Great Books and Other Stuff

So we are all back to school after a wonderful vacation. Not only was our vacation restful but it was also productive! We finally painted the stairway, upstairs hallway and upstairs bathroom! It was quite a bit of work, but well worth the effort. We went with a 'beach' color scheme. Sand going up the stairs, shallow water(light blue) in the upstairs hallway and then 'deep ocean' (steel blue-think ocean on a stormy day) in the bathroom. I have to say once the entire area was painted I am very happy. I was unsure when the light blue went up, but with the darker blue in the bathroom I am pleased. To spruce up the bathroom I picked up some beautiful chocolate brown and light blue towels that I have been wanting forever!!! I also found a lovely shelving piece in brushed nickel to go over the toilet. Even the kids like the new look. The other night N said he actually likes being in the bathroom now! I feel the same way.



So during vacation we had the opportunity to see the movie Spiderwick Chronicles. It was a good movie although I wished they had developed the characters a bit more. Now we want to buy all the books! They should be fun to read with the kids. Speaking of reading I finally used up my Borders gift cards! Before vacation a friend suggested the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is wonderful. I am so happy that I made the decision to get the book over vacation. It is one of those reads that you want to devour and savor all at the same time. Does that make any sense to anyone?? Anyway I am about half way through the book and wish I could just sit and read and let everything else go. I also picked up a book entitled Three Cups of Tea...One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. It looks interesting. I'll let you know when the time comes. My final purchase was that of a coffee table book. Windows on the World Complete Wine Course is a beautiful book with lots of great information and some beautiful photos.

Well it is late and I am tired so that is all for now!

Peace!

Vacation!!!

So we made it to February vacation! Might I say by the skin of our teeth! Everyone was back to school on Wednesday although N had a bad cough but it was an early release day and he was willing to give it a try. At first I was concerned, but within a half hour of N and n being up they were fooling around and carrying on as usual. I was able to go to school and concentrate on all that I had to do with my preschool students. The week at school was a busy one. A dear collegue lost her mother to a dramatic but brief illness and the services were held on Wednesday. We celebrated Valentine's Day---dare I say the children were as excited as they were for Christmas! Finally, the highlight of the week was when one of the afternoon students decided to climb into the water table that was full of bird seed!!! Talk about a full body experience! I have never seen anything like it and it will definately be one of those stories that will be remembered for a long time. So now we have a week to rest up for the next round of 6 weeks before April vacation. Whomever planned the school calendar really knew what they were doing as the vacations truly come in the nick of time for everyone. I happen to be one of those Mom's who enjoy being on vacation with my children. When I picked N and n up on Friday I saw a Mom aquaintance and asked if she was excited to be on vacation with the kids. You would have thought I was asking her about having a tooth extracted or something! I guess my delight in school vacation is unusual. Oh well.

I hope that I will be busy during part of the week exploring some creative endeavors. I've signed onto a 'Pay it Forward' that I found when reading Ann's blog http://onewildandpreciouslife.typepad.com/one_wild_and_precious_lif/n So how it works is that I will offer a giveaway to the first THREE (3) responders to this post. I have been working on making cards, felting wool and making soy silk beaded book marks of late. So I am thinking that I'll go down one of those roads for the give away. So if you are one of the first 3, you will need to send me your snail-mail address, via email,so that I can send you my giveaway item. You must also "pay it forward" by agreeing to do the same. You will need to post a passage similar to mine on your own blog and then complete a give away! I think it is a fun idea and I just hope that I will get three people to respond. Hope to hear from you!

So if you are looking at the number of comments it looks as if three folks have left comments for the giveaway. This is not the case so if you are interested please leave a comment. I need to know how many items I should be working on :)


Peace!

Sick Days

Well the last two days have been sick days at my house :( Yesterday both children were home from school yesterday. n injured her foot on Sunday. Somehow she stubbed her baby toe so badly that at first I thought she might have broken the toe. She ended up with a very large and painful blood blister on her toe. So she rested her foot all day and luckily was able to put on shoes for school this morning. N woke up yesterday with a bad cough. It probably wasn't quite bad enough to stay home but I made the executive decision to keep him home for a day of rest. It was a good thing because he was down for the count for the day and ended up having a fever by the afternoon. So he went to bed early and I hoped that a good night's sleep would help him feel well enough to go to school today. Unfortunately this is not the case. He awoke at 1am last night and I just happened to get up at 2am to use the bathroom and found him sitting up in his bedroom looking very sad! Evidently he had been calling for me and I didn't hear him nor did his Dad. So at 2 am I settled him in on the couch downstairs with clicker in hand with the hopes that he would be able to fall back to sleep. Now we are both on the couch watching Star Wars! Fun Fun Fun. We will get through it and hopefully he will go in for the half day tomorrow so that I can go into school. I really can't stand calling in sick because I know how much of a burden it puts on the rest of the teachers.

On another note a dear friend of mine lost her mother this past Friday. The services will be tomorrow during the day. The wake and funeral will both be held tomorrow. I wish I could be there but if I am able to work it will enable the directors of my school to attend the services. I will be there in spirit and lend support to my friend when she returns to school. I know how difficult it is to loose one's mother no matter what the process and how prepared you may think you are there is never sufficient preparation when dealing with the loss of your mother.

Peace