Celebrate the Unusual

I think everybody's weird.

We should celebrate our individuality 

and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.

-Johnny Depp

Here's to always picking the picture that's not perfect.

This family portrait captured everyone's unique personality. I just love it!

Happy New Year

"Happy New Year" to all my blogger friends.

My Favorite Christmas Present

 Ta Da...Introducing Minnie Driver and her brother Finnegan.

Our daughter Jessie got her first job teaching this year in Columbia, South Carolina; A very long way from her home in upstate New York. Over Thanksgiving she mentioned she would like a puppy to keep her company. She had seen a Miniature Schnauzer at a friend's home and thought it would be a good fit.

After researching the breed we found a breeder that had puppies. It was love at first sight for Jess. I asked the breeder to see the females... well Minnie decided she was coming home with me. She was just to cute!!! I couldn't help myself.

Well our German Shepherd Lync thought I was nuts, but as you can see he has become a wonderful big brother!!

Happy Holidays

Yes dear blogger friends I am still alive. It has been such a busy fall at school and at home that I couldn't find the time to be creative or update my blog. But after spending two weeks helping my Studio Art students make holiday stamps, I had a little fun myself by creating a few gifts. I'm determined to spend more time in my studio and getting back to posting on my beloved blog.
I hope you all have had and are still enjoying the holiday season. Tomorrow I'll be  posting what I bought myself for Christmas.

Daughter takes Over

 For those of you who have followed my mother’s blog for the past few years may have been blessed with the occasional entry about my family, specifically me! I am my mother’s (or Mim as she likes to be called) oldest and only daughter. Lately, I have been feeling a little neglected as most of Mim’s “family” entries have been about my brothers. Well enough is enough and I have taken over her blog muhahaha…with her permission of course!

            In August, I moved down south to begin my teacher career as a special education teacher in MIDDLE SCHOOL!! Yikes! Driven by my desires to provide my students with a creative and cultural endeavor, I took a page from Mim’s book and spent a week and a half learning about Dias de los Muertos. Like any good educator, I needed to do some research on the Mexican holiday prior to teaching it. Mim suggested I email Stephanie Rodrigvitz from http://www.rodrigvitzstyle.typepad.com/. After sending Stephanie an email, she graciously sent me a copy of one of her favorite books.

With such a great resource, my students and I explored the history behind the fabulous holiday, abandoned our preconceptions, learned some Spanish words, wrote versions of the traditional Calaveras poems, and decorated sugar skulls. I even took another page from my mom’s book, by allowing my students to teach me. Not having spoken a word of Spanish since my high school years, I was hesitant to read a Calaveras poem… in Spanish… to my students. Fortunately, I have many Spanish-speaking students and they helped guide me through this process. Not only do I have a northern accent, which my students find funny, but they even got a few laughs in at my attempts to correctly pronounce Spanish words.

The mini unit ended with decorating sugar skulls. Traditionally, these skulls are made using meringue powder. Unfortunately, meringue powder is not easy to find in the South. I spent an entire Sunday afternoon driving all over the city in search of this ingredient, but I could not find it. I then decided to try and make my own meringue to fill the skulls molds with. This did not work either. I became EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED!!!!! And had no idea what I was going to do. Luckily, I settled on using Crayola clay to stuff the molds. It worked, but lacked authenticity. When sharing my adventures with my students, one of my Mexican students asked why I hadn’t just gone to the Mexican grocery store. Believe me, had I know about this, I would have gone there first. Oh well, lesson learned. Even though the sugar skulls weren’t authentic, my students still had a blast decorated them. A few of them even dedicated their skulls to a lost family member. It was very touching. I am glad to report this was the first lesson I actually saw my students EXCITED about and excited middle schoolers are hard to come by.

A BIG Gracious to Stephanie Rodrigvitz and my mom for making this learning opportunity possible. It was a great success!! I can’t wait to do it again next year!

Early morning run

 What a beautiful start to our morning run.

 My running partner

Someone actually left these pumpkins on the trail. I hope they stay there.

Add Freshman Adviser to Job Title

 This year as a High School Art Teacher I decided to get more involved in the school community. It is so important to have a good relationship with the students and their parents. I volunteered to become one of the Freshman class Advisers along with my friend and fellow teacher, Judy R.
Our first job was to organize Spirit week and the Homecoming weekend events. Our theme, "A Blast from the Past, the 70's."

 By the time students elected their class officers and got organized; they only had 4 evenings to put together their float. Thank goodness for very supportive parents who knew what they were doing! I had no idea what to do. Thank goodness one of the parents decided to show me the ropes, thank you Bob.

 Our freshman crew!

 Two of my favorite junior ladies offered advice as to what makes a great adviser. Thank you girls!!

 The Junior class float won first Place in the parade. Isn't that amazing!!!

Talk about being organized.

 Judy and I organized our first fund raiser. Hot cider and fried dough.

 Thank goodness one of the Mom's helped-us-out!

 

Look at the crowd

 

Me with three of our girls.