Category Archives: Lifestyle

Orchid Week: Tuesday

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I’m in my last week of teaching — is that even possible? — and won’t have a lot of time to blog this week, so I’m leaving you with a series of photos of orchids that I took at the nursery. Enjoy!

Today’s teacher task: supervising cleaning out lockers and making sure my kids don’t put usable school supplies in the trash. We donate good stuff to less affluent schools. Then they will go through their portfolios from eight years of elementary school. They absolutely love seeing their stuff from when they were little and also seeing how much they have grown in their eighth grade year with me. It’s usually a feel-good activity for the last day of classes.

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Orchid Week: Monday

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I’m in my last week of teaching — is that even possible? — and won’t have a lot of time to blog this week, so I’m sharing a series of photos of orchids that I took at the nursery. Enjoy!

I loved the look of these against the blue background. I have no idea what the name of this orchid is; I forgot to write it down, I was so overwhelmed by its beauty.

Today’s task: give my last final exam and enter the grades in the online grade book. Woot!

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Views of the Thames

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While watching the Golden Jubilee coverage today, I got inspired to do some research about the paintings of the Thames that the television presenters were referring to, and I discovered some gorgeous views of the Thames.

The River Thames with St. Paul’s Cathedral on Lord Mayor’s Day, c.1747- 48, was painted by the Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal (known as Canaletto).

The Thames above Waterloo Bridge c.1830-35, by Joseph Mallord WIlliam Turner, shows an impressionistic view of the Thames, Turner “shrouds the river in a blanket of pollution, with chimneys belching out smoke” according to the Moderna Museet website.

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902) was a French painter who spent much of his career in Britain. This painting, The Thames, c. 1876, gives the viewer a vision of a jaunty little group out for a pleasure trip on the crowded river.

Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge in Grey Weather, c.1903, shows a “crowded heaviness. Behind are the chimneys, dirt, smoke and steam of London and in front the bright dark flow of the Thames. Monet has parted them with his clever use or placing of the bright, red and green splashes on the vehicles crossing the bridge” according to the How Stuff Works website.

Finally, my 2011 photos of the Thames taken from the Tower Bridge show a modern London and a modern river. I hope you enjoyed today’s journey through history.

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Flower Stories: Alstroemeria

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Music Man came home from the store with flowers — our signature flower, the alstroemeria, and some lilies. Alstroemeria is an inexpensive, common “fill-in” flower that is sold in grocery stores everywhere. To us, however, the humble alstroemeria is a symbol of our love and commitment to each other. We used them in our wedding flowers and they have been our signature ever since.

Resembling a miniature lily, alstroemeria, often called the Peruvian Lily or Lily of the Incas, was named after its discoverer, Baron Claus von Alstromer, a Swedish baron who collected the seeds on a trip to Spain in 1753. Today, this popular flower can be found in a range of colors – from white to golden yellow, orange to apricot, pink to red, lavender and purple. Symbolizing friendship and devotion, the alstroemeria’s leaves grow upside down, with the leaf twisting as it grows out from the stem, so that the bottom is facing upwards – much like the twists, turns and growth of our friendships. — Source: Teleflora

Flower Stories: The Rose That Could Cover Chicago

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My New Dawn Rose has been here for years — long before we moved in. My next door neighbor told me that if I moved it next to our house, it would cover the entire house and ruin our tuck pointing. So — we built it an arbor of its own. I bought elbow-length rose gloves to tie it up and it’s my weekend project.

But that doesn’t take away from its beauty. Every year, I am overwhelmed by the prolific blossoms that come back again and again all summer, even if I cut it back all the way to the roots.

I think I’d better tie up the canes that are hitting the car as I drive by, though. 🙂

Happy weekend!

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The Irony of the Muffins

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Over the weekend, I decided to make a batch of mini muffins, using a recipe featured by my niece on Vanderbilt Wife. I already had frozen zucchini and some leftover chocolate chips, as well as amaretto cocoa that came in a Christmas gift basket. Woot!

Unfortunately, the first batch I baked got too crispy on the edges because I baked them a tad too long. You should have seen Music Man’s face when I dumped them into the trash bin. I decided I HAD to make another batch, since we were entertaining a Cordon Bleu trained chef for dinner. I mean, really! How embarrassing to serve crispy muffins.

