Girls Only Weekend

This weekend I met my friend, Beth, for a girls only weekend to celebrate my recent 40th birthday. Beth and I joke that we are soul sisters. We are both elementary education teachers, both love sewing, rubber stamping cards, scrapbooking, reading good books, and the list goes on. We met in grad school at the University of Iowa. She is one of my very best friends and I don't get to see her enough. So it was GREAT to get together. We met at an Archiver's store to pick up supplies since we planned to scrapbook into the wee hours.





After shopping a bit, we ate lunch at P.F. Chang's. Neither of us had eaten there before but we both had heard great things about it. We were not disappointed. We tried the famous lettuce wraps since I'd heard about them from another friend. They are AMAZING!! I can't wait to get back there and try them again. Below is a photo of one of my lettuce wraps before I wrapped it. SOOOOooooooo good!





After lunch we checked into Embassy Suites and set things up for a late night of scrapbooking. I got a lot done and was very happy about that. I hadn't scrapbooked for almost a year and it was really good to get back to it. We worked for a while then partook of the complimentary happy hour that Embassy Suites provides. Then we scrapbooked some more before taking the hotel shuttle downtown for dinner. We ate at a really great Italian restaurant and dined on wine, Mojitos (Beth had the Mojito and I had the wine), pizza with fresh basil and mozzarella, and a really amazing chocolate cake with raspberry sauce for dessert. Then we headed back to the hotel for more scrapbooking. The next day we enjoyed the complimentary breakfast before heading out for a little shopping before we parted ways.


Beth gave me the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett for a birthday gift. I have already started it and love it. I love it when people give me books as gifts because I love to read but rarely buy fiction books for myself. And I love to go to the library but our local small town library doesn't always have the best selection and I don't get there very often to look for myself.






So there's my weekend in a nutshell. Thanks, Beth, for helping me celebrate the big 4-0 in a really fun and great way. Oh.........I also bought a new tote bag to haul my stuff back and forth to school. I'll take a photo of it and add it later.

Broken patella

Don't worry................no broken bones in our house. I just had to share a funny little story. We have been studying the human body and, in particular, the skeleton, in my Montessori preschool classroom over the past few weeks. My youngest son is a student in my classroom. On Monday, he fell on the sidewalk running out to the bus after preschool. He was in tears and had scraped his knee slightly. Later that night, he was sitting on a chair eating dinner and announced to me,

"Mommy, I think I bwoke my patewuh (patella) when I fell today." I assured him his patella was not, in fact, broken. The skin covering his patella was just scraped. However, inside I was doing a silent cheer because he had remembered the correct name of the kneecap. I am continally amazed at the capacity young children have for learning vocabulary. They are truly only limited by what they are exposed to. That is one of many reasons that I adore teaching preschoolers. If you want to read more about our study of the skeleton, read this post on my other blog.

Oops............I did it again!

I bought another new pair of shoes. I couldn't/didn't resist. On Tuesday evening, my good friend, Amber, and I made a spontaneous trip to a new Target store that has opened in our area. I had to buy some birthday gifts, so it was a good excuse to go shopping. We browsed the shoe area and I fell in love with these green sandals. Green is my absolute favorite color. At first I wasn't going to buy them because Amber wasn't buying a pair she liked. Actually, I think she was thinking of buying the same ones. Then she told me that the reason she wasn't buying them is because she was buying a $70 mop. That clinched it for me. Since I wasn't buying an expensive mop, I decided another pair of shoes in my favorite color was a justifiable purchase to add to my spring wardrobe. Now that I have my new shoes, I have been scouting out dress patterns. I am itching to sew a few new dresses for spring/summer. I'll be sure to post the details here once I decide on something.

The post-birthday splurge

Well, yesterday I was a little down in the dumps about turning 40. Today I feel much better. First of all, when I got to work this morning, my assistant, Tenita, surprised me with a champagne cake from a swanky bakery. I don't think I've ever gotten a cake from a bakery in the white box and all before. I haven't tried it yet.........the boys and DH and I will have some later tonight. But it was such a special treat to start the day with. Below is a photo of it before we dig into it.



Although I've said before that I don't like shopping, I do manage to pull together some enthusiasm for it if I have a gift card. Saturday night we all went to Applebee's for my birthday, then we went to Kohl's afterwards. I had a gift certificate from Christmas to spend. I was looking for a winter coat on sale but I didn't like any of them, even though there were great bargains. Instead I bought a new spring coat..........bright red. I LOVE bright colors. It is pictured below.



I also tried on some super-cute shoes. The display shoe was the only one in my size; however, I could NOT find the match to it. The salesperson looked and looked and he couldn't find it either. So..........I didn't get the shoes. I was really bummed.

HOWEVER..............today after I taught preschool in the AM, I went up to the "big city" to meet DH for lunch. His university is on spring break this week. We met at Panera and had lunch. I also had a leftover gift card from Christmas to use........so it was a free lunch. Gotta love that. Afterwards we went to Borders bookstore, then to Kohl's. I had some birthday money from my parents and decided to buy some jewelry I had seen on sale Saturday night. We went to a different Kohl's store than the one we went to on Saturday, however. When we walked in the DH reminded me that I should check to see if they had the SUPERCUTE shoes in my size in that store. And........they did! YAY!! I couldn't believe he remembered it and I didn't. He's awesome! The shoes are pictured below. Aren't they so cute? And they'll go with so many things. Love the denim!



I had also admired (drooled over) another pair of shoes on Saturday night but couldn't bring myself to buy them even though they were on sale. I looked at and tried them on again today and the DH told me to go for it, so I did!! They are pictured below. They had these shoes in brown and black also, but I couldn't pass up the hot pink. Maybe there's hope for me to develop a sense of style in my 40s after all.



