Happy Birthday to You, Dr. Seuss!

I love, love, love everything by Dr. Seuss, and tomorrow is his birthday! I love his simple wisdom, and the incredible way he puts so much imagination into his stories. The very first book I ever read by myself was Green Eggs and Ham, and it remains a favorite to this day. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could recite it entirely from memory. "That Sam-I-Am, that Sam-I-Am, I do not like that Sam-I-Am..." I can't pick a favorite from his stories, because I love them all. Every story holds a special memory, some of the magic of learning to read. So, thank-you, Dr. Seuss, for writing stories I wanted to read and inspiring a world of imagination only a truly great children's book can create.

So, in honor of Dr. Seuss, I give you my top secret recipe for...
OOBLECK!
While I'm no magician, and I can't make it fall from the sky, it is super fun to make and play with, and really easy to do with kids.

Before you make it, I recommend reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck. If you are a teacher, this is a great book to read when discussing weather or matter.



Now, on to oobleck making!
All you need is 1 1/2 to 2 cups cornstarch, 1 cup water, and some green food coloring.


Start by measuring out cornstarch into a bowl.

Add water, a little at a time. If you dump it all in at once, it's going to be really hard to stir, and it will take a lot more time to dissolve.


Once you have added all the water, put in a few drops of green food coloring


stir (Am I the only person who loves the way food color swirls look? So pretty!)


and you're done! Easy, easy oobleck!

You really can't appreciate how amazing this stuff is from a picture... you just have to make it and feel it for yourself!

If you are making this with children, I highly recommend switching out the food coloring for green tempera paint. It won't stain little hands or clothing the way food coloring will.

I'll leave you with a few photos of some Seuss-inspired classroom decorating ideas:

Oh, the Places You'll (We'll) Go bulletin board... perfect for the new school year


and matching hook tags made from construction paper


and Dr. Seuss quotes die cut from construction paper... inspirational, and the kids love to pick out their sight words in them (We're learning to read!) (Please excuse the Halloween decorations, these were the only quote photos I had.)




"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You." -Dr. Seuss; Happy Birthday to You!

In Which I Create a Useful Gift for a Sweet Lady

I learned to sew from my granny. She taught and is still teaching me everything she knows... which is A LOT! She used to make everything you could imagine, until she got cancer and lost a lot of feeling in her hands. Luckily, her last PET scan showed no signs of cancer, so she has to finish this round of chemo, take a scan, and if that scan is clean, she's in remission! Thank God for miracles... she was in stage 4 lung cancer. Anyway, the chemo makes her extremities cold... and hurt. Her hands are freezing all the time, but gloves hurt her... kind of a rock and hard place situation. So, being the brilliant mind that I am (hahaha, yeah, right!), I decided I was going to fix this. I didn't know how, but I knew I was going to... and that's just what I did. I came up with this little design here:



It's a hand warmer. Probably not the best name, or the best way to do it, but it works. The two little pink pouches in front are filled with rice... just pop them in the microwave for 10-15 seconds, and they will hold their heat for a little while. The hand warmer is made with a double layer of soft fleece inside. Stick the rice pouch in the middle of the hand warmer, insert hands and voila! Heat without pain! It looked a little plain though, so I added a little hot pink chiffon flower with pearls in the middle:



I wrapped it up in pretty pink tissue paper (Can you tell, I adore pink... don't worry, she does too):



and took it to her this afternoon. She was happy to have it and even happier I stopped by for a visit... she's so sweet, she even agreed to pose for a picture.



She's not smiling in this one, but the other one was a little blurry. She has a beautiful smile.
And so was the best Sunday I've had in a while. Lovely.

warning: extreme negativity ahead... read at your own risk :)

Do you ever have those days that make you go "What the hell?!" Today has so been that kind of day for me. I think somebody had it out for me today, and boy did they get me good! I'm trying so, so hard to remember that my worst days are better than most people's best days, but man, sometimes you just have to cry into your coffee cup. Or just laugh at how ridiculously awful everything has gotten mixed up to be. It's comical, really. I think I could fix a lot of this if I was more assertive. Damn that southern hospitality! I was raised to be a pleaser and an accomodater... which can really take a toll on your sanity. I don't have the energy for the post I was going to write... it'll be here tomorrow. Or Friday.

