winding down

My current class is winding down, tomorrow is the last day. How sad! I have learned all sorts of nifty tricks for cartooning and such and have discovered that charcoal is not my friend. Here's today's big project in class....sigh...

Next week is paper writing and catch up week (the casa is a DISASTER!) and then the week after that is jury duty and then the week after that more school. Goodness, do I need a breath or what?

This Friday!

Anyone out there up for a visit to a 30 Minute Gallery show? My current week-long intensive class is called Foundations of Teaching Art and we are having a showing of our collective chaos! Let me know if you think you want to join us (there will be snacks!). I would love some company as the mister has to work...sigh.

Juice!

The grapes are ever so slowly coming in and the mister has already made two batches of concord grape juice! We have even stocked up on cheesecloth so hope to be in the purple stuff all month long. It's a good thing too as the blackberries are winding down and our sweet tooth needs tapping. Last year when he tried making grape juice from our concords he couldn't figure out how to get the juice to purple up. Praise be the internet and now we know! The juice is so so so so sweet and a rich vibrant purple AND it is pulpy! We a-go-gos lurve our pulp! Yesterday morning we had a delightful breakfast out in the garden, flies be damned. We were early enough that they weren't attacking just yet. As we sat in the shade of the early morning we were treated to a jamboree of nature that one assumes does not party in the city. There was a pair of morning doves building a nest (stupid birds are yet again going to be fodder for the falcon), hummingbirds zipping about, big black bumblebees nuzzling the pumpkin blossoms, angry mocking birds letting out their warning cry and then, then...the coolest thing...a pair of woodpeckers! They were hanging out in the garden, swooping here and catching bugs there and they were large and spotty and made so many different cries it was the neatest thing. Oh and the japanese beetles are back as well as a freaky newcomer to the delight of the ants. Something bigger, browner and ickier than aphids, these guys were HUGE and prickly and it was like a milking contest for our ants. Sadly, we lost a tomato plant to them but hopefully we'll get a few more oh and it looks like the cucumber is done as well. I am going to miss my lunches of tomato and cucumber sandwiches. Next up is fall lettuce, carrots and hopefully snap peas. Soon, we will have a small handfull of tangerines and next year we'll have a good dose of blood oranges. Sometimes, living in the seed can be just as charming as the country. Sometimes.This week I am off to yet another weeklong intensive. This one is called the foundations of teaching art to children.. I can't wait! Happy August everyone!

What a week!

I'm at the end of a week long intensive class at my school. The class is on emergent curriculum As defined by John Dewey and our amazing professor has us crawling around the floor tapping into our wee selves. We have been three year olds, six year olds, nine year olds and well...all year olds. We've learned problem solving as children, group projects as children and we've pulled our own childhood and adult experiences to bring to the table as we immersed ourselves in emergent curriculum. It has bee an amazing trip and I am sad to see the week come to an end. I cannot even put into words all that I have learned but I must figure out how as I need to type, type, type a whooper of a paper and a self-evaluation for this class. I had better get off my bum as next week I will be in another week long intensive. That one will be on the foundations of teaching art to children. I can't wait! Seriously, my school? It is the best.

Emergent Curriculum in Action

What I do in class all day. Don't you wish you could join me? My school is awesome!

thirsty?

It's been a super hot week here at the wee casa. A quick hop back, Ms. Alicia was all about the iced tea and was thinking of stirring up some of the Thai kind which promptly reminded me that I had some Thai tea in the kitchen. I think I may have posted about this before but being that I lurve me some thai iced tea, I thought I'd do it again. Once the bag of tea is done, I will be experimenting with black tea and spices. The orangey-ness of the thai tea freaks me and the mister out just a tad. For now, I bring to you, funtabulous pictures of thai iced tea, scrumdillydilly style...we double brew it in the coffeemaker then add a simple syrup and some half n' half...oh and ice, of course!