Stephanie: Chicken Alert!!!

Scrapbooking is one of my favorite hobbies, but for the past 6 months or so I just haven't felt into it. I usually scrapbook chronologically and wondered if that was part of my hold up. So lately I've been scrapbooking whatever comes to mind instead, and that has gotten me back in my scrapbook room creating memory greatness again. I've got my mojo jojo back!

One thing I like to do is find challenges on the internet to help me along. At ScrapMojo they had a Peter Pan challenge, and being a pirate I couldn't pass it up. I had a previous blog post in mind when I made it. I have also been challenging myself to use all of the old, unstylish products I purchased back in the day mixed with my new fun stuff to try to make them cool again. Sometimes it doesn't quite work out, but I'm always pleased with the end result anyway.


At The Art is Found they had a challenge to use feathers as your inspiration. Even though the deadline has passed I wanted to do it anyway. When I first saw the challenge I had an idea to use some old pictures of me and a few of my chickens for it. I miss having chickens! My friend Stephanie is petrified by them. I was once attacked by a rooster, so I get it. But most chickens are kind.

Hopefully I will stay inspired and get all 50,000 pictures I've taken scrapped.

They know about Earth Day at least

Today my student asked me to back up his argument with a disbelieving friend:
People eat cows because they're made of chicken?

Only 6 weeks to set him straight.

P.S. You can find anything with Google Image Search.

Happy Earth Day!!!

Every year (since I've been teaching) on Earth Day I dump out the recycling bin all over the classroom while the kids are in PE or Library. Then they come back and freak out. "What happened to our room?!" "Who did this?!" It's fun! Then I tell them that's what the world would look like if we didn't recycle. Then they gleefully pick it all up and put it back in the recycle bin. And THEN we go outside and pick up garbage off of the playground. Inevitably there is a fight over someone getting to a prime piece of garbage before someone else. We wash our hands and go home.

As a side note, I paid off my first student loan today. For the degree that was not in education. It only took 11 years. Still wish I could have spent it on shoes.

grass

The latest challenge on The Art is Found is to use grass as your inspiration. I had just been going through my digital pictures and these ones of us on the lawn at Art in the Park last summer stood out in my mind.

I got to use my new date stamp that I found at the scrapbook convention on Saturday for $1.50! And the cool buttons I got there for $1! And I got to use a bunch of stuff I already had, such as the decorative scissors that cut paper in a grass pattern.

Looking at these pictures makes me happy all over again that my braces are off. And I really like this picture I took of the lawn ornament my sister~in~law got for the Senior Gs:

I wish...

I could spend all of our tax return on shoes.

"Colorful" is by strangerswithkandi.

Another windy day...

The better to sail my ship with.

Metaphorical Journey by Vladimir Kush

Jesus!

I thought part of my Easter would be best spent on my back porch reading, "a decidedly one-sided and negative view of Mormon history."

Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World

Global Warming! We see video of ice caps melting on the news. We hear about polar bears drowning. We fight about it with people we went to high school with. As teachers we learn that nothing has meaning until it becomes personal. To the average person like me, I would assume, global warming hasn't become a truly personal issue. After all, when I wake up in the morning I don't see polar bears drowning and ice caps melting outside my window.

Amy Seidl is an ecologist who has actually been around the world studying global warming. Her book takes the macroscopic idea of global warming and makes it microscopic by providing very specific examples of how things have changed just by looking around her own hollow in Vermont.

It is meant to be a narrative with science mixed in, but is science heavy. I had to look up a few words while reading it, and had to reread a lot of the explanations. I think that's good though. If you are going to write a book showing how, scientifically, global warming is real, then I suppose you're going to have to get pretty technical. However, the narrative aspect combined with the short length keeps it from reading like a text book.

Each chapter is broken down by a class of life that is changing (such as birds, butterflies, and forests), typically ending with a rhetorical question in the vein of, This is how global warming has affected this in just the past 10 years, what will it be like in another 10 years? Indeed.

