Even the Fashionesta

Find a dress for my role as Mother of the Bride. .

The Bride’s Requirments:
Colors : red and ivory
Bride in a long dress, bridesmaids in short frocks
5pm Outdoor ceremony – in Miami Beach – in August
Indoor reception, sit down dinner

My Requirements:
Knee length skirt (did the mini skirt thing in my youth)
No spaghetti straps or low cut necks
No pale pastels, no sofa cover size flowers and no sequins or bugle beads
The Mother of the Bride really should not wear black. We are thrilled about the groom, black might send the wrong message

No more than 3 numbers to the left of the decimal point of the price

Prior to my arrival the Head Fashionesta at Nordstrom pulled 4 outfits.
I tried them all on. She rejected them all. . One thing I love about the Fashionestas at Nordstrom, they won’t sell you something just for the sake of their commissions.

We commenced to walk the store. Twice. From top to bottom. And bottom to top.

2 hours later: Big Sigh. Well, I’ll keep my eyes open, hopefully I’ll find something when the things come in for our big Anniversary Sale next month. "

Stay tuned.

Fleas for Fun & Profit

We had a mild winter, a short spring and then summer arrived with a vengeance. We are now experiencing 90 % humidity a 105 heat index and fleas. They appear to have an immunity to Advantage and FrontLine so it was time to lock up the cats and bring out the flea bombs.

Sunday morning appeared to be the optimum since My Beloved had a golf game. My Beloved is Fragile Flower, who is allergic to everything, including residual flea bomb scent.

I locked the cats on the upstairs balcony, turned off the Air Conditioner, sprung the bombs and fled the house. The plan was to hole up at Waldo’s Coffee House and linger over a latte and their Whi-Fi.

On the way I spotted a garage sale sign (I don’t normally go garage sailing on Sundays). Of course I had to check it out. It was a bust but on the way back I passed another, newly opened sale.

It yielded 4 textbooks, 2 other books with decent prices and ranks, 3 vintage calculators (very ebayable) and a Melissa & Doug wooden floor puzzle.

$200 in book inventory + E-bay stock! Wish that fleas were always so profitable!

I Love LA

A golfing connection won my beloved a weekend in LA (airfare and hotel accommodations for two). And very nice accommodations they are too – a suite in the Westin Bonaventure in downtown LA.

We were delighted with this little windfall since Daughter #1 lives here and we have yet to visit (plans were derailed by her sister’s engagement) . My Beloved had the added delight of playing Pacific golf and took off at O dark thirty for a course in Newport Beach. Daughter #1 made plans for us to tour the Hollywood Cemetery. I have a fondness for graveyards.

Daughter #1 works for American Apparel as a web site designer – some people speak in tongues, she speaks in HTML code. Interesting place, American Apparel. Large, sprawling factory in the Warehouse District, gritty, scruffy and bursting with energy. They pride themselves their “Made in America” clothes and the fact they pay their workers above minimum wage (and provide benefits).

Perfect fit for Daughter #1 who has no tolerance for anything artificial or pretentious.
She can wear what she wants, the company has a social conscience and she has health insurance (the latter a great relief to her mother).

Daughter #1also shares a classic, Hollywood stucco duplex with 2 roommates. Funky, diverse neighborhood on the cusp of Little Ethiopia. Public transportation, shops within walking distance, sidewalks, small gardens and a sense of neighborhood.

It’s rather an odd feeling to realize one’s children are all grown up and making their way in the world in a successful manner. I rather like it!

What I've Been Doing

With a great shock I realized it's been over a month since I posted.
Here are some reasons why:

1. Selling many books - which means packing said books
2. End of school AR trips, parties and sleepover
3. Being on the interview team for our new principal
4. Kids being wild in the halls, which makes for tiring days
5. Scouting for books to sell.
6. The After School Blogging Class
7. A rash of after school meetings

The 3 day Memorial Day Weekend seems to have semi rejuvinated me - and there are only 3.5 more days of school for the kids!

The TAKS Results are In

And We Are

Exemplary !!!!!!!

