autumn, summer, spring, whatever

Autumn Wonder by Debbie Adams is the inspiration this month at ARTastic:

The extra challenge is to use clouds, trees, and autumn colors.

The painting (autumn!) made me think of the pictures I took from our hike in July (summer!) which I still hadn't scrapped (spring!).

I had this brown paper which was perfect, combining books and nature. Too bad the best designs would be covered by my pictures. First I was going to cut them out with an exacto and switch them which would be time consuming and difficult to match up. Then I remembered we have a scanner now!

I placed 3 of the scanned ones I like over the less desirable images...

...like this.

Voila! I used the leftover paper to make a pocket in the back to keep my journaling in, and to make a tab to pull the journaling out. I printed the journaling from my blog, attached the tab, and added 51 with letter stickers (the hike number in the book).

I didn't get to use any of the pictures that had clouds, but at least I got the trees and brown in there.


I also finished this from our trip to DC in January:

I tried to use a lot of things from the brochure. Also, how excited was I when I found this paper? It has a train theme and a monkey, and my sister-in-law wore a monkey hat on the train!!!

the dog park according to Trent

Trent's my nephew.

He's in second grade.

We went to the dog park when he came for a spring break visit.

He wanted to take the pictures.

I think he did pretty good.

He also got 2 strangers to play catch with him.

The dogs loved it and it was free.

Cute kid!

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

I read Hotel du Lac for a "journey" theme read on LibraryThing. The main character travels to the exclusive Hotel du Lac in Switzerland to recover from something "Terrible" she had done. During her stay there she meets several interesting characters and through her interaction with them takes a self-reflective journey.

Overall I felt the book was o.k. but it didn't end the way I thought it was going to which made me like it more.

Happy 1st Day of Spring!

We loved listening to the birds sing their songs today! Captain and Caprica had fun dragging toys outside to play with.

P.S. Where the fairies are asleep is by ploop26.

Emily and Einstein by Linda Francis Lee

I chose Emily and Einstein as an Early Reviewer but after I got it I wondered why I had.
1. The husband dies, and I try to avoid books where the husband dies.
2. Some of it is told from the dog's perspective, and I just had a bad experience with a book completely told from the dog's perspective.
3. It's chick-lit, and I just don't enjoy chick-lit as much as I used to.

I guess I chose it because secretly I knew I'd like this story. Even though the husband dies, he was a jerk, and is reincarnated into a dog from the shelter Emily volunteers at, which she adopts and names Einstein. Although some of it is told from Einstein's perspective, it's more plausible because he's a person in a dog's body. And even though it's chick lit, it comes around at the end with some fresh insight and a positive message.

Have you ever seen the movie Little Black Book? It has that sort of feel.

Who's Patrick?

Yesterday...

Me: Even though it's St. Patrick's Day tomorrow you guys still have to wear your uniforms.

Student 1: Who's Patrick?

Student 2: A starfish.

Student 3: You know, from SpongeBob.

Happy St. Patrick the Starfish from SpongeBob Day!

Hope for a happy ending

Corey woke me up at 3:22am to tell me there had been an earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I couldn't really process that information before falling back asleep, but it was the first thing on my mind when I woke up.

As I listened to news about the disaster on my way to work, I began thinking about who I know in Japan. I was friends in high school with a foreign exchange student named Yoko. We remained pen pals for a few years but stopped writing in college. I wondered if she and her twin sister are ok. I also thought about one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, who lives in Tokyo.

Tonight I googled Haruki Murakami with tsunami to find out if he is safe. That question wasn't answered, but I found this eery article opener from The Los Angeles Times on February 25, 2005:

TOKYO — Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has never witnessed a tsunami. But he has imagined one.

In his 1988 short story "The Seventh Man," Murakami's narrator is a man damaged by the childhood memory of watching his best friend sucked away by a killer wave, the furious sea retreating, he wrote, as if "a gigantic rug had been yanked by someone at the other end of the earth." A stream of fiction has come from Murakami since that story. But its theme of inconsolable loss came back to the author while watching images of Southeast Asia's recent calamity, where anguish endures long after the calamity passes.

I haven't read "The Seventh Man" but its relevance makes me want to read it before some of the other things written by him which I still haven't read. (I have read Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.)

