I am in the middle of reading The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles with my 4th graders, and they just finished designing their own Whangdoodle scrappy caps this week. It was a surprisingly successful craftivity and brought me unexpected … Continue reading →

"I look horrible. Delete that!" You've probably heard that (or something like that) more times than you can count. You may be guilty of it yourself. I know I am -er- WAS. The digital age has engendered a generation of the absurdly photogenic. We know our good sides, the correct angles and the best lighting to make us camera worthy. And if at first we don't succeed, it's as simple as tapping a trash can and trying again. When I was in high school I was socially awkward. I was convinced that I was not only plain but hideously overweight. No one could be attracted to me, I thought, and when it turned out I was wrong I couldn't understand what they saw in me. A few weeks ago, while putting away holiday decorations I came upon a pile of school pictures. What I saw surprised me. When they were taken, I thought the pictures were terrible. I thought I looked fat, had like twenty chins and my arms, don't get me started on my GIGANTIC arms! What I'm getting at is that if I had had the opportunity to delete these pictures for a do-over, I probably would have. Below are the pictures in question...10th (I was asked to prom by a junior who, to protect the innocent, we will refer to as, Mr. Smiley...as you can see he is really happy to have me as his arm candy!), 11th, and 12th grade respectively. Turns out they weren't "bad" pictures, I wasn't painfully ordinary and I was far from obese. Once upon a time (and not that long ago) taking pictures was a completely different experience. To capture a night out, someone in your group would need to pack along a 35 mm or a trendy 110 pocket camera loaded with actual film and batteries (no chargers and no long-life lithium). Said film was limited to say 24 exposures. 24. That's it. When they were used you were done. Your camera would then turn into Linda Blair from the Exorcist as it spun the reel back into its tiny plastic canister. It suffices to say you chose your shots wisely. You never did know how awesome or not-so-awesome your pictures were going to be. You didn't know who had slipped you the "bunny ears," who had wicked red-eye, who's head got completely Marie Antoinette-ed and who would have jowls that would put Jabba the Hut to shame. And, at least in my experience, you wouldn't know for days, if not weeks. You see, in my house exhausted film spools would go to a place I can only describe as a kind of film purgatory - housed in a counter-top catch-all until enough film accumulated to warrant a trip to the V&S. When our developments came back it was photo-overload. First you separate all the non-distinguishable pictures (there were always at least a few). Were they over-exposed? under? did we accidentally snap a shot of the inside of our purse? No one knew. Trash. The actual trash. Then you made two piles (because you always ordered "doubles"). One stack would be filed into an absolutely ridiculously large album with pages that made the awesome-est "ssshhhht" sound as you peeled the thin plastic top sheet from the sticky, not-at-all archival safe bottom sheet. The second stack was then divided amongst those pictured. There were always some good shots and always some bad shots. Usually the one in which X looked fabulous, Y looked like an inflamed Mandrill Baboon butt. And we accepted it. There was no delete option, no instant edits, no cross-process or lomo effects to disguise a blemish. The advancements in technology have all but eliminated baboon butt syndrome but in the process we may have lost something of the esoteric, of the humble and of the magic of true candid moments. My family (my mister, son, mom, dad, grandmother,brother, SIL, two nieces, nephew, and me) recently rented a house near Bar Harbor, Maine for our inaugural family vacation. The house was located on a a bay down an isolated stone path. It was a gorgeous and picturesque and all that jazz. We soon learned that twice a day, as the tide receded, the bay turned into a veritable mud pit...complete with mud crabs! Yeah, that made me super excited because as you may have already guessed I am a huge child. And a geeky one at that. The kids and I soon descended upon the poor unsuspecting crabs. Mission: catch us some crabs. And we did, too. We caught (and released) dozens of the little dudes. It was something we couldn't do in Ohio. It was messy and muddy and oh-so-much fun. What I didn't know is that Phil (my mister - we aren't married, but "boyfriend" weirds me out, so we will go with mister or man or just Phil, sometimes Philbert) was snapping pics of our mudscapades. It was morning, pre-caffeine, I was in desperate need of makeup, and what the what was I wearing?! Oh that's right... my Nerds t-shirt and wiener shorts. You guys are sooo lucky I am actually wearing a bra. My first reaction to the pictures was that of a cringe and the immediate urge to erase them. But then I paused. I reflected on the moment. These were memories we were making (incredibly muddy memories) and memories that I am lucky that Phil actually caught on film considering I usually have to harangue Phil to even pick up the camera. Why should I erase my presence from these memories? What gives me the right to delete pictures of my family's vacation? But someone might see me sans makeup with puffy morning eyes and vacation gut! Oh no! But guess what, Shannon, except for that occasional crazy baboon butt shot, these pictures are what you (GASP!) actually look like. Sometimes you get a bit jowl-y, sometimes your hair does that weird flippy thing, sometimes you are not wearing makeup. You do not walk around life posing for pictures. People already know what you look like. So then and there I made a resolution to stop (or at least cut down considerably on) deleting "bad" pictures.And it is a great feeling. A "this is me...if you don't like it, don't look" feeling. Because one day, like the recently unearthed school photos, I will look back at these "bad" pictures and realize they are the good ones. Real moments in my real life with the real family that I love.

