A Lesson on Taste Buds

There's not much funnier than the faces made by kids sucking on lemons.




Mrs. Smith thinks I planned a science lesson on taste buds for purely academic reasons.

Little does she know that it was really for pure entertainment value. :)


This, by the way, is the same Mrs. Smith after beating out our little kids in guessing the number of taste buds each person carries about in his or her mouth.

Mrs. Smith holds a math degree. The kids didn't stand a chance.

But from the looks of it, she probably didn't get to fully enjoy the spoils of her victory.

hehe


In case you're wondering, the correct answer is 5 million.

Happy Pi Day!

To all my favorite math geeks.

Fire Chief

Ken Brillant is the new fire chief in Brunswick, Maine.






That information wouldn't normally interest me, seeing as how Brunswick is a ways away from Winthrop and I've only been through the town a time or two.

However, Ken's aunt is my friend Cynthia, and she is a tender-hearted woman who likes to celebrate anything and everything. She looked for a card to send him to offer her congratulations and couldn't find anything suitable, so she turned to me for help.

That was her first mistake. hehe

I suggested that we use the fabulous picture of her nephew from a newpaper article about his promotion and she agreed.

So here is the result. I like it. I hope he does too.

This Apple Didn't Fall Far From My Tree

For as long as I can remember, my mom has occasionally mentioned how I used to walk around the house on my toes as a child.

My firstborn showed no sign of this trait, and I assumed it had been lost in our bloodline for good. You can imagine my great pleasure, then, when Jed began recently walking about on his toes, with absolutely no prompting on my part.

My mom will be so proud. :)

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again

We received the cutest thank you card from our friend Debbie in Ohio after Christmas.

Jed had sent her a moose ornament that he made, and she took a picture of it hanging on her tree and made a thank you card with it.






I liked the idea so much I made a couple of thank you cards for Jed like it.



Just as I was ready to pat myself on the back for my cleverness (regardless of how much the idea was borrowed - I have to grab my pats wherever I can), I had a sudden flash of memory (which occurs less and less frequently these days) that I had actually done something similar before.



I started looking through my photo files and found it.

Pretty cute, hunh?



I wasn't much into color or patterns back then, but when you have a baby that yummy, who needs it? :)

The disturbing part of all this is how completely I had forgotten that I had ever made this card, so as to think it was a completely new idea.

Getting old is certainly not helpful for the addle-brained.

Of Fairy Dust and Pixie Glue

Remember the embarrassing tale I told recently about my propensity for accidents? And how I attempt to make them all better with appropriate gift baskets?

This is the card that should have been tucked into the car repair gift basket in that post.


It would have been, too, if I hadn't been too sick to make it at the time. What little creativity I have gets eaten up by germs pretty quickly.

This first pic is the best shot of the card, but it's hard to see that the little thing in the groom's hand is a side view mirror.




This is a better angle to see that what he is holding is a part which was confiscated from one of my son's toy cars.




Hopefully the car will get "lost" in the upcoming move and my son will never find out about this particular accident. hehe

Printed inside the card is the following verse, adapted from "My Little Lovely" by The Moody Blues...

Fairy tales sometimes come true
Use fairy dust and pixie glue
Then all the love will stick to you
Like your mirror, tried and true

Hitting the Jackpot

It's always exciting when I see Jed coming in from getting the mail with a manila envelope in his hands.


Today was even more exciting when I saw TWO manila envelopes...
and then, lo and behold, a business envelope addressed by hand also (always a good sign!).

When I saw that the two manila envelopes were from artist friends, I could hardly believe my good fortune. It is the sweetest thing in the world to receive something that required someone else's time.





Tracy sent the cutest pins and pin cushion I've ever seen, along with pages from an old hymnal to use as backgrounds for collage. Look at those pins - they're like little flowers! Perfect from a friend in California.




Debbie sent some tags she dyed and then sprayed with different colors of Glimmer Mists, so I could see what the sprays look like. And what they look like is gorgeous! All of these tags were dyed the same...then the one on the left was sprayed with Olive Vine, the one in the middle with Antique Brass, and the one on the right with Patina. You can really see the sheen on the Antique Brass tag in the middle, but the picture doesn't do it justice.

The plastic canvas bookmark was from Brad's grandmother in North Carolina, along with a sweet letter. Staying in touch with her has been one of the nice things to come out of a very painful time.

It's always good to hear from friends!

While We Were Sick

The drugs haven't kicked in like I was hoping they would already.

So it's been another uneventful day.

Thought I would share with you some of the things we've been doing to pass the time the last three weeks, since I started with this mess...like taking pictures from the couch of Jed looking over the loft railing.

Or Jed looking over the stair railing.

{Don't you just love the way the backlight showcases his ears}


And the piece de resistance - the Staley store, open 24/7, locally owned and operated.

Come shop with us and save!

It's a Hard Knock Life

Sorry for the pitiful recent posts...it's hard to be witty/
amusing/
insightful when you feel like a train wreck.

{As if I was any of those things on my best days}

All should be well shortly, though, as I am the proud new owner of drugs.

Have you ever given any thought to what it would have been like to live before modern medicine? I have, and it's not pretty.