A few junking treasures...

Lately I have been junking less. It has a lot to do both with the great junk purge of Spring 2011 and the sorry state of my checking account. Getting my house in order has made keeping up with it a lot easier and I am loathe to bring in more stuff unless it is six kinds of total awesome.

Last week I found myself with a few kid free hours so I went to Urban Renewals. I enjoyed browsing and scored a few things which were simply too good to pass up.

For Rebecca, I found a brand new North Face Denali Fleece in turquoise for $25. Now $25 is far more than I am usually willing to spend for anything at a junk store, but in this case I made an exception. This jacket is "the thing" for tweens and teens in our part of the country. Truthfully, I don't get it, but as someone who lusted mightily for Guess jeans and Coca-Cola shirts in the eighties, I understand the longing. At least these jackets are practical. They are super warm and comfy which they should be considering they retail for about $100.

For both girls I scored a Polly Pockets sized Hogwarts Castle for .99. It has secret passages, compartments, and is seriously cool for the Potter fans in my house. As a matter of fact, this blog post was written while Lily played with it next to me. That my friends is called a win.

In other news, we have returned from five days in the cape with my folks who fed us, spoiled us and got us through our last weekend without David. He arrives home on Thursday and our excitement is almost too much to contain. If you hear shrieks of joy on Thursday, it's just us, celebrating the return of our long lost love.

Homeschooling: A day of Innovation...

Today at the Shiny Red School Room we did some unconventional learning- the kind of thing for which there really isn't the time or space in regular school.

We had a day of Innovation.

What is innovation? Innovation and its soul mate inspiration are the sparks which have led to every cool and interesting invention and idea in the world. The car? Innovation. Cell phone? Innovation. Salad Spinner? Innovation!

To accomplish this goal I took out lots of supplies like wood pieces, glue, paint, fabric, pipe cleaners, ribbons, crayons and paper. Onto the table it went and in no time the girls and I became engineers.

Lily decided pretty quickly that she wanted to reconstruct the Great Hall from Hogwarts.

 

Rebecca began to construct a fairy house with columns and a cobblestone floor.

 

We worked for hours learning the sorts of things which can not be quantified on standardized tests. 

There was a lot of engineering involved. What makes a fairy house roof stable? Will glue alone do it? Will additional supports need to be added? 

Problem solving plays a starring role in innovation. We ran out of one size of wood. What could  be used as a substitution?

We allowed our projects to take as much time as was needed. Innovation can't be rushed. The brain has to be allowed time to consider different ideas and to then move forward with a great one.

I made a fairy house. I love fairy houses!

I made this fairy family. Those are real birds nests that we found while on the cape at Thanksgiving!

 

Rebecca is very pleased with her creation.

Check out the sink!

 

Lily's Hogwarts Great Hall and characters kept her busy for a long time. 

I like it when Lily is busy for a long time.

 

There is such value in unstructured learning- in allowing kids to use materials without instructions and without a specific end in mind. 

From the outside our day looked like arts and crafts, but on the inside I was creating tomorrows great inventors.

Lily sings me a song for my birthday...

"Happy Birthday to you
you're 102
you still go to pre-school
you miss your mommy
your mommy's at work
she fired a jerk
she hired a monkey
to do your homework."

It was a special day here at Shiny Red Houses because today was my birthday.

I know you want to know so I'll tell you. I turned 37.

My day started beautifully because I was able to sleep until 9:30. Those of you who are mothers know that the gift of sleeping late is precious indeed.

Know what I love about having a birthday in July? There's almost always a new Harry Potter book or movie coming out. This year is no exception so we went to see the new Harry Potter movie.

There is so much to be learned from Harry Potter. For example, sexy bad boys would make lousy husbands.

Take Sirius Black. Sexy in that disheveled motorcycle riding devil-may-care wizard fighting for the forces of good kind of way. Very fun for maybe a week and then the dark brooding would get to be too much.

Even Harry is too tortured for me.

Know who I would run off with and marry? George and Fred. The Weasley twins are smart and funny. Seriously, those boys know how to laugh! Ladies, let me tell you that funny is much more important in the long run than brooding.

No, I would not marry both of them. I'm not that kind of girl. One Weasley twin would be enough for me.

Anyway, I ate popcorn for breakfast and lunch and had an ice cream cake for dessert. Such decadence.

I find myself enjoying getting older. I love my family, my house, my dogs. I have all that I need for a happy life.

It's not perfect, please understand that.

But it is definitely happily ever after.