The first thing I do when arriving at an acquaintance's house for the first time is look around for the books, the books, where do they keep...

Whangdoodle cross stitch chart designed by Alisa Okneas.  ATTENTION! Fabric and threads are not included! Cross stitch charts are intended for personal use only and can't be distributed any way. Стоимость доставки в (Другой город) Рассчитать Подождите идёт расчёт доставки... Characteristics ThemesFairy-tale Characters FabricBelfast 32, Linda 27, Cashel 28 Size134х169 st. Shades qty39 StitchesFr. knot, Backstitch, Full stitch, Half stitch Product typePDF instant download file Description Read How to Buy Cross Stitch Chart Finished size  134х169 stitches 39 shades of DMC threads are used including 4 blend Recommended fabric Zweigart Cashel 28, Linda 27, Belfast 32 Color-Symbol Chart in PDF format, instant download.

Most of my images are found on the internet via search engines. I am not the photographer or stylist and do not own the copywrite to any images. If you are the owner of an image and would like it removed then please e-mail me.

Let me clarify a bit. My best friend isn't really (that) mean and the term "bully" is a bit harsh, but she is most certainly a peer-pressure-er. Extremely motivated to live a new healthy, active lifestyle, she has recently transformed not only her body but her attitude. Her attitude towards, diet, exercise, and life. She was unhappy with her circumstances and she changed them. She is good at that...a true inspiration. So how was she so pushy and why am I so glad? You see, she sets goals. She sets them and she attains them. This is how she is so successful at, well everything. She sets small attainable goals along side her huge lofty goals so she never feels (too) discouraged. Goal for Spring 2013: complete a Warrior Dash. Not familiar? Well allow me to elaborate. According to the official Warrior Dash website, it is "the world's largest obstacle race series." Or to a loafer such as myself, the death-y death run. Not only a 5K (that's 3.10686 MILES, you guys!) but death-y obstacles such as, but not limited to the massive probably-5000-foot-tall-I'm-not-at-all-exaggerating-for-effect climbing wall, belly-crawl-under-BARBED-WIRE pit, squish-through-mud-under-BARBED-WIRE pit, and jumping over GD FIRE. FI...ER! The release form to even enter the event is a page-long indemnity clause basically stating that by participating in the Warrior Dash you will, in fact, die a painful and horrific death and any surviving loved ones have no legal recourse. SCARY STUFF. But none of these horrors deterred my best friend. She had something to prove. To the world? Perhaps. But mostly, I think, to herself. So you might be thinking. OK, this is all fine and dandy, where do you enter the picture here, Shannon. I will tell you. Sometime in the winter of 2012, this very friend and I attended our routine girls' night out. And sometime at this very girls' night this friend mentioned this very Death Run. This is where the details become a bit fuzzy and our stories start to conflict. I recall her asking if anyone would be interested in joining her mission to become a warrior. I recall a few "maybe's" and even one "yes." The problem...none of these responses were mine! How can I be so sure? Because a) I have an impeccable memory, b) I'm a fatty who hates to run and c) the only thing I hate more than running is running made more intense by ridiculous death-y obstacles. But somehow she was CONVINCED I had agreed to dash with her! I tried to explain rationally that she was, indeed, mistaken and that I had never agreed to something so incredibly preposterous. When that didn't work I attempted to weasel my way out. My calendar was distressingly barren. (Of all times!) She started hassling me. Every time we talked it was "you're still doing the Warrior Dash? Right?!" And I would be like "NO! I never said I would! You're CrAZy!!!" Every text, every Facebook interaction...dash, dash, DASH! But all I could see was death, death, DEATH!!! After a few months of constant torment I finally relented. She signed us (her, her beau, her kind of SIL, and me) up. We were official. It was non-refundable. I was in. Clearly we took previous races very very seriously. As the day approached my unease only magnified. Not only would I die, but I would die in a big ol' pile of mud and humility. I didn't want to die but most of all I didn't want to fail. This actually wouldn't be my first 5K (shocking, I know!) but it would be (or so I thought) my first serious 5K with serious runner people who guffaw at fatties like me who only enter a race for the t-shirt. I don't like to fail and I don't like to be guffawed at. Clearly we took this serious-er race much more serious. On the bus ride (parking wasn't on location...weird, right?) to the race, I made a failed attempt at starting a Hollywood-style sing-a-long of Patty Smyth's 1980's classic, The Warrior. I needed to put my game face on, but I guess that wasn't anyone else's jam. At the venue we geared up, took some obligatory pre-race photos, stretched a little and did some people watching. There WERE a lot of serious runner people, but lo and behold there were also a lot of novices. As our heat loaded into what I can only describe as a giant bull chute my nerves finally began to give way to adrenaline. We're off... Guffaw all you want, people...I did it and I have the giant bloody blister (battle wound) to prove it! I did it. I finished. Not only did I complete every obstacle, I kicked the obstacles asses. I still hate running. (I sorta wish they offered just the muddy fun stuff without so much of the running business.) But I DID IT. And I wasn't even the worst. Not far from it, but NOT last! And I at no time noticed any guffawing whatsoever. I spent so much energy predicting my own failure I never saw this as an opportunity to reach out of my own comfort zone. The whole experience made me realize so many things: I am capable of much much more than I give myself credit for. Mud is super duper fun. While super duper fun, mud is incredibly difficult to remove from clothes and shoes and hair and under areas. I look great in a Viking hat. Sometimes peer pressure is not such a bad thing. Sometimes your best friend knows you better than you know yourself.