13 Reasons Today Should of Been Saturday

1. Alarm didn't go off 2. Forgot to put coffee in the coffee pot last night. No matter how state of the art the programmable coffee pot is , it does need actual coffee in it to operate. 3. Stopped at Starbucks for the necessary caffeine fix. Put cup in cup holder. Turned a corner. Cup fell out of cup holder spilling the latte in the process. Will have to clean floor mats when I get home 4. My new pants are to tight. Must stop eating sweets. Schools are not a good place to diet. 5. I was convinced it was Friday. It's Thursday. Still have tomorrow to get through. 6. The 3 headed monster known as the TAKS test rears its ugly head next week 7. The cat tried to use the litter box and missed. 8. The washing machine has temperament. I suspect it will soon become an ex-washing machine. 9. The hot, muggy summer weather has arrived with a vengeance. I fear record highs are in our future. 10. The batteries to the library laptops are giving up the ghost. No funds to replace them. 11. Teachers are very, very tired and tempers are short. 12. It's about time for a new laptop but I've not heard anything good about Vista. 13. The kids are wild and woolly and so ready for school to be over. So are we. On a positive note - there are only 24 more days of school!

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The Sins Of The Father Afflict Unto The Several Generations

I've been at my school 16, going on 17 years now (I can hardly believe that myself). I'm now teaching the children of the children. It says a great deal about how early our kids become parents if in 16 years I'm already teaching the second generation.

Much of this second generation isn't stellar. I guess that's what happens when children give birth to children.

We have the child of gang member. Dad was gunned down in a home invasion robbery, Mom died in an auto accident that involved alcohol. The child has an aunt who is 2 years younger than he is, a young brother who is failing Pre-K and 3 other half siblings whom he never sees. The child is living with his grandparents, who are not exactly in the running for the parents (or the grandparents ) of the year award.

Also not in the running for the Grandparents of the Year Award are the grandparents of a pair of newly enrolled siblings. We remember their mother and uncle, both of which had numerous problems of the social, educational variety - many of which were either caused or exacerbated by their dysfunctional home life (with a large dose of drugs and alcohol tossed in) . The second generation has just as many problems. Multiple moves and multiple schools, academically low and probable autism. The paperwork for testing is in process but won't be completed by the time school is over. Whether they are still with us when school resumes in the fall is a total unknown.

And this fall the daughter of my daughter's best friend from elementary days enters kindergarten.
I'm feeling very old tonight.

Children shouldn't have children. There ought to be a law.

John McCain

I' ve never voted Republican and I certainly don't intend to start now but I do have some respect for John McCain. Seems he has a son in the military who is about to be deployed to Iraq.

At least McClain is willing to put his money where his mouth is, or rather his son where his war is.

Which is more than we can say for his son's Commander in Chief.

They're Fat - and It's All Our Fault Too

Childhood obesity is all over the news now. Turns out it's all the fault of the schools - just as "moral breakdown", "lack of respect", "Kids can't read" and all of society's many other ills are also laid at the schoolhouse door.

Many of the kids where I work are overweight and more than a few are obese. We have children at risk for diabetes, children who can't walk a lap round gym with out huffing and puffing and children with beer bellies that rival those of middle age men. Many of our kids are poor, Hispanic and latchkey - all breeding grounds for obesity.

We feed the kids 10 meals a week - breakfast and lunch. The school lunch program bristles with rules about nutrition and what the kids are offered is low in sugar and fat and fairly healthy. 2% milk, fresh fruit, whole wheat bread, oven baked rather than fried chicken. It's not half bad.

That's offered - not eaten. The amount that hits the trash makes a taxpayer cry. They drink a swallow or two of milk, nibble at the meat and pretty much ignore the fruit. Many of the kids bring bags of chips from home which are eaten in lieu of their meal. The principal had to send a note home telling parents not to send sodas to school. Just try teaching a classroom of children who have dined on Coca Cola and Hot Cheetos for a mid-day meal.

Yesterday I encountered one of our "square children" in the staff lounge - one of her relatives works at school. Child was whining for potato chips from the snack machine and said chips were bought and eaten. Relation told me child is always whining for junk food. The day before the child asked for and ate a Happy Meal ( not the apple slices & juice version ), a candy bar and a doughnut. This was between the hours of 3pm and bedtime.

Our school nurse runs an health club and gives nutrition lessons. She offers parent classes on cooking. She counsels children and gives them suggestions about keeping a food dairy and making healthy choices. It breaks her heart when the child returns the diary the following week and the score shows Diary Queen 5 and green vegetable 1.

