Recipe for Life
“S-w-e-e-t, my mom bought Hostess cakes!” “Really? Does your mom, like, never buy sweet stuff for you guys?” “Are you kidding? Why would she? My mom bakes cookies, cakes, and pies all the time!” My son Wesley came home appalled.…
Happy New Year: Here Goes, Math
I am squirming, back-to-work-Monday, the first of the year smirking around the corner. Let’s face it, even teachers who love teaching have to oil their gears after three weeks of fa la la. So I find myself clicking through my…
Rings Around the Rosy
Paper chains…oh how I love thee! Let me count the ways… 1. Easy enough for the whole family to help make. 2. Uses up random paper scraps that you feel guilty about just throwing away. 3. Every tool needed was…
Observation: One Potato, Two Potato
A couple months ago the boys ran barefoot, shovels in hand eager to pull out the remnants of our summer garden. Last spring we transformed the decorative raised beds that edge our suburban lawn to vegetable patches, set up a…
Industrial Animation
Back in the summer of 2003, I took my children to Modigliani & the Artists of Montparnasse at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Sketchbook and pencil in hand, I patted each of them on the back and set…
The Newsboy
The slow sizzle of sautéing onions was interrupted when Søren, donning a plaid woolen flat cap, came wandering into the kitchen asking for an interview with the cook. The accent was, thick, Russian gone awry, picked up most likely from…
Practicing Gratitude
Hands down, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Once the festivities for Halloween have passed I am so excited to begin the journey towards that fourth Thursday in November. Thanksgiving just seems to embody all that is good in a holiday:…
Ready, Set, Write!
November is National Novel Writing Month or “NaNoWriMo” – a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Along with more than 100,000 young novelists worldwide our co-op has accepted this challenge for the past three years. Setting a personal word count…