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This month...
{G3 is a end of the month wrap-up for our little family}
1. I love helping lead a community college classroom...tomorrow I'm looking forward to be in charge of the class activity and discussion.
2. Thank you for the advice with my ears...I saw an ENT today and it's looking like I may have suffered nerve damage. A hearing test tomorrow will provide more information...and taking steroids has about a 30% chance of improving it.
3. Are you asking where all this shower stuff I've been talking about is? I'm getting it organized for this starting Monday...
4. Yes, I'm the nerd who couldn't resist making a quick little graphic about it.
5. I'm in a wedding this weekend and my bridesmaid dress has a layer of tulle which I can't help but swish around like a three-year-old in a princess gown. I'll have to try to behave with it.
6. The wedding means our Hotel Griffin will be full with these friends this weekend...I am unreasonably excited.
7. And today was my nephew's fifth birthday...where have five years gone?
I am sure I have mentioned at some point my weakness for award shows...which means the Oscars are a big night around here. As I watched the acceptance speeches tonight it occurred to me that tomorrow I get make my first dream come true speech. I'll be introducing myself to the class I'll be student teaching in. I am officially half of a community college instructor.
And you know I can't have a first day of school without a little something. Just a small bag of chocolate chip cookies for the professor I am working with and the student teacher in her other class.
I'll be dreaming of Sociology 101 tonight...
First it was tissue flowers...and now...
Three things have been torturing me today...
1. The hearing loss and ringing in my ears left behind by the cold...it's maddening. The nurse practitioner said if it doesn't resolve in a few weeks I'll get referred to an ENT. Try a few days...or a few hours please.
2. This week's episode of Parenthood. Tonight our hearts did not feel as if almost six years have passed since what we endured as we braced ourselves to watch the show we love have a storyline about a failed adoption.
3. Not getting to share anything for the shower this weekend...
Here's a tiny corner of just one project. There are about a dozen more that I'm dying to share...
Working as a graduate assistant last semester meant spending a fair amount of time staring at a computer screen. Piles of papers are quickly becoming a thing of the past as they are replaced by piles of electronic submissions. As I met in the office of one of the professors I was working with I happened to comment on his double computer screens. Once he pointed out how handy they were for grading I decided they would be a good investment in my sanity as I went back and forth to endless student papers.
Of course once they were here I decided that, as absolutely wonderful as two screens were, two big black monitor stands were not. This particular size monitor did not come designed to mount on the wall so Sean and I had to get creative...
It took a few attempts, but Sean was able to finally get them on the wall. They are the slightest bit uneven, but after a comical level of complications their new home fits them as well as it ever could...and I got a couple new little shelves out of it too.
So thankful for Sean's handiness...and super duper thankful for having a double workspace. Hope there's many, many years of grading ahead on these...
Thank you so much for the get well wishes. I ended up really needing them. Friday brought a 103+ fever and a trip to urgent care, but after a couple days of rest I'm on the mend and ready to tackle all the fun coming up.
I put this together way back in November for the shower I'm hosting this upcoming weekend. These colors have been a little tricky out in the real world, but so much fun to bring together in numerous ways. I cannot wait to share all the details next week.
I also start student teaching at a community college next week so I need to gather some ideas for assignments to add to the syllabus. Those are due this Thursday at a semester finalization meeting I'm having with the professor I'll be working with.
The end of this week will also bring about a million pages of statistics homework to start grading. Okay, maybe not a million. However twenty page assignments times sixty students equals a heck of a lot.
It's a bit overwhelming to be tackling all of this at the same time, but I am just so excited. I will creating assignments for real students. I get to continue a job I have loved. And in the meantime I absolutely have to craft up a bunch of cute details. It may be busy, but I am living the dream.
I have managed to find a horrifyingly relentless cough this week. Today I called my mom looking for solutions beyond the medication I've tried. Now I can add a hot toddy, candied ginger, some fisherman cough drop things and loquat syrup to the list of what I've tried...most of which was disgusting. Despite my gagging and overly dramatic faces, my cough has significantly decreased...thanks mom.
Sean left notes around the house and sent texts throughout the day with reasons he loves me. Mac made me a card covered in hearts with the sweetest sentiment inside. So wrapping up these gifts was the least I could do for them...
Mac is still loving all things mustache-d so his favorite stamp inspired Valentine's for his classmates this year.
A mustache, heart nose and googly eyes went on top of a coin envelope that we tucked the all too necessary chocolate into...