Ages 8-12. 224 pages. Lexile® 620L. Middle Grade with ~243 words per page. Courage. Family. Siblings. Perseverance. Facing fears. Imaginary places

Handmade, custom candle in an upcycled Veil Brewing Whangdoodle bottle. All bottle edges are hand sanded and polished smooth. Many scents available to choose from. Shipping USPS 3 day Priority mail. All candles are carefully packaged, bubble wrapped, and secured.

I recently read a nice little blog post by a newlywed and self-professed country girl. The title: 10 Ways Marrying a Farmer Will Change Your Life. The premise: Farming is tough, being with a farmer is tough, but keep your chin up and love will carry you through (or some sunshine and rainbows stuff like that.) If you'd like you can read the article for yourself. For the most part her 10 points were right on target. You will never be able to make plans ever again, EVER. You will find weird stuff in your laundry. And I don't want to argue with her experience because it is just that--HER experience. I do, however, take slight issue with the rose-colored insinuation that all the rest of us poor, poor "farmer's wives" will be as happy-go-lucky about the soybeans sprouting in our washing machines. After all, they may be "feeding America," but we are the ones feeding them (and washing their dishes and doing their laundry). The following, I promise, is not a critique of her work. Rather it is MY experience with MY farmer as inspired by her blog post. In all fairness to readers who do not know me personally, I will preface this part with the confession that my farmer (Phil) and I are not married. We have, in fact, been living in sin since the fall of 2009. In 2011 we welcomed our junior farmer. Going on five years, I feel like I have somewhat of a handle on the reality of the "farm life." Our "junior farmer's" first ride in the combine Ten reasons living with a farmer is absolutely ridiculous. 10) You will know the neighborhood gossip before the local octogenarian card club members even roll out of bed at 3:30 in the AM. Who did what, who did who, and how much so and so makes annually. Do you care? Probably not...but your farmer does. 9) You will get really good at pretending you are listening/retaining information. Farming is a lost world to a great majority of society complete with its own unique vernacular. I can spout an endless line of farm jargon but I know what less than 25% of it actually means. 8) Whenever your farmer is driving in a rural area, you will fear for your life. Road farming. His field or the next guys, he can not refrain from devoting every inch of his attention span to the condition of crops instead of the road. My farmer still insists that he is the superior driver despite the fact that I have a spotless driving record and he has more near misses than Mr. Magoo. 7) The word "weekEND" is meaningless. In fact, so are the terms "vacation" "holiday" "family time" or anything else that alludes to the idea of a break from work. It takes a great amount of forward-thinking to run a successful farming operation. If you are not ahead of schedule you are behind. Some believe this is only the case during times of planting and harvest. Untrue. There are only three season for my farmer: busy, busier, and busiest. 6) If you would like them done, you will be responsible for all the household chores. ALL of them. Even the unsavory ones. Even the outside stuff. Mow, weed, trim trees, take out the trash, separate the recyclables, take care of the animals (if you have any)...it's all up to you. During the farmer's "busy" time (as opposed to "busier" and "busiest") you may get some reprieve. If you are like me you will enlist the help of your parents for your big jobs. My dad can't tell his baby "no." 5) People will ask you questions about your farmer's progress...and expect you to know the answer. "How's Phil doing on corn? Almost done? What's it testing?" I don't know. I never know. (See #9) It's not so much that I don't care, it's just that I have my own stuff keep track of. I am not a farmer. I am a librarian AND a mother. I need to keep track of my little dude's whereabouts and well being, along with our appointments and music class as well as our social calendar: holidays, birthdays, parties, et cetera. I work part-time and have an extremely full programming schedule. I also have my own likes and interests like keeping our garden and crafting and, well, blogging! I feel I should not be expected to immerse myself in his work any more than he should be expected to learn the Dewey Decimal system. 4) You will sometimes get lonely. As much stuff as I do have to keep me busy, I still sometimes get bummed out that it's midnight and I'm watching Family Guy reruns on Cartoon Network and enjoying a glass of wine by myself. Wine is good, my friends, but it is no substitute for your farmer. Peter gives farming a try, ends up starting meth lab. 3) You will live with an opressing fear your farmer is not coming home. A recent article referencing statistics from the Bureau of Labor, hi-lighted the top ten most dangerous jobs in America. Farmer took the number four spot being out-deadlied by only fisherman, loggers, and airplane pilots. This past year has been especially harrowing for my farmer. Early in the summer he was hit by a car in the bale wagon by no fault of his own. He was ping-ponged around the cab but sustained no serious injury. Later in the season a friend's pinky finger was severed when he was helping work on a piece of equipment. This fall the combine caught fire. Everyone was okay, however, on the way to take the combine to be repaired, my farmer was HIT BY A TRAIN! You read that correctly. Hit by a train. THAT, I can tell you is NOT a phone call you expect to receive. Ever. For clarity, he was completely unharmed. The combine had nearly cleared the tracks when it was hit by the train. He made the phone call. And as much as you would think I would freak the FREAK out, I didn't. I mean he was talking so I knew he wasn't dead. I am, at this point, a little terrified to answer his calls. He was cited for this incident (see Mr. Magoo reference in #6). Our insurance company hates us. 2) No matter where you go, no matter how far, your farmer WILL see someone he knows. He is equipped with some kind of freaky farmer-to-farmer radar. And a friendly wave hello simply won't do. Oh NO! He will pursue his target and mission "stand and talk about dirt and market prices for an eternity" will commence. If you are somehow able to get him to a completely foreign place for let's say a vacation (this is quite difficult as you saw in #7) he will use his farm-dar to seek out others like himself. In the absence of a familiar face, my farmer will start conversations with any willing party. On our recent trip to Maine I had to forbid him from stopping roadside to talk up a Mainer using a new fandangled bailer that struck his fancy. He actually suggested he stop to HELP BAIL! What?! No. Just no. Combine Ride. 1) Despite all of this you will stick around. This may be the most ridiculous part of all. Farmers are the worst partners. They are never around, they are extremely self-concerned, they forget about important things, and they espouse the personal hygiene habits of Pig Pen from the Peanuts. But they live with passion. A passion for what they do and who they are. Their passion is contagious. In my case, I haven't caught the farm bug, but instead a passion for what I do and what I love. One of these things just happens to be my farmer. I adore his passion and have the utmost respect for his work ethic. Most days he out of the house while I am still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The hours in his average work week nearly double that of most. He is a great provider. He is a great father. He is my farmer and I (as ridiculous as it is at times) choose this "farm-life." Great passion. Great sacrifices. Great love. Great amounts of wine. Great senses of humor. Great life.

