the mud

My brother taught me to play with guns.  Not really.  And in this day and age I really shouldn't joke about that.  I had used a rifle twice before shooting skeet and thought that was my claim to fame, shooting skeet in southern Virginia, but I recently learned how to use a nail gun and now I'm much more proud of that.  I thought I'd share the process.  After we finished painting and hanging pictures in the hallway, we realized it lead to a dead end at the top of the stairs. I had seen some seemingly simple ways of dressing up walls with bead board and decided to give it a try, well really to enlist my brother to teach me how to use a nail gun to put up wooden boards.  I wanted to create an effect of old board and batten.  Here is a link to my inspiration site, Thrify Decor Chick , where she explains step by step how to do this.  I had estimated the cost of this project at about $75 (and we had a gift card from Ch...

Yesterday, besides being just beautiful weather-wise, was a spring-spiring day!  We took bikes to the Delaware Canal State Park and rode through some beautiful nature/history/houses - all my faves!  That and family time and physical activity made it a picture perfect excursion.  It made me want to garden and get out all the rakes and shovels and get busy.  And then get out the paints and ladders, and maybe build a little shack out back, and maybe a stone wall and then maybe a horse farm and small canal....  Just kidding! This was the view from Sunday: This low bridge reminded me of a song we sang in elementary school, "On the Erie Canal," except that I never knew what they meant when we sang, "Low down on the Erie Canal."  Now I know - gives new meaning to 'prior knowledge.' There were beautiful yellow buttercups at the end of this stone staircase - what a pretty spot. Old houses on the canal. A Parade of Daffodils! Love the old stone home with random...

These days everyone is talking about applying the business model to schools.   Some advocate that if people looked at the bottom line, basically what a school produces, the school and teachers would be more accountable and this would make schools more competitive.  While this seems to make sense, business minded people are usually focused on products and profits, not people.  While customer service is championed by certain individuals, the overall focus in business is on the success of the company, and is not always dependent on customer satisfaction, despite what their motto may be.  The argument of the schools, of course, is that we can handle it ourselves, thank you very much.  But what people are forgetting is that the schools are already operating from a business-type model: the factory.  No matter where I go there are bells that ring at regular intervals alerting everyone to stop what they are doing and move onto the next activity in the product...

The first time I heard  George Winston I was about 18 and had just gone off to college.  I was exposed to new things everywhere, some of which I quickly moved away from, some which have become an integral part of who I am, but this music has been a constant since I first heard a friend play his music in the dorm.  We studied Biology and Chemistry to his music my entire freshman year.  I can still picture the cassette tapes we had back then. I had a cassette of his when I delivered my first child.   I've now been to three GW concerts, one with my mother, one with my sister, and this past week I took my daughter.  22 years later I still enjoy listening to the sounds but especially his ability to push the music.  George Winston uses such force in emphasizing certain notes - like hidden messages speaking to you.  So I have been thinking a lot about pushing. This morning I had to push myself out of b...

There is a sign in my family room that says, "Winter - A calming white renewal."  This winter did not feel like a calming white renewal.  It felt like an anxious awaiting.  I thought we were waiting for snow, but none came.  Each week I anticipated the weather forecast for a sign that all was well with with world, that there would be snow.  After all it snows in winter.  I really needed to see that snow, to see that beauty. This winter was out of the ordinary, not extraordinary in the awesome sense, just out of the ordinary, and honestly it left us all feeling a little out of the ordinary. Everyone in our house got some sort of sickness, which was unusual. No healing days of school cancellations came to calm us and renew us. It was like the groundhog woke up day after day and said, no winter, no spring.   Snow makes us pause, catch our breaths, and look.  Not having that opportunity made it feel... rushed.  We never got to slo...

I've been debating whether or not to show our ugly bathroom.  Honestly I am so embarrassed by just how ugly it is and each day it gets worse.  So before I chicken out again, I'm going to bear all, well not all exactly, but a lot more than I am comfortable with.  And while I'm at it, I'm sending it in to HGTV for the Ugliest Room Ever in hopes that we can have it made over.  Do you see any redeeming features?  What would you do with a bath like this?  Send it in to HGTV, right?  (Or at least not show everyone just how bad it is... ) Wish us luck... Do you think we'll win? This picture shows the missing plastic ceiling tile that exposes the attic floor beams!  Have you ever seen a bigger medicine cabinet?  It's a trick - only the side mirrors open for storage. While I see this pattern everywhere nowadays, it's old and cracked. Here's the shower.  Lovely.

This week is definitely taking on its own theme, with all these little notes about paper.  But in the meanwhile, I am cooking up something big for next week, adding trim work to the upstairs hallway, so stay in touch! Paper is so fun.  I think it's one of the reasons I became a teacher.  I just love playing with all things paper.  I could spend hours in the stationery store.  A few years ago at a conference at Penn State, I visited the bookstore and found all these new "teacher toys" for school:  blank hardbound books, highlighter tape, rainbow paper on rings, and tons of other goodies.  Here is one little notebook I love that sports the logo good thinking ! I'm afraid two of my children have the same addiction, one doesn't stop making paper airplanes and the other just loves paper.  This morning on his WAY OUT THE DOOR, my son stopped to grab a piece of paper out of the printer to MAKE AN AIRPLANE to fly on his way to school.  (...