We used my new favorite stamp to put together the sentiment.
And I tried not to be too sentimental when I realized this is the last batch of classroom Valentine's we'll ever need to make together...I'll just have to start passing them out myself next year.
This year's Valentine decorations ended up being a case of too many ideas and not quite enough time. However the ombre love canvas is front and center on the mantle for tomorrow...along with last year's handcut hearts and some old spools unevenly wrapped with fabric.
Please don't look at it for more than a second or two so you don't notice how unevenly the letters are arranged...I try to think of it as homemade charm.
1. Ipad-ding all comfy cozy in bed.
2. Messy desk.
3. Romantic comedies playing in the background.
4. Potting some new plants.
5. Cracking open a new can of breadcrumbs for meatball making (I always write the day I open something).
6. Our next door neighbor always brings us the coupons from his Sunday paper.
7. Cleaning out the kitchen window box.
8. A favorite family side dish even though it comes out of a box.
9. Got out of the shower a couple minutes before we were hosting a family dinner.
10. Finally figured out Mac's Valentines.
11. Mom brought Thin Mints for dessert...we only eat them frozen.
12. Stitching during the Grammy's.
When I was eleven years old I was incredibly dedicated to the color peach and it's 80's partner in crime mint green. I wanted peach and mint green everything. I had a solid peach sweatshirt I adored. I had a mint green sharp radio that was constantly on. These colors were key to my pre-teen existence. Peach, mint green and I have lost touch over the years. I have moved on to shades of chartreuse and pumpkin, but my inner tween must be having a resurgence at age 35 since I am starting to love peach and mint green again...
Hopefully this is as far as I go revisiting my pre-teen self...otherwise I might end up using hideous amounts of hairspray, wearing huge plastic parrot earrings, and doodling, "I love Sean" in every notebook I own.
1. Sean has taken temporary guardianship of worms. Yes, worms. One of my professors (who loves composting as much as Sean does) is teaching in London this spring and mentioned in one of our e-mails that she was worried about her worms. Sean eagerly offered to take care of them and we made arrangements to pick them up from her backyard tonight.
2. I have started observations for my graduate project and after taking copious notes perilously balanced on my lap I decided I need a legit padfolio. I love office supplies a little too much...
3. I jokingly used the word "legit" because there is no way I can pull it off. I have learned this attending school with people who are ten years younger than I am. I also cannot say "I'm down" for anything...although one time it slipped out.
4. I actually caught myself saying I was "down" with butter.
5. Tomorrow is going to be a Valentine crafting love fest around here. Time is running out...
The lovey-dovey mantle is just starting to come together. The first completed project actually came from combining the idea of a love canvas with ombre hearts...
Besides putting together some sandwiches for the Superbowl, cooking up some cream of asparagus soup for lunches this week, and an attempted stitching project (I already completely failed at my cross stitch attempt) I did almost nothing this weekend. I have to admit it was pretty darn relaxing. Hopefully this dose of relaxation means I am well prepared to be incredibly productive this week. And hopefully those random stitches actually end up looking like a heart.
When wrapping up prizes for the bridal shower games I decided they absolutely needed tissue paper flowers on top. I know I had seen these before and made one just to try it, but I could not search out the directions on the blog where I had seen them. So instead I tried to wing it by memory...
I folded and folded half a piece of tissue paper until it was a two inch square. I cut it into a wonky heart shape being careful to leave the middle in tact. When I opened up each layer I wrinkled them up a little, pinched it together in the middle and stapled it. I used foam tape to adhere it to the gifts.
Trying to search and search some more for the directions for these has me thinking about the ease of finding things around here. I have posts archived by months and topics and past crafty projects fairly organized which usually helps me find things, but I cannot imagine that this is much help to anyone else. I have tried to have a Google search bar specifically for the blog, but it was rarely successful in pulling up what I went looking for. I have seen other blogs keep popular projects as links in a sidebar, so maybe I could bring back a blog design with more columns? My point in rambling about this is to ask if there is anything in particular you may have struggled to find around here or if you have a preferred way to search for an idea you remember seeing once upon a time? Any feedback is very much appreciated...thanks.
This was our hodge-podge mantle decor for January (the "Peace on Earth" print is from Angela Hardison)...an attempted homage to our nonexistent winter. Now I'm trying to find some good lovey-dovey ideas to add to last year's decor. So far I'm thinking a love canvas and/or quickly learning to cross stitch. Have you seen any good ideas lately?
