winter

calvin and sam welcomed the first snow of the season this morning.

each snowflake fascinated calvin. his eyes followed them carefully as they floated to the ground, creating a bright blanket of white. a quiet day of snow watching, fireside sitting and christmas decorating followed. (notice i did not say studying... i am saving that for tonight).

happy december!

the pumpkin patch and the new job

we took calvin to the pumpkin patch last weekend. it was surreal. i remember a year ago, pregnant and watching all the kids in wagons, thinking next year i will have a kid in a wagon. now here i am a year later with calvin in a little red wagon, pulling him through the pumpkin patch. (well sam is pulling him through the parking lot in this photo...)

he loved it. he smiled at all of the other kids and parents. it took him awhile but he finally picked a perfect pumpkin to take home. he even stuck a piece of straw in his mouth like a real farmer.

this week the best friend that i have had the longest got a new job. he is a writer and has been searching awhile, looking for something fun and not bratty. Hopefully this job will give him 'access' to all of the hollywood stars that we (i) love to read about.

good luck on your first day of work jesse!

*new* chair

i went to the local flea market last weekend and found this little chair for calvin. friends of mine have a similar little red one and i always thought it was so cute. this one was pretty dirty as you can see but it was only $15. here are some pictures from before i finished cleaning it:

(in this picture i had already cleaned the seat)

pretty nasty, huh? i saw some potential though and the colors matched our living room perfectly. so i scrubbed it with baking powder and voila! it came totally clean.

the tag on the bottom says that it adheres to the safety standards of 1937, so i think it is pretty old. now (maybe) 70 years later it looks almost brand new and ready for calvin to enjoy!

youthology

real or fake?

youthology.com

quilt

i finished calvin's crib quilt. i love the way it turned out. i started it the moment i got home from my sewing machine class because i really wanted to practice using my walking foot. i did not have a high expectation for the final product, but it came out great and very unlike any quilts i have made before. here's a few pictures...

i already have the fabric picked out for my next quilt. it will be for my friend who is pregnant and due in january, which seems far away, but always seems to creep up fast.

i can't stop...

watching these films. a class i am taking called 'culture, media and education' introduced me to this sight. enjoy...

http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/

first day.

room 3 was filled with hopeful nervous third graders on wednesday. brand new binders, newly sharped pencils, untouched erasers sat anxiously on top of sterilized desks. everyone felt sadness for the end of summer and excitement for the beginning of a new school year.

everyone that is except for me. i wasn't there. for six years i have started the school year as the teacher, but this year i will be starting as a student. i miss the few days, hours, minutes before school begins for the year. all the colors of construction paper are in order and accounted for and every marker is capped. nervous excitement brims from within me. as the students walk through the door i know i am where i belong.

but this year i am a stranger to what lies ahead. i will be a master's student at an ivy league school. i am the one who is hopeful and nervous. i have my binder (labeled), pencils sharpened (and pens), and a stack of loose leaf paper. i am physically ready for the first day of school on thursday. as i walk though the hallowed halls on thursday and enter my first classroom, i hope i feel like i belong.

sewing straight...

quilting lots of equally spaced straight lines is harder than i thought. at first i was frustrated and ripped out my first two sewing lines, but now i am talking myself into liking the imperfect 'handmade' look.

using my new walking foot and trying out different stitches is fun and i think the quilt will look fine in the end because there will be so many lines that each line's imperfections will not be as noticeable. at least that is what i keep telling myself.

now i just have to start sewing the lines that go the other way.

martha!

i am going to see her, live and in person. we are totally going to become bff!

six months and plastic

calvin is six months old today. it is amazing how quickly the last six months have gone. he also cut his first tooth today (finally). he has been struggling with it for weeks now.

we interviewed an in-home daycare provider tonight. the lady was really nice, but there is something about in-home daycare that gross me out. i blame my friend kelly because she worked at an amazing in-home daycare/preschool and i feel like i hold everyone i interview to that standard, which i am quickly learning is impossible for anyone here to live up to. we interviewed a nanny that i really like but we are not sure that we can afford her. decisions, decisions...

i have been reading about plastic this week. there is so much information out there about the dangers of this seemingly invaluable material. i found what i feel is a reliable source and discovered that i should avoid 3, 6, & 7 plastics. i ran to the kitchen to check out the numbers on the bottom of all my plastic. nalgene bottles are 7! i had heard that nalgenes aren't good, but they were okay as long as they are not heated (as in the dishwasher). i looked at some alternatives, but they all seem to be aluminum and i hate metal tasting water. so i guess i will continue to hand wash my nalgenes. baby bottles are another plastic that is on the bad list. glass bottles seem dangerous to me, especially now that calvin is getting bigger and more independent. we do have glass storage bowls, which look old-fashiony and cute and allow for safe reheating in the microwave.


now i just have to worry about all the damage that is already done to my body because i have been drinking and eating out of plastic my whole life...

talking

mother's day

this is what i hope to get for mother's day...

www.tatermitts.com

i hope calvin reads this.

write back soon

i still have all of my high school and middle school notes. they are all in several shoe boxes in my mom's garage waiting. i am not sure what to do with them. half of me wants to open up all of the neatly folded little triangles and see what was written to me and by whom... and the other half of me wants to burn them.

do most people have old teenage notes hidden away somewhere to look back on one day? i am not sure i want to look back. what i'm actually afraid of is someone else looking back at my life. someone discovering my boxes of notes, like sunken treasure, and piecing my life together one folded triangle at a time. someone peeking into my drama filled life of boy troubles and 'who said what to whom about whoever'.

i wonder if the teenagers of today write notes? the text message is the new note. i guess there is less of a danger of getting caught if you can send the note electronically. but text messages can't be saved for 10+ years in your mom's garage collecting dust waiting for someone to open them up and read them or to be burned.

i think i will burn them.

(after i read them.)