Haruki and Yoko I'm thinking of you today!

my bookmark looks like this

Right now I'm reading Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. It's alright, but my bookmark is super cute! It's called cherrytree bird and it was created by Masha Dyans. I use a rotation system for my bookmarks so none of them feel left out. How about you?

anne hathaway is cute

Last Sunday we went to our friends' annual Oscar Party. They always make a theme drink and this year it was The Toy Story (a martini with gummy bears on the bottom).

I haven't heard a single media source say that James Franco and Anne Hathaway did a good job, but we thought they did fine. I don't know how creative you can get when all you're doing is reading a teleprompter! In fact, I thought Anne Hathaway was cute because she seemed kind of dorky, like someone I would be friends with.

Here are my favorite dresses she wore:



The moment that sealed my Anne Fanship was when she made sure everyone could see her dress could do this:

She seems like fun to me!

And Corey and I both lost again for the most correct Oscar picks! Maybe next year.

P.S. I got these pictures from Luxist.

Tonight I met Temple Grandin!

Luckily for me I'm in a book club with our school psychologist because she emailed me today saying she had an extra ticket to go see Temple Grandin tonight!

Dr. Grandin spoke for about an hour and it was very interesting, although most of the things she talked about were covered in her movie. My aha-moment was when she talked about how she is unable to attend to 2 tasks at once, reminding me once again that there is a wide array of brains in my class!

And even though I bought 31 books in February I had to buy one more so I could get her autograph! It was on my wishlist anyway:

The top photo is of my friend Alana getting her autograph. I should have spent more time thinking about what I was going to say to Dr. Grandin...She asked me what I do for a living and after I told her she didn't say anything. And all I could think of to say was "I like cows" but I didn't say that because I knew that would be lame. Here are the things I thought to ask/say after:

Do you have any pets?

Who is Catherine Johnson? (her co-author)

Do you want to see a picture of my dog?

Do you like to read? What are you reading now?

The part in Animals in Translation where you tell us people and dogs coevolved blew my fucking mind.


I had to laugh because it made me think of my friend Stephanie having a similar what-do-I-say-to-this-author moment (although hers was from being a super fan and mine was from teaching first grade all day).

Despite being tongue-tied I had fun with my friends and it is always good for me to learn about different kinds of brains!

I bought 31 books in February...

...and I only spent $43. Between a book sale, trade at a used store, and a gift card to Borders I am stocked for the year at a bargain price.


See any I should read sooner rather than later?

Do it for the doggies!

On Sunday we're going to do a Petsmart Charities PetWalk with Captain Skippyjon Jones and Caprica Six. We are trying to raise money for Friends for Life Animal Sanctuary, a local shelter, while socializing and exercising.

Click here if you would like to donate a dollar or more.

You can also visit Friends For Life.

The photo is of us from last year's walk. Should be interesting this year with Caprica a.k.a. Princess Unfriendly along for the ride, but hopefully she will learn to enjoy the company of others. Fingers crossed!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Corey made me a valentine with my scrapbook supplies. Cute!

P.S. Red Book, Blue Book is by Sophie Blackall. It was inspired by a real Missed Connections ad.

Luncheon of the Boating Party (the book)

I told you I was going to finally read this book and I did. What a great story! The author actually researched every person in the painting Luncheon of the Boating Party (except 1 whose identity is debatable) and Renoir himself, and made it all into a super cool historical fiction story. The story spans the 2 months Renoir took to paint it outside. Even though there are 14 people in the painting, Renoir, the paint store owners, and art dealers stories to hear, it didn't drag.

My favorite part was a story about the girl who's leaning on her hand on the railing in the painting. She recalls starving in her house during Franco-Prussian War (before the painting). She was lucky to get horse meat rationed to her. During the painting she decides to go back to that old house and finds it's now a food store. She goes inside and has an incredible moment looking at all this food and remembering starving on the floor. It was a moving scene.

Also I did not know that Renoir and Monet were friends in real life! Whoa. What a time.

I feel like I'm learning so much about history through fiction lately. It's kinda fun! And now I've read another for my TBR Challenge. This book's been on my shelf since 12/28/08.

drinking champagne

Scrapping the Music had a challenge last month to use the song Things Have Changed by Bob Dylan as inspiration. One of the lines stood out: There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne.
It made me think of my fabulous New Year's Eve because we may have had a sip or 2 of champagne to celebrate that night.
left page:

right page:

all together now:

Good times!