After school today I headed over to Savers and found some pretty incredible booty. This shirt was $1.99. And seriously, I keep reading in all the magazines how important the white shirt is this season. Especially with a little victorian looking lace going on, and BAM, there you go. I want to shorten this one so I can wear it untucked and add a couple of darts to make it fit better.

I also picked up the most perfect wool, plaid, little a-line number. $2.99 While it's pretty much perfect as is, I'm afraid it might look a bit Christmas-y. I'm thinking about adding a wide navy ric-rac trim.

1. I just found bloglines. Oh my gosh, reading my smut just got way more efficient. If you're a subscriber, I'm a subscriber now too.
2. Have you ever used Neutrogena's Lash Tint? Wonder Product of the Friggin' Year. There are two reasons why I hate regular mascara. A) While I have dry skin, I somehow manage to have oily eyelids that make me blink the black off of my lashes and on to my under eye proximity. Coon eyes. B) While I consider myself to be quite artistic, I totally lack the luster of wearing mascara without looking like Tammy Faye. I'm a clumper. While those of you with dark lashes are clucking to yourselves, "who cares, just go without..." I want you to know that I oftentimes do go without, and those are the days when people ask me why I look so sick/tired/weird/pasty/bloated/off. The lash tint solves all of these problems and more. All for under $6.
3. I have VPLs with the black yoga pants that I wear to the gym. Thongs do NOT improve the situation because when my shirt rides up and my pants ride down (even a little) there lies the tell-tale T hanging out for the world to see. Any suggestions?
4. Last night I dreamt that I had really long nails that were breaking off. I have super short nails in real life. Anyone with a dream book got an interpretation for me?
5. Only 50 more days of school this year. Ahem, not that I'm counting or anything. My students were especially charming today, and we're doing cool projects right now (like linoleum printing), so it's especially fun. Still, I do long for days spent in the sun-- when I can wake up at a natural time and not have to worry about being asleep by 10, which makes me feel like a complete LAME-O.

This will be a quickie. I'm on spring break this week and have had an absolutely LOVELY time. Zander and I went up to Door County Wisconsin early in the week. While this isn't a balmy beach scene, we were on a beach, and I'm not sure I was dying to get into a swimming suit anyway! We did lots of walking and relaxing in front of the fireplace on our little trip. Our inn was right across the street from a ship yard on Lake Michigan, so it was fun to watch the boats come in. We had a great time, and would love to go back in the summer time when there's a little more open.

We've also done some babysitting over spring break. Joey is getting so alert. He's even starting to smile, although he's not showing it in this picture.

Yeah, Boo likes him too.

Lots of crafting is going on too. Usually I decide to organize first before I begin a project. This time I just jumped right in and I'm having a blast. I'll post pictures as soon as I've got some things done.

Oh, tonight is going to be a good one over at Creative Electric. I hope to see you all there!

Here's some exciting news... The city of Minneapolis is giving us a 0% interest loan that gets paid off only when we sell our house. While we certainly don't want to change the place a ton and therefore price ourselves out of the hood, we do want to make some "quality of life" changes. Such as, oh yeah baby, a shower in the bathroom instead of down in the basement. It feels so self-indulgent to do this when the shower downstairs works just fine, but really folks, it will be heaven to shower in a proper room with a light and even an exhaust fan. We need to pick out the tile for the backsplash, and then the shower head and faucet. I think that'll be fun to pick out. Speaking of self-indulgent, why not build a deck too? I mean, we don't even have one tree on our entire property, so it's not like we can go for the cool, shady oasis that the Juice has going on. (That I'm so jealous of, by the way) Here are a couple of imperfect, but on the right track for our space, ideas that we've seen so far. Please insert all the weird crap you can imagine I'll be using my summer to find, giving these spaces oh so much more personality.



I love the shade provided in this one, but hate the metal banister.



Again, I like the shade given on this one, and I kind of like the privacy latice... but there's still something about it that I don't l-o-v-e love. I keep getting hung up on coming up with something that will match the era of our little stucco house. I'm not sure what that would be though.

On Friday afternoon I found myself in Anthropology wondering how to justify spending $68 on a tank top. Folks, I REALLY tried, and it just can't be done. Happily, lots of the stuff I liked was just a basic tank with a little birdie sewn on. Or a basic a-line skirt with an extra little vintage-looking ruffle sewn into the hem. I can do that kind of stuff no problemo! I'm going through my fabric stash this weekend, and I'm totally looking forward to hitting the sewing machine hard tomorrow afternoon.