I also bought some new pairs of pants (to bring into the rotation of 3 or 4 pairs that I've worn all fall and winter) and some cute jackets that were on sale. After all, they are always pushing jackets on TLC's What Not to Wear. I got one jacket for $8.40. It is really cute. The others were on sale, but not that cheap.

AND............I bought three necklaces that were on sale. I paid less than $6 for each of them and two were less than $5. I took photos of them which are shown below.

So tonight I'm dragging everything out of my closet and going through things. There's not that much to go through because I have kind of a pathetic little wardrobe. I'm going to get rid of a few things and take an inventory to see what else I can add (inexpensively) to flesh out a great spring and summer wardrobe. I think with 2 new pairs of heels and 3 necklaces, I'm doing pretty well with my turning 40 list........remember the "wear more jewelry" and "wear more heels" goals?

DH DID slightly question the practicality of wearing heels as a preschool teacher since I spend lots of time on the floor and supervising recess on a playground (unpaved) every day. I may have to change into "recess" shoes on the days I wear heels. But I can guarantee this: my little preschool girls will be LOVING those pink shoes if I ever wear them to school. They are quite savvy about noticing my fashion, or lack thereof.

Amazingly, my turning 40 doldrums disappeared quite completely after my shopping spree. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

It starts with a 4...........

..........Yes, people........that would be my current age. I rolled over another decade. I didn't think it would bother me much. After all, I like to say that I'm only a day older than yesterday whenever a birthday rolls around. This time was a little harder than I thought, however. I think I am a little disappointed in myself, truthfully. I thought I might have my act together better by now. I have to remind myself that I'm always a work in progress and that I will only improve by the grace of God. At least I am reflective about it all, I guess.

I decided to make a list of 40 things to do when I'm 40. So far I only have 23 things on the list. I am going to type them here for posterity. They are in no particular order.........just the order that they popped into my head when I wrote the list.

1. Hand sew a quilt. Luckily, I've already started that. You can read about it here.

2. Get a pedicure. I've never had one.......not much of a girly girl. But it sounds like it would be fun........so maybe that will go on my agenda for the spring or summer.

3. Run a 5K. I've been doing pretty well with my consistency on my running, so this should be very easy to get done this spring.

4. Run a 10K. I'd like to train for a longer race once I've done a smaller one.

5. Wear more skirts...........again, I'm not much of a girly girl, but I live in a testostrone filled house and I'm realizing that I want to add more femininity to my wardrobe.

6. Wear more jewelry. Kind of along the same lines as the above. I don't have much jewelry. I can never bring myself to spend the money on it, but I do think it's fun to wear.

7. Wear more heels. Can you see a theme emerging? I really want someone to nominate me for TLC's "What Not to Wear", but the people I am asking keep telling me my wardrobe isn't bad enough. Truthfully I just hate to shop. I always feel guilty spending money on clothes or shoes for myself. That's why if you know me and see what I usually wear, it's the same 1 or 2 pairs of shoes all winter mixed with the same 4 or 5 pairs of pants and a rotation of about 10 shirts. Pretty pathetic. I keep telling myself that when I get "older", I'll develop more style. Well, I'm getting older and the style, well, IS there a style? That's the problem.

8. Open an Etsy shop. I think I will get going on this during the summer when I have more time. I have lots of ideas for this.

9. Try to get some of my writing published.

10. Plan a date night once a month with DH (lest you think I might be planning it with someone else!!)

11. Learn to knit. This could be dangerous as I don't need another craft hobby or addiction, but I really want to learn.

12. Make a faithbook.

13. Catch up on my boys' scrapbooks.

14. Reorganize my photos into a Library of Memories (Stacy Julian) format.

15. Make a Memory Lane game.

16. Eat more fruits and vegetables.

17. Exercise as often as possible.

18. Send a handwritten letter to 100 people over the course of the next year. I am really enjoying doing this for my Lent project, so I thought I would continue it beyond Lent.

19. Participate in The Toy Society.

20. Participate in Operation NICE.

21. Sponsor a World Vision child.

22. Read Jane Austen. Can you believe I've never read her?

23. Finish making/buying/wrapping Christmas gifts by Halloween. (A lofty goal.........we'll see.)

That's as far as I've gotten so far. Have any of you ever done a list like this? I am open to including more ideas. I kind of wanted to have 40 things to do when I'm 40, not 23.

Green eggs and ...........

...........pancakes (we were out of ham.....plus even if we had it, how do you make it green?). On Monday for supper, I whipped up a batch of green eggs and pancakes for the boys in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. Who doesn't love Dr. Seuss? The meal was a hit; neither boy had qualms about eating it. It made a big impression on my little one because he keeps asking me to make more green eggs and pancakes! They were quite tasty, if I do say so myself........and I just did! And don't they look lovely on the blue plastic plate?

"This drink is like faith."

That is a direct quote from my 7 1/2 year old son. He said this during our fellowship time after church this morning. He had finished wolfing down two cookies and was sipping Kool-Aid Invisible from a styrofoam cup when he looked up at me and said, "Hey, Mommy. This drink is like faith." I was a little taken aback and asked him to explain. He said (I'm paraphrasing now because I can't remember word for word), "You know how God is invisible and we can't see him but we can feel him by the love he puts in our hearts? Well, we don't know there's a flavor in this Kool-Aid because we can't see it, but when we TASTE it, we know the flavor is there." Hey, buddy, I couldn't have said it better myself. What a little philosopher!! (By the way, I'm in no way pushing this product, but it IS really good. I never buy Kool-Aid for my boys, but they had this at our Vacation Bible School last summer. It is really fun, even as an adult, to drink something that looks like water and to be pleasantly surprised by a yummy flavor. Oh yeah, and it doesn't stain clothes!!)