If ever a duality existed that transformed me into a raving twitchy-eyed lunatic, it would be "The Holidays." Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve. Hustle, bustle, baking and making...wrapping and resolutions. I look forward to the magic of it all year but when it gets here I want it to GO AWAY! Sometime between Black Friday and Christmas Eve Eve I start to feel like I could crawl into a dark corner, rock back and forth while mumbling something about fruitcake, Cindy Lou Who and the three wise men. I have always loved making stuff and I have always reveled in the feeling of giving a handmade gift -- baking, card making, light sewing projects, or just the "I don't know what it is...but isn't it cute" kind of craft. When it comes to crafts I am admittedly a bit ADD. I have a serious, intervention-worthy addiction to Pinterest. Every do-it-yourself-for-less project and copy-cat recipe gives me palpitations. I want to try EVERYTHING! I want to make EVERYTHING! My jam-packed craft room (well half of a room) is testament to my (adult) life-long dilemma. I'm not a scrapper, I'm not a seamstress, I'm not a jewelry maker. I'm a junkie. My drug: crafts. A craft-aholic, if you will. I consistently have at least a half-dozen projects "in the works." During the holidays you can safely double or triple that number. My ultimate goal is go to an exclusive handmade Christmas where at least part of all my giftee's presents were made by hand. I made it closer this year than ever before. For my 2 1/2 year old son I made matching jammy pants, pillow and blanket. Satisfying his fondness for all things Sesame Street and my aesthetic predilection I found super sweet fleecy fabric in a pop-art Elmo print. (Hey, it's never too early to cultivate an appreciation for the arts or great parody!) My girl's night group received clear ornaments with a group picture and confetti stuffed inside, idea compliments of Pinterest. Another credit to Pinterest was the nail polish/sock combo with a label that reads "for your mistle toes!" for Phil's dad's girlfriend. OK, so that isn't so much handmade as hand-put-together but it's close. There were mason jars filled with baked goodies and mason jars filled with spa essentials. (Mason jars, yay!) This year's pièce de résistance (or maybe pièceS de résistance), however, were the infinity scarves I sewed for all the women in my family. My mom, grandma, SIL, two nieces, best friend, and best friend's daughter all received one. I was one busy little sewer. This idea, if you believe it, didn't come from Pinterest. I just sorta winged it and they turned out pretty awesome. I wanted a picture of all my special ladies lined up wearing their special gifts but that is just another thing I didn't accomplish... Find the directions for the awesomeness at the bottom of the page. Still with all these things accomplished and everyone else's gifts thoughtful, wrapped and under the tree I felt like a failure. I do every year. I want so badly for our Christmas to PERFECT. Every year I tell myself I need to start earlier to make it all happen. This year I started in October. And it helped. I did accomplish much more of the handmade than ever before. But it wasn't good enough. Here is picture of my late grandfather (on the right...that's my dad to the left.) at Christmas in (I think) 2008. Maybe I inherited my holiday aversion from him. We miss you, Pepe, not only at each holiday gathering but every day of the year. RIP It never is. The anticipation leading up to Christmas, the expectations of "Greeting Card Perfection" overshadow the joy I think I'm supposed to be experiencing. I want fresh fluffy snow covered ground. I want to decorate my tree with my mister and my son while A Charlie Brown Christmas plays on a loop. I want to hear Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting (yes, ONLY that duo!) singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" and Dean and Frank crooning "Marshmallow Winter" while I bake cut-out cookies. I want strings of lights that don't go out and rolls of tape that never run out one strip away from completing a wrap. I want to turn "A Christmas Story" on TBS at 8:00 PM Christmas Eve and leave it on until 8:00 PM Christmas Day. I want dinner with my family, eating deliciousness and getting drunk, uh, I mean getting awesome. I want everyone smiling and laughing and unwrapping memories. I want everyone to be there and everyone to be healthy. Childhood memories of holidays, for me, are idyllic. If my mom felt the same pressure for perfection as me she never let on. I remember holidays being simple and beautiful. Decorating the house for Christmas was always my absolute favorite part of the season - even more than Christmas morning. Almost all of our decorations were second-hand, either deals from one the auction sales my dad frequented or from my parent's childhood. (There was also the handmade stuff my brother and I made in school as well as the ornaments my artsy Aunt Connie gifted my mom. These were my favorite. Three of them adorn my family's tree now.) But it didn't matter how many Decembers that garland was hung - every year it was new and shiny. Every year it was possibilities and every year it was magic. Trimming the tree with my mom is my fondest childhood holiday memory. Christmas Eve my brother and I fixed a plate of my mom's homemade sweets (buckeyes, cut-outs, coconut balls and these crazy-awesome layer brownies...OMG!) accompanied by a glass of 2% for the big guy then hurried to bed to assure he didn't skip over our house. At approximately 4:00 AM one of us would sneak into the other's bedroom to find the other already awake then head down the hallway to Mom and Dad's room. Each of us would pick a side and terrorize my parents out of bed. As an adult, I now realize how cruel that early hour truly was. I now realize how much work it was for my mom (and dad....but especially Mom) to make these perfect memories for my brother and me. I now realize that I was a little punk for whining about having to wait while Mom's coffee brewed before we could start opening presents. I thoroughly enjoyed sifting through images of Christmas mornings past. According to these pictures my brother and I received every "must have" toy of the late 80's and early 90's, I really really loved puppy calendars, if you even think of touching my Talking Whiz Kid - I will murder you with my eyeballs, I was holy geezballs adorable and apparently pants were optional at my house. After all the unwrapping and holding-up-for-picturing and stocking-dumping was through we would have a little breakfast, clean up and get ready to go to my Mom's parent's (Mémé & Pépé's pronounced may-may and pay-pay) for Christmas dinner. And here we would enjoy some more holiday perfection with the whole fam-damily. When a few things don't align with my ideal holiday archetype (say Martina Mcbride superimposes her voice into a duet with Dean Martin for a horrible rendition of "Baby It's Cold" or half the stuff I ordered online hasn't arrived a week before Christmas or I realize I will not actually be able to have my "homemade Christmas" yet again) I start getting twitchy. When a few more things go wrong (say my son and I get some stomach crud that keeps us guessing which end to aim towards the toilet for days and then gets us blackballed from not one, not two, but three Christmas celebrations) I start questioning the whole season and what it means to me after all. Mix in a little SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder (yes, this is a thing) and that's when I feel like becoming a human burrito until May. So now a week into the new year I am sitting here reflecting. How did I get here - to the same "OMG, am I My son and I on the carousel at the Toledo Zoo's Lights Before Christmas. See the SPARKLE? glad THAT is over!" spot I was just one year ago? And truthfully I'm not really sure. What I do know is that this is the first year my son was old enough to really get into the whole spirit of things. I started just after Thanksgiving by bringing home a few books from work about Christmas: "Mary's Baby", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"...simple enough. We started talking about baby Jesus and Santa and being good and presents. The next week I brought home some Christmas special DVD's and you could really start to see it all "click" for him. He started to sparkle. The same sparkle I'm sure I had when my mom was the one sharing the story of the virgin birth and a big red jolly guy that for some reason watches you when you sleep. It's this sparkle that sustained me through another season of "what should I bring's" and "sorry your present hasn't come in the mail yet's" and "yes, we can switch the date of the party's." And it is this sparkle that has made me sway from usual lose weight--get organized--blah blah blah resolutions (I mean, I still want to get skinny and file stuff, but...) This year I resolve to enjoy life. I resolve to breathe. I resolve to not get so twitchy. I want my son to look back at his childhood with the same fondness that I do mine but I'm not that great at disguising my distress so I'm just going to have to be LESS stressed. Maybe by next Christmas I won't be such a basket case. Maybe by this time next year I will be asking myself why I didn't relax a long time ago. It's not going to be easy. I'm pretty uptight. That's why I'm making this the official New Year's resolution. That is why I'm declaring it publicly...so I'm held accountable. So here is to a new year of long hugs and even longer fuses. A year of being grateful for not just what we have but WHO we have and who we are and where we have been. A year of probably still starting a million projects but caring a little less if they ever come to fruition. A year of being present instead of worrying about presents. Here is to turning that year into a lifetime. Happy 2014 everyone!

