Painted

This week I brought back an art project that was one of my favorites during summer camp: egg painting!

My elementary students were just as amazed as the kids I did this with last summer and I was happy to see similarly great results. In addition to learning how to make paint comparable to how the old masters would have... we learned about Illuminated Manuscripts and saw lots of examples of the pretty lettering and intricate details. I had the students write the first letter of their name in a similar fashion and then decorate the border of their paper. Later in the week we'll go back with markers and add some finer details, but I think the kids really enjoyed making these. I've learned lots of things in my time teaching art, and one of them is that kids really like to write words and add letters to their artwork... regardless of what it is haha.

This one was a favorite.

Another funny little story:  I brought these into the dining room at home to dry and caught Theo up on the table licking them. Gosh that cat is weird haha good thing these are non-toxic?

Presidents Day

Last Monday I was blessed with a day off which hardly felt like a day off once I had finished folding all FIVE loads of laundry I did... oof. Thankfully I still found some time for relaxing, and got to watch a few movies and plan my weekly lessons along the way. After work and dinner Keith met up with his band for practice after a pretty long hiatus. Afterwards they went downtown to have a drink at Robert's in honor of Steve's recent birthday and since I was having a pretty low key day, I decided to meet up with them for a beer or two. I was sincerely surprised by how many people go out on a week night, but the band that played was much better than the stuff they gear towards tourists on the weekends. We sat up on the balcony, enjoyed some time talking together and still got home before bedtime. Maybe we should go out more often?

Preparations

This past weekend was mostly spent packing and preparing for our upcoming move. I don't know if it's really hit me yet that as of March we will no longer live in this home, although I can say that this is probably the most excited I've been about packing up everything we own to move. I said this on instagram... but really, you would think our stuff would have learned how to pack itself by now. I've gotten really good a figuring out how to box up our stuff just right; what is necessary to bring and what can be tossed or given away. We were thinking about it, and we both moved every year of college, so at least 2006, 2007, 2008... we moved to Philadelphia in 2009, Nashville in 2010. but get this! We lived in this house all of 2011! I would call that a success for us haha we seem to be serial movers.

Here's hoping that they will have the house ready for us to move in this weekend, and that this can be the least stressful move of the past 6 years!

Super Super

Last two weeks were a lithe foggy, due to the sickness that tore through our home and in that fog I completely forgot to post these pictures from Superbowl Sunday! This year we had people over to our house again for the big game, but this was much expanded from last years small get together. We had lots of food and lots of great friends... some who were watching the football game, and some who were not haha. Keith was wonderful, and stood out at the grill cooking for us, and I think everyone was thankful for his BBQ chicken. I am just always happy for an occasion to get people together to hang out, even if that occasion is football. Here are a couple random shots that I took throughout the night:

Jordie, Trent, Bennett, Sammie

Keith and Jonathan 

Brad, Jen, David

Cheering on Madonna?

Brad, Keith and David

Quarantined

We just cannot seem to shake this winter sickness over here. I feel much better than I did last week at this time, but I'm still full of snot and much more tired than usual. I hate that just in time for Valentine's Day that I passed along my cold to Keith, but it was inevitable with how much time we spend together. He has been trying his hardest to shake it, but unfortunately he had to come home early from work Tuesday, felt terrible all day Wednesday, and then stay home all together on Thursday. I've been doing my best to take care of him as well as he took care of me last week, but I must say he's much better at tending to a sick person :) I am a lucky gal!

Keith does has great taste in sick day food though, why have lousy chicken noodle soup when you can have tortilla soup from Mas Tacos? Even Theo was trying to swipe some...

Here's hoping that everyone in our house gets better this weekend!

Be Mine

Last year my awesome Valentine surprised me by shaving his long scraggly beard... apparently he didn't want to go for a re-gift this year, but I am quite pleased with the great day that we had. Unfortunately Keith was feeling a little sick (wonder where he caught it? :) but thankfully he rallied just for me, and made me feel super special all day long.