Not written to scare people into a Y2K frenzy, it is eye-opening, fact-filled, and gives you a personal way to see the effect of global warming on every living thing.

P.S. This is the second book I've received as an Early Reviewer at LibraryThing, and it also qualifies as a book with a "relative" in its title for my What's In a Name Challenge.

Today it was so windy I had dirt in my teeth.

On windy days like today I miss living in our loft. From the 4th floor it was always a good laugh to watch the birds attempt to navigate themselves in the wind. I think they like it.

P.S. This picture of the Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm was taken by Christopher Furlong.

You should definitely try spending April Fools' Day with a bunch of 7 year olds some time.

We've been on Spring Break during April Fools' Day every year I've taught up until now, so today I was in for a treat.

Student: What's this say?
Me: Brown.
Student: April Fools!!!! (laughs wildly)

Student B: What's this?
Me: An apple.
Student B: April Fools!!!! (explodes with laughter)

Wow, you got me.

Pretty much sums up my entire day.

P.S. F160607 is by faboarts on deviantART.

The Blind Assassin

I finished this book by Margaret Atwood last week, which I read with a reading group on LibraryThing. It's a story within a story within a story which made it a little confusing at first, but once I got it all sorted out in my head I liked it more. Although it was well written, this book was too depressing for me to ever read again; it's the tale of an old woman looking back on her sad, messed up life. Everyone in her family is dead, everything she once had is lost. What a great cover though!

My favorite part was when she went to a park and got flashed by a stranger. She simply said, "I'm sorry, I'm just not interested" which cracked me up!

This book qualifies for the What's In a Name Challenge as a book with a profession in its title.

Today a bird pooped on my arm.

I was minding my own business, picking weeds under the mesquite tree in our backyard, when I suddenly felt something wet on my arm. I wondered, why does my arm feel wet? and when I looked it was bird poop. I looked up and the culprit had already flown away. Corey washed it off with the hose. Although we have a few hummingbird friends that visit us throughout the day in our backyard, I think it was too much poop to be one of them. Do you think being pooped on by a bird is good luck?

One time when I was a kid I was sitting under the hummingbird feeder on our back porch. I looked up when a hummingbird came and it pooped in my eye. I can't remember if it gave me good luck.

P.S. The Key is by Tiffany Bozic.

Yesterday was also the windiest day since I lived in Flagstaff.

Lucy On a Windy Day
by Emily Martin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"In March the wind blows down the door
and spills my soup upon the floor.
It laps it up and roars for more.
Blowing once, blowing twice blowing chicken soup with rice!"

Today is Purple Day!

I first heard about purple day on Designer Jots which then inspired me to look it up on the internet. The premise is that if you wear purple today it is to inspire people to learn first aid for seizures and be aware of epilepsy. Even though over 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy I don't know a single one of them. But one time in high school during a basketball game a girl got knocked down and had a seizure and it was pretty freaky.

I've taken first aid classes before and I feel like I remember what to do, but to be sure I'll ask the school nurse next week.

P.S. This purple picture is by pesare on deviantART.

Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man's Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand

If you read Eat, Pray, Love and didn't like it (like me and a few of my friends) then this book is your answer. Without spelling it out for the reader, the author presumes to be the ex-husband of the woman in EPL and tells you of his post-divorce adventure. It was more uplifting, funnier, and truer to life than that "other story" which is silly because EPL is non-fiction and DPF is fiction. I only wish I got to read it right after I finished EPL so I could have compared them closer.

My favorite quotes from the book were:
"You want to know how easy it is to play craps? I have played craps before, and I have already gone on record saying I have no idea how to play craps."

"I will not waste your time or my meager brainpower trying to describe how insanely amazing the Grand Canyon is."

I think this is the final book I can fit in for the Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge which asked that you share which book was your favorite from the challenge. I read:
~ Blessed are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
~ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
~ Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
~ Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
~ Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
~ Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man's Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand by Andrew Gottlieb

and although I enjoyed each and every one of them I would have to say...Water for Elephants was my favorite!