If ever a duality existed that transformed me into a raving twitchy-eyed lunatic, it would be "The Holidays." Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve. Hustle, bustle, baking and making...wrapping and resolutions. I look forward to the magic of it all year but when it gets here I want it to GO AWAY! Sometime between Black Friday and Christmas Eve Eve I start to feel like I could crawl into a dark corner, rock back and forth while mumbling something about fruitcake, Cindy Lou Who and the three wise men. I have always loved making stuff and I have always reveled in the feeling of giving a handmade gift -- baking, card making, light sewing projects, or just the "I don't know what it is...but isn't it cute" kind of craft. When it comes to crafts I am admittedly a bit ADD. I have a serious, intervention-worthy addiction to Pinterest. Every do-it-yourself-for-less project and copy-cat recipe gives me palpitations. I want to try EVERYTHING! I want to make EVERYTHING! My jam-packed craft room (well half of a room) is testament to my (adult) life-long dilemma. I'm not a scrapper, I'm not a seamstress, I'm not a jewelry maker. I'm a junkie. My drug: crafts. A craft-aholic, if you will. I consistently have at least a half-dozen projects "in the works." During the holidays you can safely double or triple that number. My ultimate goal is go to an exclusive handmade Christmas where at least part of all my giftee's presents were made by hand. I made it closer this year than ever before. For my 2 1/2 year old son I made matching jammy pants, pillow and blanket. Satisfying his fondness for all things Sesame Street and my aesthetic predilection I found super sweet fleecy fabric in a pop-art Elmo print. (Hey, it's never too early to cultivate an appreciation for the arts or great parody!) My girl's night group received clear ornaments with a group picture and confetti stuffed inside, idea compliments of Pinterest. Another credit to Pinterest was the nail polish/sock combo with a label that reads "for your mistle toes!" for Phil's dad's girlfriend. OK, so that isn't so much handmade as hand-put-together but it's close. There were mason jars filled with baked goodies and mason jars filled with spa essentials. (Mason jars, yay!) This year's pièce de résistance (or maybe pièceS de résistance), however, were the infinity scarves I sewed for all the women in my family. My mom, grandma, SIL, two nieces, best friend, and best friend's daughter all received one. I was one busy little sewer. This idea, if you believe it, didn't come from Pinterest. I just sorta winged it and they turned out pretty awesome. I wanted a picture of all my special ladies lined up wearing their special gifts but that is just another thing I didn't accomplish... Find the directions for the awesomeness at the bottom of the page. Still with all these things accomplished and everyone else's gifts thoughtful, wrapped and under the tree I felt like a failure. I do every year. I want so badly for our Christmas to PERFECT. Every year I tell myself I need to start earlier to make it all happen. This year I started in October. And it helped. I did accomplish much more of the handmade than ever before. But it wasn't good enough. Here is picture of my late grandfather (on the right...that's my dad to the left.) at Christmas in (I think) 2008. Maybe I inherited my holiday aversion from him. We miss you, Pepe, not only at each holiday gathering but every day of the year. RIP It never is. The anticipation leading up to Christmas, the expectations of "Greeting Card Perfection" overshadow the joy I think I'm supposed to be experiencing. I want fresh fluffy snow covered ground. I want to decorate my tree with my mister and my son while A Charlie Brown Christmas plays on a loop. I want to hear Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting (yes, ONLY that duo!) singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" and Dean and Frank crooning "Marshmallow Winter" while I bake cut-out cookies. I want strings of lights that don't go out and rolls of tape that never run out one strip away from completing a wrap. I want to turn "A Christmas Story" on TBS at 8:00 PM Christmas Eve and leave it on until 8:00 PM Christmas Day. I want dinner with my family, eating deliciousness and getting drunk, uh, I mean getting awesome. I want everyone smiling and laughing and unwrapping memories. I want everyone to be there and everyone to be healthy. Childhood memories of holidays, for me, are idyllic. If my mom felt the same pressure for perfection as me she never let on. I remember holidays being simple and beautiful. Decorating the house for Christmas was always my absolute favorite part of the season - even more than Christmas morning. Almost all of our decorations were second-hand, either deals from one the auction sales my dad frequented or from my parent's childhood. (There was also the handmade stuff my brother and I made in school as well as the