I started the morning with a text that included details and a coupon for a manicure and pedicure I can schedule at my leisure, and a note from Keith which said "treat yo self!". This then prompted me to rewatch one of my favorite episodes of Parks and Recreation, which made me laugh just as much as I anticipated haha. After a quick run and a shower I realized that I had left my huge cart of art supplies in Keith's car and wouldn't be prepared for my afternoon lessons, so I called him up and scheduled an impromptu lunch rendezvous. Since we had plans to go out for dinner, I just made myself a sandwich and we had a little picnic in the car. I kind of like when being forgetful means that I get to have some extra time to hang out with my husband :)

Keith ended up feeling bad enough to leave work early, so he came home and slept whole I went to teach my afternoon art classes, and when I got home he was feeling energized enough to go out. We had a glass of wine while we got ready and then headed to dinner at a favorite little hole in the wall place, Savarinos. We love how no-frills everything is there, and the food is definitely worth talking about. I still haven't brought myself to try something new because I love the broccoli garlic penne so darn much! I think the best part is their selection of tasty little italian desserts... it always makes me think of my favorite gelato shop back home, Sonny's. After dinner we skipped the movie because Keith was starting to fade, and opted to go home and go to bed early instead.

Overall, it felt like a perfect little Valentines Day. Nothing crazy, but a nice occasion to get fancy and enjoy an evening for ourselves.

and if you're nostalgic like I am... here is a look at what we did for Valentines day in 2010 and 2011. Now I want to go and dig up pictures from our 2009 v-day... I can't believe we've been celebrating together for 4 years!

Sprouts

Last night we tried brussel sprouts for the first time, and they were pretty darn good! For some reason both Keith and I had both never eaten them in our lifetime, but our CSA gave us the opportunity this week. Thankfully Ina Garten helped us roast them to perfection, and now we can say we're no longer sprout virgins. I can see why kids might not like these things though... very strong flavor, and a moderately strange texture.

In other news it took Keith and I an entire year of living in this house to fully realize how dark it gets at night with all the lights out. This may seem strange to the average person, but our new favorite evening game is to race to shut off all the other lights, hide somewhere and attempt to scare the crap out of each other haha. Keith usually gets me because he's super sneaky, but this weekend I'm proud to say that I truly scared him... he didn't like it, but I laughed really hard. Gotta love married life haha

Studying the Land

Recently my elementary students have been learning about fundamental subjects of art. We started with still life, moved on to landscapes, and next week we'll be venturing into portraits. For our landscape project I stripped back our supplies and only gave the students the option of using colored pencils, but still gave them freedom to create any kind of landscape they wanted. I was pretty happy with tonights results. We're working REALLY hard on making "complete" drawings that have a background, and aren't just "scribble scrabbled". Some of them are really taking their time and enjoying the results that they're getting. Here are the couple that were completed this evening:

I have this whole group of kids that like to draw things really small, and write words on their projects. I find it SO interesting. 

House in the forest.

This last pictures makes me especially happy :) it was made by a boy who is easily described as a "problem child" and he's never taken much of an interest in coming to art class or participating. I think he has a lot of issues with trying to fit in and be seen as cool around the other students, but there was something today that really clicked. He started this drawing last week and hardly got more than a few lines drawn, but when he sat down this afternoon he just started going for it. He added so many details, and took great care in creating something he was proud of. I only checked in a few times to sharpen pencils, and he was so in the zone that he was the last student in the room as the rest were dismissing. He handed me his paper and as  he headed to his tutor he said to me, "I really liked making this" and I wanted to cry I was so proud! I told him that now that I know what a great artist he is I'm going to start expecting much more and he just laughed. Here's hoping that I can keep his motivation up!

I'm happy that I've been able to share so much of the art that my students make, sometimes it feels like this is the only thing I take pictures of during the week haha if you're interested... click here and you can see more of the art work that I've featured here on the blog!

Recover

I promise that we haven't completely fallen off the face of the Earth, this weekend has just been centered around trying to feel better. As I previously mentioned, I've been fighting off a nasty cold this whole week. I went to work on Friday believing that I was on the mend, but ended up feeling worse than ever by the time we went to bed in the evening. My poor husband, what a trooper, he has spent the whole weekend getting me more tissues, filling my water bottle and bringing me food and medicine. I feel like I always forget how terrible being sick is until it happens again :/ lets hope this is my one bad virus for the year.

Needless to say, we didn't do much venturing out this weekend and we certainly didn't see very many people. We left the house on Saturday so that Keith could run a few miles at the gym (and I walked... very slowly haha) we grabbed lunch, and briefly listened to a lady who was no help at all with our taxes. Today we only left to go work at church and to walk through our new place. We did watch quite a few Redbox movies though, like Bridesmaids, What's Your Number, and The Art of Getting By. It's always nice to have a relaxing weekend at home, but now I just feel like I need to disinfect every inch of our home because I have inevitably sneezed, coughed or snotted on everything. Gross.

