Vacation Day Three

I like to remind myself this is a working vacation. I got new brake pads installed on my car this morning, did my income taxes, and delivered more of Chloe's Girl Scout cookies she hadn't been able to hand out before she left. I was able to get a run in around lunch time leaving myself some afternoon time to dapple in my exploration vacation. I chose a museum today. I also check the hours on the web so as not to have to wander aimlessly again. I headed to the Flemming Museum at UVM.

I had technically been here once before. Chloe's second grade class had a field trip there. The trip ended up being on the same morning of an appointment she had. So I dropped her off there after her appointment and stayed for a little bit. Most of my time was spent in the classroom down stairs where the class was working on creating a  water color picture.

I walked the mile or so up the hill to the museum. I don't know why I feel like I should go see art this week. Maybe I am seeking out the very thing I would not be able to take my kids to any time soon. At any rate I paid my five dollar fee and set out to explore. It is a nice size museum with two floors and several rooms. There was an exhibit on smoke. featuring a variety of paintings and sketches of everything from fires to Turkish men smoking hookah in the 1800's. There were even a variety of pipes of all sorts. One room was devoted to images of Iran. That was a really interesting exhibit. Most were photographs, some really disturbing. The photographs were done in a variety of ways. Some were developed to be slightly blurry. I found myself looking closer at this woman and the baby she was holding asking where is the rest of that baby? Until I realized there was no rest. I am sure I will see that one in my nightmares tonight.

There were the usual variety of landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. They have an exhibit on ancient Africa and Egypt. There was a mummy in the Egypt exhibit. I steered clear of that one. I have memories of visiting the museums in Philadelphia when I was a kid. I have always been a bit freaked out by the mummies. My favorite was the Norman Rockwell painting, "The Babysitter". That painting is fun enough in and of itself. Classic Rockwell that we can all relate to. What I really liked about it though was the story. Apparently the sixth grade class at Taft School in Burlington (back in the 1940's?... I have the date wrong I am sure. I meant to bring a notebook to write things down as I didn't think I could take pictures inside the museum) raised $48 dollars to purchase that painting in memory of their classmate who had died from leukemia. I love that is was going to sell for that much. Anyhow they sent the money to Rockwell (a Vermonter). He sent the money back and gave them the painting. It hung in the hall at Taft School until the school closed. Where it was transferred to the Chittenden Bank for safe keeping. Back in the mid 1990's the Burlington School District was facing some serious budget issues and was thinking about selling the painting. The original class of 6th graders (don't you love that?) and other agencies raised money for the districts needs else where. The painting, having now been saved, hangs at the Fleming for everyone to see and enjoy. I love that.

Tonight and tomorrow we get snow. At some point I have to tackle a pile of grading. I think I will have to combine that with my efforts to explore.

Vacation Day Two

I approached the start of my day by reading through the 7 Days while munching my cereal determined to find something to explore today. I had in my mind wandering through a nice art gallery. I read through the list of new openings. There were lots of things outside the city, but I really wanted something I could walk to. I spend every work day commuting. I was picturing my "vacation" as a chance to rediscover the city I explored over ten years ago when I decided to move here. There was a rather unusual exhibit that is listed as "copper forged structures inspired by human veins." I wasn't really sure I was up to exploring that so I settled on an exhibit at the Amy Tarrant Gallery by Vermont Artists with Disabilities. It is one of those places that I had passed by before but never taken the time to go inside. When I got there I learned that they were only open on Saturdays. This could be one of many reason I had never been inside but perhaps this Saturday I will wander my way back down there.

Left without a destination I defaulted to wandering around and looking at public art. I stopped to read historic signs that I would normally not pay much attention to. I came upon this one:

I found this sign profoundly sad. the knowledge that the downtown area exists because we demolished a neighborhood of 140 people seems very sad to me. I passed one of the more bizarre public art displays.

I have never been able to figure out what the reason is for this being here. The first time you see it you hope you are not seeing what you think you are. And you aren't. Except for maybe you are.

When you wander further down the path you come to these:

I can't figure them out either. If you head down the steps you see some interesting links on the steps that fit together from the bottom angle.

But I still didn't see anything that explained the rather odd collecting of marble at the top of the stairs.

Birthday Prep

Alexa's birthday is coming up. She asked to havea party at home and has settled on a bee theme. She picked it out of a catalog. I think it fed into her never ending desrie to be warm and have Spring show up. Before she left for her dad's we listed out some game ideas that i told her I would work on while she was gone. I picked up some supplies yesterday and started my morning off today looking to create. The first task was to turn these items

Into a bowling game. As in "Bowl the Bee into the Flowers." Here is what I came up with.