ornaments my artsy Aunt Connie gifted my mom. These were my favorite. Three of them adorn my family's tree now.) But it didn't matter how many Decembers that garland was hung - every year it was new and shiny. Every year it was possibilities and every year it was magic. Trimming the tree with my mom is my fondest childhood holiday memory. Christmas Eve my brother and I fixed a plate of my mom's homemade sweets (buckeyes, cut-outs, coconut balls and these crazy-awesome layer brownies...OMG!) accompanied by a glass of 2% for the big guy then hurried to bed to assure he didn't skip over our house. At approximately 4:00 AM one of us would sneak into the other's bedroom to find the other already awake then head down the hallway to Mom and Dad's room. Each of us would pick a side and terrorize my parents out of bed. As an adult, I now realize how cruel that early hour truly was. I now realize how much work it was for my mom (and dad....but especially Mom) to make these perfect memories for my brother and me. I now realize that I was a little punk for whining about having to wait while Mom's coffee brewed before we could start opening presents. I thoroughly enjoyed sifting through images of Christmas mornings past. According to these pictures my brother and I received every "must have" toy of the late 80's and early 90's, I really really loved puppy calendars, if you even think of touching my Talking Whiz Kid - I will murder you with my eyeballs, I was holy geezballs adorable and apparently pants were optional at my house. After all the unwrapping and holding-up-for-picturing and stocking-dumping was through we would have a little breakfast, clean up and get ready to go to my Mom's parent's (Mémé & Pépé's pronounced may-may and pay-pay) for Christmas dinner. And here we would enjoy some more holiday perfection with the whole fam-damily. When a few things don't align with my ideal holiday archetype (say Martina Mcbride superimposes her voice into a duet with Dean Martin for a horrible rendition of "Baby It's Cold" or half the stuff I ordered online hasn't arrived a week before Christmas or I realize I will not actually be able to have my "homemade Christmas" yet again) I start getting twitchy. When a few more things go wrong (say my son and I get some stomach crud that keeps us guessing which end to aim towards the toilet for days and then gets us blackballed from not one, not two, but three Christmas celebrations) I start questioning the whole season and what it means to me after all. Mix in a little SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder (yes, this is a thing) and that's when I feel like becoming a human burrito until May. So now a week into the new year I am sitting here reflecting. How did I get here - to the same "OMG, am I My son and I on the carousel at the Toledo Zoo's Lights Before Christmas. See the SPARKLE? glad THAT is over!" spot I was just one year ago? And truthfully I'm not really sure. What I do know is that this is the first year my son was old enough to really get into the whole spirit of things. I started just after Thanksgiving by bringing home a few books from work about Christmas: "Mary's Baby", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"...simple enough. We started talking about baby Jesus and Santa and being good and presents. The next week I brought home some Christmas special DVD's and you could really start to see it all "click" for him. He started to sparkle. The same sparkle I'm sure I had when my mom was the one sharing the story of the virgin birth and a big red jolly guy that for some reason watches you when you sleep. It's this sparkle that sustained me through another season of "what should I bring's" and "sorry your present hasn't come in the mail yet's" and "yes, we can switch the date of the party's." And it is this sparkle that has made me sway from usual lose weight--get organized--blah blah blah resolutions (I mean, I still want to get skinny and file stuff, but...) This year I resolve to enjoy life. I resolve to breathe. I resolve to not get so twitchy. I want my son to look back at his childhood with the same fondness that I do mine but I'm not that great at disguising my distress so I'm just going to have to be LESS stressed. Maybe by next Christmas I won't be such a basket case. Maybe by this time next year I will be asking myself why I didn't relax a long time ago. It's not going to be easy. I'm pretty uptight. That's why I'm making this the official New Year's resolution. That is why I'm declaring it publicly...so I'm held accountable. So here is to a new year of long hugs and even longer fuses. A year of being grateful for not just what we have but WHO we have and who we are and where we have been. A year of probably still starting a million projects but caring a little less if they ever come to fruition. A year of being present instead of worrying about presents. Here is to turning that year into a lifetime. Happy 2014 everyone!