Marbles = found

I love, love, love how funny little kids are without even meaning to be... They make me laugh all the time! We had one of those funny moments today. When someone is being extra silly, I always say "Are you crazy? Have you gone bananas? Have you lost your marbles?" The kids have picked it up too, and usually I have a chorus of little voices saying the words with me. They say it to each other, too. It's just one of those silly things we say, but it usually reminds them to take the crazy down a notch. I don't allow marbles in the classroom, because they are just the perfect size for sticking in one's nose, mouth, ears, and other body cavities... I would just rather not go there. I've confiscated several and I have them in the top drawer of my desk. I was hanging a bulletin board today, and asked one of my kids to grab something out of my desk drawer. She opened the drawer, and her face lit up. I was wondering what was so exciting when she reaches in, pulls out two marbles and says, "Miss Ashley! I found your marbles!" I just died, it was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Then came the conversation about how funny things we say don't mean exactly what the words mean. It ended with a lot of laughs all around, the best possible way.

busy as a bee

One of my favorite state of beings is being busy. I'm always doing, and while I'm doing, I'm thinking about other things I should be/want to be doing. It can be a little bit overwhelming at times, but I love it. I love all of my to-do lists, especially the projects list(s). Here are a few things that have gotten crossed off lately:


1. Apron for our Homeliving Center


It's made with cute Pooh fabric that matches the curtains in my classroom. More matching aprons and a how to coming soon.


2. Fabric colored pencil roll





I couldn't make it through a day without these. Seriously, I use them for everything... they really come in handy when you work with kids. I did just have them all in a drawer in my desk with an ugly rubber band around them... but I like this way better. It's cuter, more organized, and easier to get to. Lovely.


3. Organizational tray for my desk



I'm a mess. I'm always cleaning up messes I constantly make... which is where a nice little place to put all those things I use too often to throw in a drawer, but looked really cluttery (Yes, it's a word. Why? Because I said so!)just laying around on my desk to get pushed wherever comes in handy. (Wow, longest run on sentence ever!) Mod Podge, paint, and scrapbook paper gave me the creative solution. Plus, who doesn't need a little splash of color?


4. The first of my Little Dresses for Africa



I LOVE this idea! When I came across it, I knew it was something I had to do. This organization is so amazing, I had tears in my eyes just reading their blog. They have people all across the country making beautiful dresses out of pillowcases, and they distribute them to little girls in Africa to raise self confidence and spread the love of God. They have ideas for sewing parites, but I don't know of anyone else that sews... but I decided I would still do it, just one little dress at a time. If you do sew, live in the area, and you want to work together on this project, please let me know! Also, if you have any extra pillowcases, don't get rid of them, give them to me! I will be doing a longer post dedicated to LDFA when I finish the first batch to send. Even if you don't sew you can make donations of pillow cases, bias tape, money for shipping, etc.


There are a few other things, but I haven't taken pictures yet, so I will post them when I find a few minutes to snap a few pictures. I started a brand new project today, involving this beat up, ugly old table I had in my classroom.



Can't wait to share the finished project! I'm half way through, and it's already super cute and kid friendly!

Last thing to celebrate- Monday is over! Least favorite day of the week down, six more lovely days to go!

Confessions of a Tanning Addict

Have you ever seen those drop dead gorgeous pale, porcelain skinned models? I don't look like them. My pale skin is hideous... so I started going to the tanning bed religiously. I've spent at least four years visiting the tanning bed on an almost daily basis, and a small fortune funding that oh-so-bad-for-you habit. Don't get me wrong, I never let myself get so dark that it was scary, but I always had a nice little bronze glow. After a recent skin cancer scare I decided enough was enough, that I was going to give up tanned skin for safe skin. That was all well and good, until a month went by and I wasn't so tan anymore. I hated the way my clothes looked against my pale skin, I hated the way my not-naturally so dark hair looked against my pale face. I felt... ugly... and every girl out there knows what a confidence killer feeling unattractive can be. So I relapsed to the tanning bed a few times, but I always felt super paranoid that a malignant tumor was invading my body and all I could think about was that being tan wasn't worth dying for. So, I began my quest to find a self tanner I could live with. Now, I HATE self tanners. I hate the way they smell, I hate the orange tinge they give your skin, I hate putting them on, I hate the way they streak, I hate the way they make your hands look dirty. That is, until I found the wonder of wonders. A self tanner I actually liked.
TA-DA! Fake Bake!

I was really skeptical at first, but Rebecca had it in stock when I got my hair done, so I figured, really what do I have to lose... and thus my newest addiction was born. It's wonderful. It takes me less time to put it on than it did to lay in the tanning bed. It's a little pricey for a self tanner, but way cheaper than my roughly $80 a month tanning habit. Best of all, it's way healthier than all those cancer-causing UV rays. It comes out brown so you can see where you put it. YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS (duh, but you never know...), but the results are beautifully realistic. It was a nice day today, so I wore a short dress and boots, and at least three people commented on my "beautiful tan". They couldn't tell it was from a bottle, and if I didn't put it on myself, I wouldn't be able to tell either. One of the entries on my life's to-do list was to quit the tanning bed. Check- I finally cancelled my tanning membership today, and I couldn't be happier with my bottle tan.
For more information- www.fakebake.com

Happy (late) president's day

On this day, we are supposed to celebrate our presidents. While I have the utmost respect for the office of president, and our government as the founding fathers intended it, there are a few presidents who have forever altered our form of government... and not for the better.


