99

Back by popular demand - Dress like you are 99 years old! 

Nothing like an "old lady" falling over to send the "retirement crowd" into fits of giggles!

For Your Teacher's Entertainment

Remember when you had new spelling words assigned to you each week and you had to do things with them at home such as writing them three times each, putting them in abc order or using them in sentences or a story.  Remember how sometimes that really began to feel quite pointless and you wondered why you had to use all those unrelated words in a story.  Well, I'm here to tell you that it was really all for your teacher's entertainment.  Scratch that!  Your teacher didn't get much entertainment out of seeing that you had written those words three times each but the sentences and stories, now those were quality entertainment.  Case in point, one of the stories my second graders produced as homework this week.

A student wrote an informational piece on driving from a second grade perspective.  This week's spelling words have been underlined.

infor mashoin on driving

1. put your clothes on.
2. close the door.
3. get in the car.
4. Be a glad driver.
5. their is know prize for driving.
6. their will be traffic
I have seen traffic you might have to go through a tanall (tunnel)
now you can become a driver

Some very sage advice.  Wonder if number one is included in the driver's ed manual?

Show Me and I Can Do It (Maybe???)

I guess I must be partly a visual learner because I love to see things in pictures before I do them.  I had no idea that one could find tutorials on how to do just about anything until my friend Elizabeth started posting all the fancy things that she had been making by following tutorials.  So I was inspired to tackle some sewing projects using tutorials.  So here are the two pillows I've produced.  The one on the right has an envelope opening.  The strips of raspberry fabric are leftover from my curtains.  The proportions seem a little off but I wasn't measuring too carefully. Surprise! Surprise!  

I love the pleated pillow on the left.  The tutorial came from here.  I got tired of measuring so it's not the straightest thing in the world.  Plus I couldn't get the tension quite right on the thread.  Thankfully, I could turn all the pleats over so the puckered thread is hidden.  It took a while to make all the pleats but I ironed and sewed while someone was chatting with me so it was the perfect project.

I put a zipper in this project. A first for me so I used this tutorial along with my sewing machine instruction book to help with the changing of the feet.  I would definitely recommend the zipper closure as opposed to the envelope closure.  It just seems to look neater.  So there you have it - I'm moving beyond paper into other areas of craftiness!

Gathering Inspiration from Other Sources

My neighbor, Sam, asked me to make a wedding card so I visited Lucy's blog because I just discovered it recently and I love her style.  Using her sketch I came up with this card:

I made another one which I like even better and the great news is that I heard that a friend of mine from eighth grade just got engaged so maybe I'll get to use it very soon.

Then I went back to playing along with the sketches because it was fun.  Using this sketch I came up with this card:

Then I used this sketch to make a birthday card.  This is the first time I have ever paper pieced.  I won't do it very often because it's time consuming.

Let's see then I tried out this sketch and created another birthday card.

I took a bit of a break after my Christmas crafting spree so it was fun to get back into it and use some more of my new papers.

What TCKs Talk About Over Lunch

Yesterday, I enjoyed a picnic lunch at the Niamey Zoo.  I found myself seated next to a third grade girl from Pakistan and a fourth grade girl from Switzerland.  Both girls have spent the majority of their lives living outside their passport country so they definitely qualify as genuine third culture kids (TCKS).  They began by commenting on how cool it was that they had both brought their lunch in the backpack they had received when they flew Air Emirates.  Then we talked about the food on Air Emirates which somehow led into a conversation about how many countries they had been to.  They are 9 and 10 years old and this definitely qualifies as important stuff in their world.  The ten year is old is almost a third my age and she's already got me beat.  I tallied up 11 countries visited or lived in for myself and she had about 13 or 14 and to top it off she rode a yak in one of them.  There was no way I could compete with that!  :)

Third Culture Kids are amazing!

Did I do that?

I had this friend at Toccoa Falls College for whom college was her very first introduction to the western world.  She did some hilarious things out of complete innocence and just wondering what might happen.  For example, she pulled the fire alarm simply because the little handle said "Pull" so she wanted to know what would happen.  On another occasion, she took the cleaning product she used to clean the small chapel on campus and decided to spray her name into the wall - again, simply out of curiosity.  Unfortunately, after it dried the light would hit it just right and one could see her name displayed in large letters.  Her expression after these "clueless" moments was always a very innocent, "Did I do that?"

Well there is some clueless person around these parts shrugging their shoulders and innocently proclaiming, "Did I do that?"  And what exactly is it that they've done?  You can read all about it here.

Hey Mom, I've been craving some of your roast beef.  Do you mind sending me some in the mail?

Music to Soothe the Soul

Love getting exposed to new songs at SIM conference.  These were two very meaningful songs that were sung this week by the Green Valley Team.  Must pay a visit to the itunes store very soon because I've only played them about 50 times each tonight!

Befriended

by Matt Redman

Love Came Down

By Brian Johnson