The next batch got the addition of wild dried blueberries, so we ended up with zucchini-blueberry-chocolate muffins and they were delish! I was careful about the time in the oven, and I had enough batter left over from the mini muffin trays to create three full size muffins. From thence comes the irony.

Tonight, as I opened the oven door after turning on the broiler for the chicken breasts, I discovered the pan of three muffins that had been forgotten in the frenzy to make a second batch of mini-muffins and then get on with our dinner. I had turned off the oven when I took out the minis, and the big muffins were only a little bit the worse for wear for a couple of days in the oven and a blast from the broiler. They were only a little crispy on the outside and still moist on the inside — a welcome treat with our dinner tonight.

In the words of the immortal Alanis Morrissette —

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

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Retirement 365

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People ask me what I’m going to do now that I’m retiring from teaching public school. I’ll start with Retirement 365, which is my blogging chronicle of my first year of retirement. It will debut on June 9, my first day of freedom from the demands of middle school children and their parents. Am I ready for retirement from teaching? Absolutely. Am I ready to replace it with something equally important and meaningful? Yes, again.

Right up there with blogging more will be watching more television. I’m eagerly awaiting the new What Not to Wear season — you know how much I love Clinton and Stacey (really, I do) — and it killed me to erase a bunch of unwatched programs off of my DVR so that there was room for Stacey and Clinton tonight. Of course, my erasures included Private Practice and Grey’s Anatomy, both of which I intend to watch this summer in their season’s entirety, and American Idol where Jessica Sanchez was robbed.

So maybe not everything I do in retirement will be totally important and meaningful, but a girl’s gotta have her vices even at her doddering old retirement age. Stay tuned… I’ve got a lot of grading and cleaning and teaching still to accomplish in the next eight days.

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Linky Love: Friday’s Child Is Loving and Giving

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This week I’ve decided to hook you up with blogs that I follow and love EVERY day. Using the ancient British nursery rhyme, I’ll take you on a tour of my favorite blogs.

When I learn that a young family member or friend is going to have a baby, I think to myself, there goes twenty years of your life. It’s not easy giving up the self and couple-centered activities that young people enjoy, and I’m not sure that everyone who chooses to have a baby is actually ready for the just-plain-hard work that goes along with being a parent of a young child. Thank goodness the joy of having kids usually outweighs the bad. I’ve been blessed to see my two children grow up to be wonderful adults, but there were moments along the way that I would have easily sold them to the gypsies (JK, kids). Images like this one make me remember those first steps and that first Easter egg hunt. These were times when I loved my kids so much I could barely hold it in — and I still do.

Today I’m featuring the blog of my niece, Jessica, who writes as Vanderbilt Wife. Her honest appraisals of her life as the mother of two toddlers have made her popular among “mommy bloggers” but she is more than that.

As the nursery rhyme goes, Friday’s child is loving and giving, and I think that Jessie epitomizes that in her relationships with her little family, with her sister, with her father and mother, and with her many cousins and aunts and uncles. She was a dedicated and thoughtful granddaughter to my mom and dad, and in her role as houseparent to boys in a private school, she is a mother figure as she bakes her way into their hearts.

If you want to connect to a real person who writes about real life and is honest about the trials and joys of being a parent, try out Vanderbilt Wife. She also shares a lot of recipes which are all delish! And then there’s the photos of my adorable grand-niece and nephew. 🙂

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Flower Stories: Bridal Veil Spirea

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Today would have been my father’s 89th birthday — 05/11/23. He loved plants of all kinds, but he especially loved flowering bushes and perennials. Happy birthday, Daddy.

I wait somewhat impatiently every year for the bridal veil spirea to bloom. It’s not actually in my yard; the roots are in the garden of the abandoned house next door.

We had a punishing rain last weekend and lost some of the fresh glory of the blossoms, but most survived. This post makes me realize that I need to plant my own spirea on my side of the fence, because when the bulldozer comes, I’ll lose all of this beauty.

I do my best to honor Oksana’s memory and to take care of her garden; it’s time to go to the nursery again in honor of my Dad and Oksana.

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