We feed them 10 meals a week - the other 11 meals are eaten at home - that's more than half. Yet it's all our fault the kids are fat.

13 Reasons Kids Ought to Blog

. Kids gravitate to anything involving a computer
2. They can get comments and feedback which makes writing fun
3. They can share their writing with anyone in the world
4. The computer takes care of spelling and grammar so they can concentrate on the topic.
5. They can select their own topic (within reason!).
6. It improves their writing skills without them realizing it
7. They can add pictures, which makes the subject more interesting
8. It’s a lot easier to read than a hand written journal
9. They are writing with a purpose
10. It’s collaborative
11. It’s “real world learning” – that’s a current educational buzzword
12. Future job skills – so many companies have blogs these days
13. And most of all, because it’s fun!

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It was one of those days....

Let's Mush All Our Patrons

This YouTube video, entitled The Haunted Librarian is compliments of The Loopy Librarian, one of the blogs I found while immersed in Library2Play.

Thanks to Library2Play I now know how to embed videos into my blog.



Today was the "Laptop Rollout" - the day when every teacher got their very own laptop. Being teachers some spent the day turning mountains into molehills.

By the end of the day I would have happily substituted some of them for hapless patron in this video.

Library2Play Thing #23 - THE END

Hey, this is my 500th Blog Post - somehow that seems fitting.

It's 10:55 and I'm on Thing #23. I don't have to pull an all-nighter after all. Which is good, I don't think I can recover from an all nighter quite as quickly as I could 30 years ago! I bet there are several sleepy librarians at the meeting tomorrow afternoon!

Let's see, I did the survey - hope the results made it up - the server appears to be on overload. I think I'm not the only last minute librarian out there.

Questions, gotta answer the questions.........

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
Loved GoogleReader, Library Thing would be number one with a bullet if I'd let it. I already knew about blogs so I can't say I discovered them here but I love em'. Web 2.0 award sites - so many tools and gizmos and gadgets. . Wikis are great and everyone I show them too agrees. Both my blog and my desktop have lots of new widgets.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
Made it easy - gave me lots of new tools to explore and I'm looking forward to spending more time with them and getting to know them in dept.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
How little I knew about Web 2.0 had to offer (yes Dr. B you get to say "I told you so!) and how very much I learned, despite having debuted a blog in 2004. .

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Very overwhelming - lots of information to absorb. Of course, part of this is my own fault for doing half of the 23 things on the weekend before it was due. It's hard to squeeze it in during the regular work week.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Yes, Yes, Yes!

How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?
Learn to play with the Digital Natives.

Off to comment.........

Library2Play Thing # 21 PodCasts

I've been jumping and skipping around in Library2Play and I've left this one for last. It's deliberate.

I don't like podcasts. I am very much the visual and kinetic learner and can't keep my mind focused on a podcast long enough to absorb the information.



I'm a very fast reader and I can glean what I need in half the time it takes for me to master the skill orally. I do the bulk of my web surfing and on line learning sitting along side My Beloved while she watches TV (Sports R Us). Podcasts result in noise overload.

I adore Audio Books, as in books on CD but all my audio books are of books I've already read in print form. There is nothing better than an audio book to pass the time during a long car trip.

PhotoStory, on the other hand is a totally different story! Simple, fun and best of all EASY. I'm all for Easy, especially if it's something I'm thinking of doing with the G/T kids. They are going to adore this. Kids are such visual creatures. I'm also going to show this to our Science SIS - the kids can document their science projects next year and then import the pictures into Photostory.

Blogger is not being my friend tonight and refuses to upload my Photostory!
Will try again tomorrow. Because, as Scarlett says "Tomorrow is another day".

And tomorrow had will once again be another day...seems Blogger is still not my friend.
Once again channeling Scarlett......

Library2Play Thing # 12 Rollyo

Rollyo this is one slick discovery! I promptly created a "book prices" search engine. Now when I'm looking for comps I only need to type the title in once.

I've been more focused on personal use than school use this weekend - guess it's because I'm on Spring Break (which ends tomorrow - weep, weep).

Rollyo is made for school librarians and teachers. It's Google with limits or Yahoo with boundaries. Preselect the sites, create a Rollyo search engine and let the kids have at it.