Abraham Lincoln is one of those presidents. It annoys me to no end to hear people sing his praises. Do they not realize the irrevocable damage this man did to our country, to our freedom? The purpose of this post is to dig a little into the "Lincoln myth" and find a little truth... however ugly it may be.

Before we continue, there are a few key points of knowledge I must give to you.
1. The south seceded from the United States of America and formed a new country, the Confederate States of America. Thus, the term "Civil War" is wholly inaccurate, as these were not two factions of the same country fighting for control of said country, but one country led by a merciless dictator invading and conquering another country that was just trying to live free. I prefer the term "War of Northern Aggression", but "War for Southern Independence" will do just as nicely.

2. The War of Northern Aggression was NOT fought to end slavery. It was fought over unfair tariff practices, and the North turning the South into a pseudo-mercantilist state. If you have no idea what mercantilism is, look it up. Seriously. Basically, cotton was king in the agricultural south, and the industrialized north needed cotton to make it's goods. The north passed tariffs to encourage the sale of southern cotton to northern manufacturers and discourage the sale of southern cotton to foreign competitors. Southern cotton farmers could not get a fair price on their cotton. So the north had all this cotton and was making all these goods. Trouble is, they needed a place to sale them. They passed protectionist tariffs to keep the south buying more expensive northern made goods by upping the tariffs on foreign competitors. Can you see how the south was getting a raw deal here? Let me ask you one more question... what does this remind you of? If you said England and the American colonies shortly before the Revolution, you hit the nail on the head!

3.The Confederate States of America had every right to exist. Why, you ask? Um, hello, look at how the United States of America was founded! We declared our independence from a government that had gotten completely out of control and was trampling our inalienable rights and freedoms... just like the North was doing to the South. When the northern states threatened to secede from the union (bet you didn't know that, huh?!) Thomas Jefferson (a founding father, BRILLIANT mind, and my favorite of all the presidents) said to let them go in peace. He understood that the union of states was a voluntary one, with the concentration of power in the states themselves. This is almost the exact opposite of the system we have today. Thank you, dishonest Abe.

Myth #1: Lincoln saved the union
Stating that Lincoln saved the union is the blackest blasphemy against our Constitution. Lincoln destroyed the voluntary union of states our founders created for us by using deadly force and total war to coerce and conquer the Confederate States of America. He basically invented the notion that secession was illegal... most states had not bothered to write secession into their constitutions, because it was taken as a given. Lincoln had the entire state legislatures of Kentucky and Maryland (border states with important munitions manufacturing capabilities) arrested so that they could not vote to secede and join the Confederacy. He obliterated the basic premise of our government... that we were a loose federation of states, with extremely limited central authority. He may have forced all the states into one country, but he destroyed forever the voluntary union our founding fathers fought and died to create.

Myth #2: Lincoln freed the slaves
Lincoln was not the Great Emancipator. Slavery was outlawed with the ratification of the 13th amendment, on December 6, 1865. Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865. So, I guess he didn't free the slaves after all. Oh, you mean he freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation? Wrong, try again. Have you ever read the Emancipation Proclamation? No? Ok, read it here What did you find? That Lincoln only declared slaves to be free where he had no authority and could not possibly grant freedom, but held them in captivity where it was within his power to set them free. The Emancipation Proclamation was a political ploy to keep foreign countries from intervening on the side of the Confederacy. He had to make the war appear to be about slavery, to turn foreign people (and their newly emancipated ex-slave populations) against the South. Before this, Lincoln helped to outlaw blacks in Illinois... meaning, they could not reside within it's borders. He also advocated moving the black population to Liberia or Mexico... anywhere but the United States. Lincoln was a white supremacist and no friend of the blacks. Remember that next time you are singing his praises.

I've only scratched the surface of the Lincoln myths with my snippets of true history. It is my hope that you will do your own research and come to your own conclusions... that everything you have always been taught isn't exactly the truth. That you have to fight for your own knowledge and understanding. If you would like to know more, google. PLEASE refer to primary sources... they are the most true. I'm just a girl from small town, South Carolina. If I can do it, you can too.

For further reading, see The Real Lincoln by: Thomas DiLorenzo or Lincoln: Unmasked, also by Thomas DiLorenzo