A day off.

Tonight is a beer night. A beer and chili night, in fact. The weather is changing (YES. FINALLY!) and today was rainy enough to have recess indoors. Subsequently, the kids were nuts after lunch. Nuts. Thank the heavens tomorrow is a day off.

Hence, the beer.

Just keep my slightly tipsy ass away from these:

(from Oliveshoes.com)
Hooray. With black opaque tights, the reason I love fall. That and pumpkins, the smell of leaves, the lighting, scarves...

Art.

I went to the Art Institute today. I had never seen

either of these paintings; the abstract piece, A Resonable Facsimile,by Arthur Dove, the landscape, The Artisit Looks at Nature by Charles Sheeler (both photos courtesy of the Art Institute's website).

I'm excited to see the new wing open in 2009, but in the meantime, the massive collection of the AIC is on a subtle rotation. For sure, you can still see the 'famous stuff' (Wood's American Gothic, Hopper's Nighthawks) but some pieces are making their way into the light, so to speak.

Love it.

I also saw some great clothing on the street. A girl wearing a fabulous printed wrap (or was it faux-wrap?) dress in orange and cream belted with a thin denim strip. Very inspiring.

Wow.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Listed on thefrock.com. Dior. Organdy. Amazing.

I have never, ever been a girly girl. Even when wearing skirts I tend to somehow make them more fun that flirty (odd colored tights with giant pink Orla Kiely rain boots? Check!). I have also never been one of those girls who thought much about getting married, ie. where my wedding would be, the 'colors', the 'favors', not even what I'd wear.

Then I saw this dress.

Holy moly. Seriously, it's Dior and, um, too small for me (le sigh) and really? If I ever spent $3800 on something it might be a car. MAYBE.

It got me thinking, though. Audrey is pretty practical and she was 'Captain Sparkle Boobs' for her wedding. I guess there has to be a wedding to dress for, first, and that takes too much planning. I'll just stare and wipe the tear from the corner of my eye.

So. Beautiful.

Latest web obsession (for when I have time)...

I love getting caught up in surfing the web. Reading my favorite blogs, and reading their favorite blogs. I've been so busy lately; staying at work far later than I should, making posters, organizing the lunch spray bottles, creating lesson plans. This website could take up the rest of my life, however. My friend told me about it, and was surprised (considering my interest in all things Scandinavian) that I hadn't seen it before.

I love the couple- what guts. It seems that in Europe (at least what I know of) that it's less about going with 'the herd' and more about going with how you feel. In that vein, the first thing I would do away with in American fashion is slogan t-shirts (adios, Abercrombie & Fitch! Ciao, most of Urban Outfitters!).

Oh, and if I had the time in the morning, I would do my hair like this every. single. day.

back to school

Summer is officially over, with school starting Tuesday. Although I hear it's supposed to be quite hot (more hot than it's been this summer! Wow, we really lucked out).

I was in Vermont last week, my yearly trip back North to visit my 'family'. I stayed with Colleen in Montpelier; that's the view from her backyard! I was also in Charlotte with Carmen, and in Richmond with Sasha and Ezra for a few days.

Activities included picnicking (uh, can that word be 'ing'd?), blue berry picking, walking, pizza making and lots of driving.

E is in LA for the weekend; kind of lonely here (never thought I'd say that!). I think I'm mostly lonely because of all the chores I have to do on my own tomorrow. Ugh.

We're havin' a heat wave...

I hate summer. Heat just makes me miserable. When I was young, I suffered pretty terrible headaches, and would cry- only to make the headaches worse. Headaches aren't as bad now, but I hate sweat behind my knees and jeans that you can't pull up because you're too sticky...and the sound of people dragging their flip flops. UGH!

Today, though, I was driving home from work and the lighting was really beautiful. It made me appreciate the lighting that summer brings.

My garden is producing jalapeño peppers faster than I can eat them. Awesome! I also harvested some green peppers, although we'll see how those go- it seems that 'our ant infestation' also extended to the out of doors, specifically the green peppers. I'll have to cut them open to see the full damage...

summer school...

Back to school tomorrow, to teach clay animation for four weeks. YES! I really love teaching this class, and teaching summer school. It proves exceptionally interesting to see how kids are over the summer- yipes! I made a fun little video of a clay penguin tapping his foot (it's about 2 seconds long) to show the kids what we're going to be doing in the class.

I've been house sitting the last couple of days; it's nice. Kind of like a vacation from my roommate (nice guy, doesn't do dishes) and E, who is on tour with his band.
There are two chocolate labs here (so sweet!) and girls coming and going (they have two college age girls, who they didn't want to burden with taking care of the pups...enter, me!) but it's relatively quiet.

Gives me time to pine, again, over things I would like to purchase (see above) and make.