I love bookstores!

We went to the bookstore today. For me that is a bit like going to the fabric store. I love it. I could spend HOURS just wandering, browsing, getting ideas, touching things. I truly feel the need to touch things in the book store and the fabric store. (Not sure why but it feels like a compulsion.)

I have found that I need to make lists now when I go shopping. I used to be able to keep quite a bit in the noggin', but I now have Mommy brain so things just don't stay in there like they used to. So on the list for the bookstore was - a reference with more pictures of animals - found one on sale right when we walked in!, a sign language dictionary - check, a version of The Princess and the Pea to go with the quilt I am making (although this is not needed until x-mas) no luck, and a copy of A Short History of Women.

The first three items were for bug, she is absorbing so much info we really need to keep up the input! The last on the list is our next book for Book Club. I better get on it as the meeting is next Tuesday night. I can't wait. I'll let you know how the book is once I finish.

Ouchie teeth

My little one, bug, is about 14 months old. And she is cutting teeth. Her baby molars are coming in and it just doesn't feel good. The best solution we have found so far is frozen grapes. When nothing else seems to make her feel any better I pull out the bag and she goes to town.

I end up cutting them in half before they go in the freezer and that makes it a little easier for her. And I usually wait until that point where you aren't quite sure you want to eat them any more. You know that point - some look a little more sad than others, some are a little too squishy, but they aren't completely gone. In the freezer they go and the come out as little globes of frozen goodness. Try it - for yourself or your little one. Yummy!

Great idea for class project

My sister is so clever. She was in charge of her son's Fundraising Project last year. The class had just learned how to stitch - so cool that they teach that in elementary school. So she got a lot of different colored burlap and yarns and assigned each child a letter or two. The teacher created a more detailed design to be used as the center panel. Then she came over to my house all panicked because she didn't really know how she was going to put it all together. We figured it out and here it is -



It says "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all." The inspiration for the piece was 'borrowed' from a Pottery Barn Kids poster. (Original design is I think by Rebecca Puig of Sugarboo Designs and the poem is by Emily Dickinson.) A nice choice for Hope Elementary, don't you think? And a nice project for the kids. Well done MLR.