And - Spring!

Why I love living in Northern California in February...

Snow

My Funny Valentines

So, I don't have much of an emotional investment in Valentine's Day as an adult holiday, but it is one of my favorite kid holidays. I think it's because Bridget and Kate get very excited before Valentine's Day about planning what they are going to GIVE to people, rather than what they are going to GET, unlike birthdays and Christmas, and even Tooth Fairy days (digression- Bridget lost 3 teeth in 2 days last week. The Tooth Fairy was apparently caught off-guard by this unexpected windfall and experiencing a bit of a cash flow crisis, because she had to make two trips to cover the second re-up). Anyway, Bridget spends a lot of time on Valentines. For the past two years, she has given each of her classmates a small stuffed animal from her collection, each selected specifically for its recipient and given a hand-made name tag. This year, however, too many of the less popular stuffed animals were survivors of Noodle-attacks, so she had to come up with another plan. The planning coincided with a renewed interest in knitting, and so Bridget decided that she would knit squares and decorate them with iron-on patches for each classmate. True, in the end I helped with the knitting and the ironing, but it still warmed my heart to watch her deliberating over which color yarn and which patch each classmate would like best. I know, I know, Marcel Mauss is gagging right now, elementary school Valentine's Day is just a great pink Potlatch, but still.

Oh Yeah.

Green Screen

Kate's class went on a field trip to the local weather report studio, and learned a lot about TV (though perhaps not so much about weather, which is what they are actually studying). If you look closely, you can see that they are all standing in front of the forcasted days of the week, on the monitor...

Happy Birthday, Alison!

Ok, I admit it. In the past, I have been late in calling or sending emails, and sometimes I've probably missed it altogether. But because I truly am grateful for the 20ish years that you've been a part of my life, I decided to do something different this year. So a few of your other friends and family and I got together to get you the one thing you really really wanted - A New President!

Welcome to my closet, here's a pair of black Mary Janes.

I thought about hanging them in trees, but it's too damn cold outside (unless you live in Chicago, in which case, it's positively balmy and I'm just lazy).











And some red ones too, just for kicks.