyone came out to our house and we had "crispy meat", french fries, and green beans with cheese. Abby's choice. She baked and decorated her own cake. She's been our cake lady for years now. We played Wii, with only a few minor injuries, opened presents, and ate cake. I can't believe this sweet girl is 14!

Love you!

I hate the January Mantel

I hated it last year too...and then liked it a little...


And this year I hate it again.
I don't know if I need a completely new approach or if nothing will look good after the holly jolly fullness of Christmas.

New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve with Dad and Abby and Susan and Steven, but on the way into town we noticed the new A&W was open! We had to stop and try it out.

Here's Matthew with the still-sealed ketchup. It was really fun to be part of their first crowd, all of the workers still trying to figure out what to do. Anna chose the corn dog bites, and I had a corn dog too. Matthew had a cheeseburger of some sort, I think. You can tell it was very tasty.

Anna had a good time with her toy, a miniature root beer mug.

On the way out we had to stop for a picture with the big bear, and we rang the bell, because "our visit was swell"

It was a fun New Year's surprise.

Mary vs Martha

Last week at BCC Jeff spoke about Mary and Martha, that same old story about the one who does too much and the one who's relaxing. I always have trouble with this story-wondering-if Martha's really supposed to do less, that's fine, but then WHO is going to do everything?

I tried the past few days to do less, but now the house is messy and I feel cranky.

In this new year, I'm going to try to do less and enjoy more, but it's hard. How do you know what's fun and what's obligation and what's important and what's not?

I took 10 blogs off of my reader. That ought to save a few minutes a day.

Any help?

Twirled Treasures

We got pretty things for Emily at TwirledTreasures, where she makes jewelery out of paper! Quilling is something I've never tried, but it sure is pretty.

(Photos from Twirled Treasures)

A Resolution

I'm usually making a zillion resolutions, but this year I don't feel like it.

Here's mine.

I will try to do more of what I know is right and less of what I know is not.

That's it.

Not measurable or clear or any of those goal setting things, but one I feel good about for 2009.