Considering how poorly our students type and spell this will be a tremendous time saver.

Just as so many of the other Web 2.0 tools I've explored, Rollyo is very strong in political, news and celebrity searches. I had the option of adding an Angelina Jolie search to my home page. I should run a search - I might find out just who Anglina Jolie is!

I am amazed at how many tools have sprung up to tame the beast that is the World Wide Web.

Library2Play Thing #10 On Line Image Generators

I've always added graphics to my blog posts - I think they make a blog visually attractive and eye catching. However, I am by nature not an Image alterator. I hit google images, find an appropriate picture, D/L it, U/L and I'm done. When it goes to images I'm a " Wham, bamm, thank you ma'm" kind of girl.

I've been very good throughout this adventure but the end is almost here & I'm punchy so I couldn't resist!

My blogging kids are going to ADORE Cartoon Strip Generator. Best of all it doesn't require an e-mail address. I promise not to show them this cartoon! Whoo-Hoo it's only Sunday & I already have a lesson in place for my ASP group on Thursday!

I don' t think I'd better turn them loose with Custom Sign Generator - some of the sites look a bit risque. They will like Smiley Generator - much of the humor on that site appears to be aimed at 5th grader. .

Maybe these will take their mind off of "Scary videos" and "Funny videos". I can only hope.

Library2Play Thing #22 Nings

Oh My Goodness! I cruise on over to the Texas School Librarians Ning and who do I see staring back at me but my very favorite cataloger and award winning blogger!

I've read about Nings but they really must be seen to be understood. The Texas School Librarian Ning appears to be a mashup of youtube videos, a couple of wikis, assorted blogs, some forums, a few yahoo groups and LM_NET. It really is LM_NET with graphics and ads. I wonder if it's moderated as LM_NET is?

Of course I joined. Not that I need yet another Web distraction but I couldn't resist. I also found yet another blog to add to my google reader. Information overload, here I come!

Library2Play Thing #13 Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is fun - I imported all my own bookmarks. I now need to give some thought to setting up a school account and seeing if I can import the Ikeepbookmarks.com bookmarks. That site, while very useful can also be very, very, very slooooooooowwwww to load.

I discovered Del.icio.us has a blog and via it I found a widget for my iphone.

One bit of Lagniappe from Library2Play are the Common Craft Guy videos. They have a knack for explaining the web for us ordinary folks. Of course I got distracted on their site and now I understand Twitter. I'm not sure I want to do it, but at least I can grasp it.

Saving bookmarks is duck soup - way more intuitive than doing so on IkeepBookmarks.

Delightful new toy!

Library2Play Thing #20 - You Tube & Teacher Tube pt.2

You Tube is blocked at school. My enterprising lunch bunch figured a way around the filters. They weren't being malicious or searching for porn, they just wanted to watch "scary videos" and "funny videos".

One thing typed "Funny Videos" into Google Search and they were off and running. They proudly showed me their results, most of which I thought were unbelievably stupid. I let it go for a couple of weeks and then gave them some alternative suggestions. Kids tend to do something over and over and over and over again till every adult around them is heartily sick of it.

TeacherTube isn't blocked (at least not now!) but when it comes to using the Web and streaming video as a teaching tool, I much prefer Discovery Education. I can D/L the videos in advance and I'm not caught unawares by an Internet shutdown or slow down.

Last year I learned that during March Madness the district Internet crawls to a standstill. This year I'm prepared!

Libary2Play Thing #20 You Tube & Teacher Tube

I'm in day 2 of my 48 Library2Play marathon (feel like I'm back in college again and wonder if an all nighter is in my future) I am very much over libraries and earnest statements about the future of libraries and education.

So, for Thing #20 - You Tube I explored American Apparel, the company my Web 2.0 daughter works work. An aside, the web is made for us hyperactive types with short attention spans! Bored with one topic? Just jump to another!




I don't think any of the You Tube American Apparel videos are ever going to make it past the school filters. I can certainly understand the appeal of the company to the Digital Immigrants. It's local, it's "Green", it's fashion and advertising bubbleing up from the bottom, as opposed to be imposed from the top. It's the clothing for the Web 2.0 pioneers. In fact I've seen the clothes in some of the videos I've watched for this project!