This bird is hand sewn, but wouldn't it be adorable in a light color embroidered on a dark t-shirt that's just lying around the house? Martha has all of the state birds just ready for your downloading pleasure.

Speaking of Martha, I just might need this. You can get it here.

Wow. Last week felt like a month and it fried me to a crisp. By Friday afternoon I felt like one of those cream cheese wontons from a cheap Chinese food buffet. One of those that look a little wonky and so everyone leaves it behind to cook under the heat lamp until it becomes an inedible brick. Fortunately, the weekend was lovely and I'm feeling just as fresh as a Vietnamese spring roll. So to speak. Speaking of spring rolls, my (favorite) aunt Judy once reported to us that she tried a spring roll because the waiter told her that it's just like an egg roll. She thought it tasted like lettuce in a condom wrapper and had to immediately go smoke a cigarette to get that horrible taste out of her mouth. Haa! I love that story. Back to the weekend. We started it out with The Lynns at the Monte Carlo. I got to pick out the restaraunt and I got it mixed up with another place that's close by. I don't remember the name of the place that I wanted to go to, but it's famous for it's mac and cheese and it's either got a zebra on the wall or in the name... can't remember. The Monte Carlo had the best szechuan green beans I've ever had and the staff all had on black diner dresses with white aprons that I wouldn't be caught dead in, but were somehow lovely too. However, it does seem like a shame to spend $10 on a side dish, even if it is really good. I'd like to try out this recipe at home and add in some green beans. After dinner we rushed over to the Jeune Lune to see Amerika. It was pretty amazing. Throughout the entire play we kept thinking that the cast must be huge, but it turned out to be pretty small and the actors had multiple parts with insanely quick costume changes. Pretty much the only theater we usually hit comes straight to our doorstep from Netflix, so to get out and see one was a total treat. Saturday morning I had my second to last belly dancing class, and I'm already sad that it's almost over. Yes, my dance teacher is much nicer than my painting teacher. I'm thinking about giving her a card on the last day that reads: Thank you for not being a bitch like my other teacher. I wonder if Hallmark makes something along those lines? Anyway, I'll definitely register for the next session. I did some thrifting Saturday afternoon and got a cute little polyester a-line bright blue skirt... Perfect for any season and never needs to be ironed. Saturday night we chilled out on the couch with some cocktails and the newest season of NYPD Blue. I KNOW it sounds lame, but man-oh-man, it was nice to have some down time. Today we met my parents for a bit, and then caught up on a little laundry. We also started our power cleaning sessions. Zander sets his watch for 15 minutes and we both run around and clean up as fast as possible until the timer goes off. When it goes off both of us need to stop where we're at and go back to enjoying something else. Hopefully, if we do this everyday (or so) we'll stay somewhat organized and not have to spend big chunks of time doing it on the weekend. Wow, that feels like more lameness, reporting on our cleaning, or lack there of.

If you haven't checked out the conspiracy website lately, there are lots more posts coming in. It's certainly worth a peek!

The last class that I teach everyday is a doozie. While there are so many serious/wonderful/fun/smart kiddies in there, there are also some real, shall we say, hand-fulls/poop-heads. Right now my energy is completely zapped, I'm crabby, AND I have to go to both Weight Watchers and my last oil painting class tonight. To look on the bright side, it is the last painting class. On the flip side of that coin, I can't stand that beyotchy teacher and I'm really just drooling to write her a crappy evaluation. Staying on the pessimistic side, I chowed down last night and so I'm sure the scale will be up today for weigh-in. Dang Yo, excercising makes me hungry. To latch onto any little piece of zen that I might, I'm reading the "guiding principles." (over and over again) It's really just a list of the (supposedly) most commonly used words from the Constitution, Bill of rights, the Koran, the Bible, and the Boy & Girl Scouts of America. Here goes:

Responsibility
Contemplation
Initiative
Perseverance
Optimism
Courage
Respect
Compassion
Adaptability
Honesty
Trustworthiness
Loyalty

If I could add creativity to the list, I would. It helps me feel good. What would happen if we took every aspect of our lives and made them creative? Dealing with the disgusting bathroom at work that leaks sewage everyday? (Just another perk of being a teacher) Fold a 5 star hotel toilet triange everytime you pee. It'll make you laugh. Got another parking ticket in uptown? Mail it in with scratch 'n sniffs. The gross kind.