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Laura Candler explains the benefits of reading aloud to students regardless of age. Read about book suggestions and tips for effectively reading aloud.

I am in the middle of reading The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles with my 4th graders, and they just finished designing their own Whangdoodle scrappy caps this week. It was a surprisingly successful craftivity and brought me unexpected … Continue reading →

Photo by Catriona Shatwell ~ Cat Art.. Available to buy here.. www.made2measuremirrors.co.uk/Printed-Canvas-The-Old-Road... The Old Road ~ Tree Tunnel - Ballynoe, County Down, Northern Ireland. © Cat-Art ~ Cat Shatwell. Planet Earth Daily Photo - planetearthdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/06/old-road.html The old road that leads to a ancient stone circle, a beautiful & magical place, Ballynoe, Co.Down, Ireland. Ballynoe Stone Circle in Co. Down A very large circle of over 50 stones up to 1.8 metres high (though many smaller) encloses a space about 35 metres across. It was built as a counterpart to the circle at Swinside in Cumbria. In the E half of the circle is a long low mound which contained large kists at the E and W ends. This mound obliterated two shortlived cairns built after the circle was constructed, in what Aubrey Burl describes as "prehistoric bigotry and vandalism [which] ruined this magnificent monument. " Three pairs of stones stand outside the circle at varying distances, the nearest pair at the W side forming a kind of entrance 2.1 metres wide. Many of the stones in this circle were originally shoulder to shoulder, as at Lough Gur, at Swinside in Cumbria and La Menec in Brittany. A portalled entrance is aligned on the setting sun half-way between midwinter and midsummer (around March 21st), and the setting sun at winter solstice seems to slide down between the Mountains of Mourne which form a fine backdrop to the circle. All photographs in my photostream are copyrighted © Cat-Art Please don't use my images on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved. Follow me on Facebook... www.facebook.com/DoublevisionImages The Old Road on Facebook ~ www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=139191989552773&set=a...