Here are a few instagram photos from the weekend:

The mega pot of soup I made which included, tomato juice, pulled chicken, potatoes, turnips, carrots, tomatoes, corn, purple peas, and a touch of cream. So hearty and tasty!

Girl scout cookies which boosted my mood a bit, even though Eve let me know they were the worst thing I could have been eating to make me feel better haha

We had planned on cooking dinner last night, but burgers sounded SO much better. We tried Pharmacy again and it was so delicious. I particularly loved my falafel burger mmm mmm mmm! I could eat another right now haha

Hope you guys had a better weekend than us, all quarantined in our house haha, anything interesting that we missed out on?

Ps- going to visit our new house today was SUCH a tease... we CANNOT WAIT to move! now about that packing...

Remedy

These have been my only saviors these past few days. Hey unavoidable winter sickness... GO AWAY! I've been feeling a bit down ever since our run on Saturday, but my symptoms are just lingering. Not getting any better. Thankfully I have Advil cold and sinus on my side and lovely throat coat tea! Now let's just cross our fingers that none of the gross little booger factories I work with pass along anything more, feeling sick is NOT helping my training one bit.

In the mean time I wish I could just spend the rest of the week in bed. Can't I just try again on Monday?

Reward

So our reward for running 3 miles on Saturday is that we got to go and see a Predators game last night! I think that I expected for us to have pretty crappy seats since they were giving out so many tickets to runners, but Keith and I were pleasantly surprised with how close we were sitting! It made the game so much more exciting (and easier to keep my attention haha). The Preds ended up losing which was a HUGE bummer, but the game went into overtime and ended in a shoot out which kept us on our toes til the very end. We were still talking today about what a bummer it is that they lost haha. Regardless, it was a fun little mid week treat to go on a date together.

Nashville

So close!

SHOOT OUT! So stressful I could hardly watch!

Sunny

I was complaining last week about my students and helpers, but amidst all the struggle I had with students to create replicas of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the finished products were quite amazing. Once the kids got over their initial frustrations of feeling like they didn't know how to draw vases or flowers they started getting really creative with it. Here are my favorites:

I have no idea what this is, but I love it haha

I did have one great comment that I just have to share: as the students were finishing their backgrounds one of the tutors said to me, "I don't know why you even give them markers, it always makes their drawings look SO BAD!" <-- actual quote from an adult, while in the presence of children. Seriously? I give them markers because they LOVE markers and as long as they're coloring and enjoying themselves it doesn't really matter. 

Just for good measure, I also felt like showing you this painting from a middle schooler who did a similar project just with watercolors. She's pretty awesome for a 6th grader.

Race

This past Saturday Keith and I ran our first race together! Since we set our goal of running the half marathon in April we've been training like crazy and I knew that I wanted us to run a couple smaller races just to get a feel for what race day will be like. It just happened that when we were at the Flyers game last month we saw that they were advertising a Predators 5K where along with your registration you also got free hockey tickets. That was more than enough to sell us on signing up!

Yesterday we woke up to rain, but we knew that our training had prepared us enough for 3.1 miles to be a breeze. We got downtown, got our numbers, shirts and game tickets then took everything back to the car to get ready to run. Despite the rain, wet roads and CRAZY HILLS we did really well, and I was pretty proud that we finished it in just over 31 minutes. If we learned anything it's that we need to start running on more hilly streets, because Nashville is definitely not messing around haha. Now we have a 10K coming up in March and the half marathon in April!

pre race

getting his number situated

our semi-confusing race route haha

Bounty

We're always so excited to see what new goodies we'll get every two weeks in our farm share, and this week's CSA pick up was too good not to share! I was definitely nervous about switching to this way of grocery shopping since we don't have much of a choice in what we receive, but now that we've been at it for a few months I LOVE the excitement and mystery that it brings. It's been nice to change up our weekly menus and try new things that we never would have thought to buy.

Here is what we will be eating this week:

• chicken breasts
• bratwurst 
• corn
• purple peas
• blackberry jam
• spiced peaches
• honey
• tomato juice
• stewed tomatoes
• BBQ sauce
• whole wheat bread
• eggs
• sweet potatoes
• turnips
• carrots
• beets
• brussel sprouts
• honey apricot goat cheese 

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it....