There are a great many Modern and Contemporary artists whose work I love, but I thought I’d focus on someone who is a bit unknown… certain less known than he ought to be… and the fact that he was a local boy that made good didn’t hurt matters none. Charles Burchfield (April 9, 1893 - January 10, 1967) was born in Ashtabula, Ohio and was raised by his widowed mother in a small house is Salem, Ohio which has since been converted into a museum. Burchfield mused over the possibility of becoming a nature writer in high school. He was inspired not only by nature, but also by the descriptions of nature by others. His favorite writers included the English Romantics, Emerson, Thoreau, and Willa Cather. Burchfield eventually focused his own creative outlet on painting. His passion for writing was limited to writing short, poetic, descriptive pieces for the painting to be mounted on the back of the frame. The hallucinatory or “visionary” element in Burchfield’s work may be traced in part to an episode of nervous exhaustion in 1911, while still in high school. Determined to record all the area’s flowering plants that spring, he stayed up far into the night painting blooms, and had a bout of what was referred to at the time as “brain fever,” which might now be termed mania. He seems to have learned to use it as source of energy and inspiration. Burchfield attended my alma mater, the Cleveland Institute of Art, then known as the Cleveland School of Art, from which he graduated in 1916. He acknowledged the profound effect on his own development by a teacher at the CIA, the artist Henry Keller, who stressed the merits of watercolor, Burchfield’s media of choice: -Henry Keller, Beach Scene Burchfield painted constantly… even obsessively… from 1915, in spite of working full time in summer and attending art school. He routinely sketched on walks to and from home at lunchtime and completed paintings based on these sketches at night. Half of his lifetime output of paintings was produced while living in Salem from 1915 to 1917. The fact that so many paintings of this period were depictions of scenes visible from the windows of his boyhood home prompted Henry Adams, curator of drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, to call it “the most important house in American art history.” In 1921, Burchfield became engaged to Bertha Kenreich and moved to Buffalo, New York. The couple married the following year, and Burchfield went to work for the H.M. Birge wallpaper company. In 1925, Burchfield had moved from Buffalo to the adjacent suburb of West Seneca, New York, spending the rest of his life in the rural neighborhood of Gardenville. In 1928, with a fifth child on the way, Burchfield approached artist-gallerist Frank Rehn to question the possibility of whether he could afford to leave his “day job” and paint full-time, selling through the Rehn gallery in New York. Burchfield’s early… and late… works have what has been described as a hallucinatory or visionary quality. Common objects and nature glows with a magical aura. -Childhood’s Garden -Moonlight over the Arbour -Sunlight in the Forest -Sun Setting in Black Smoke -Bright Sun -Noontide in Late May -Twilight Moon -Moonlight Through Sunflowers Among Burchfield’s influence one would almost assuredly have included William Blake: Burchfield shared many things with Blake including an abiding belief in the presence of the spiritual in nature… and even the mundane, a love of watercolor, and a horror of industrialization which he found dehumanizing. Blake’s follower, Samuel Palmer, points even more toward Burchfield’s views of nature: Burchfield was certainly exposed to artists such as Blake and Palmer during his stint in art school. He also would have been introduced the American Modernists such as Marsden Hartley: Arthur G. Dove: John Marin: Joseph Stella: … and Edward Hopper… who became a close friend… and certainly influenced Burchfield’s later “Middle Period” works: Prompted in part by the need to provide financially for his ever-growing family, Burchfield switched his focus from 1919 to 1943 to more “sell-able” pictures for the New York art market. These depicted small-town and industrial scenes that rapidly earned him a reputation within the American Scene or Regionalist movement, and he was able to wholly support himself through his painting from 1928. One critic commented that Burchfield was “Edward Hopper on a rainy day,” while Life Magazine named him one of America’s 10 greatest painters in 1936. The paintings of small-town America and the industrial scenes were for quite some time the images most often associated with Burchfield’s name… and these paintings can be quite powerful… often exhibiting a solidity uncommon in watercolor… and a real sense of drama: -Night of the Equinox -Ice Glare -Looking through a Bridge -Pyramid of Fire -Rainy Night, Buffalo -Big Coal Possibly as the result of a mid-life psychological crisis, Burchfield switched gears in 1943, returning to his roots in painting intensely visionary images of nature. These paintings tended to be larger than his earlier nature-bound works and employed all the skills he had mastered over the years. Burchfield’s hallucinatory renditions of nature were captured in swirling strokes… sometimes suggestive of Van Gogh… and increasingly brilliant colors and exaggerated forms. In his writings he expressed an aim to depict an earlier era in the history of human consciousness when man saw gods and spirits in nature. Art historian and critic John Canaday predicted in a 1966 New York Times review that the grandeur and power of these pictures would be Burchfield’s enduring achievement. -Two Ravines -November Sun -Clover Field -Sultry Moon -Orion in December -Sunspots -Clouds over the Mountain -Dandelion Seed Heads and Moon -The Moth and the Thunderclap -Summer Solstice -Gateway to September -Dandelion Seed Heads and Moon II -Sun and Rocks -Moon through the Young Sunflowers Burchfield died January 10, 1967 and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in the Village of East Aurora, New York. Jerry Saltz, art critic for the Village Voice, has suggested that “Consciously or not, recent painters like Peter Doig… Gregory Amenoff… Kurt Lightner… …are channeling bits of Burchfield’s visionary vibe.” I also find myself quite intrigued by the similarities between Burchfield’s work and that of his contemporary, the English painter, Paul Nash (11 May 1889 – 11 July 1946): Even the titles of these last two paintings above (November Moon and Landscape of the Vernal Equinox) suggest Burchfield.

The students used the website, buildyourwildself.com, to create their own wild creatures. Then, they wrote a paragraph describing their animal's unique adaptations.

This resource is meant to go along with the novel, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, by Julie Andrews Edwards. The novel may be one of my absolute favorites, merely for the excitement of an adventure and the imagination! It is like another Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adventure! I used this book as a read aloud. We used the “Whangdoodle guide” periodically, such as when we got to a new character. I made this resource for my students’ ability to create, imagine, use details from the text, and practice summarizing as a class. Includes: - Character Analysis - Summarizing - Finding the Theme - Creating Your Own Character - Plot Layouts