I am not really sure that the styrofoam bee will pack enough power to knock over the pins (although they are pretty wobbly). I figure in a pinch we can use the ladybug kickball that she already has around the house.

I also created the board for "Toss the Bee into the Hive."

I was a little worried that the hive looked like... well... a pile of poop to be honest. So I added some bees in the background to help things along. I also cut out all the pieces and made a sample for our art project.

I will tackle painting the large bee for "Pin the Stinger on the Bee" another day.

Vacation Day One

We have been through this before. It isn't anything new. I still hate it though. The hardest part of divorce with children is the time spent away from your children. The girls left today to spend the next eight days with their dad. It stinks. There really isn't any nice way to spin it. They were sad about going, and I am sad about having them go. However, there really isn't a choice to be made here. It is part of the way these things work. So I busy myself. I have a list of projects that need to be done everything from grading to income taxes. I will putter through my list and hopefully end the week with more done than I previously had. On my errands this afternoon I walked out of the library and was putting things in my car when I noticed this movie poster on the cinema across the street. I can't even tell you what the movie was but the poster was this list with boxes to check off it said:

• love
• life
• kids

pick two.

I stared at it. I thought, "Crap that's my life." One catagory shy of having it all. It was depressing. I don't want to slide into some dark depression this week. In an effort to shake myself out of a lonely mood. I took myself out for a walk this afternoon. Picked up a coffee, did some window shopping. I came to a decision. I decided to take myself on vacation this week in my own town. On my walk today I passed a gallery and a church I didn't even know existed.  So I decided I should take myself on vacation and see some sights this week. I am going to take a pictures too. Like a good tourist would. Here is the one from today's walk:

Nice night huh? Lets see what I come up with for tomorrow.

Ice Skating

It has been a rather warm winter for ice skating. Some of the outdoor rinks have really taken a beating with all this warm weather. The girls and I wanted to take advantage of this nice sunny day and get some skating in. We found our usual rink at Battery Park was in no condition for skating. We headed over to Lakeside Park. I saw people skating on the rink there last weekend when I was out for a run. The neighborhood does a nice job of working together to keep the rink in good shape.  It was a little lumpy but the man told me they would be flooding it again tonight in hopes of smoothing it out.

Brownie Popsicle

This is what your mom makes you wear when you are going to spend four hours outside selling cookies and the Girl Scout Cookie booth.

I am not sure she could move her arms enough to hand people the cookies.

Little Book

Cookie Delivery

In order to clear out some of the cases of cookies that are now sitting in the office, Chloe is plugging away at her cookie delivery.

She is bagging up orders and writing out thank you notes.

Now if we can just keep them safe from the dog until they are all delivered.

Tomato Planting

It is February. In our house that means it is time to start thinking about this summer's garden. More specifically around mid-February you should start the tomato seeds. Alexa has been wanting to do this for awhile. I know because the seed catalog came in the mail last week and she carried it around for two days circling things. Today we planted!

If all of these come up, we are going to have 48 tomato plants (24 small and 24 big). Clear some space in your garden Grammie Eva!!!

As always we will keep you posted as to the progress. The action is non-stop around here!

A Magical Place

is the name of this painting.

Valentine Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday the girls cooked up an little Valentine for me. Really it started the day before when Marti dropped off some materials for them. Chloe rushed them upstairs announcing, "No peeking!" to me. They rushed me out of the house the next morning after the babysitter arrived. After dinner last night I was given this...

I followed it correctly and found this...

I was handed a flashlight and crawled into the playhouse to find these...

back side...

They were quite pleased with themselves!

Valentines

The girls seemed to have had a very nice Valentines Day at school. There were the parties. Alexa came home with this really cute heart.

Her classmates were all given heart shaped post it notes to stick to one another's hearts with messages.

She was dressed very festive too.

You can see the brownie sugar is still rushing through her veins. In the end I sent her with her cards to hand out. I emailed the teacher and apologized for being overly organized this year... it all worked out.

Chloe's class made these cute card holders.

She sorted through all her stuff when she got home.

I loved the list of messages each kid received.

A nice positive sugar coated day. Tomorrow I will tell you about the Valentine treasure hunt they planned for me.

Valentine Prep

• Two pans of brownies made for class parties... check
• 48 Valentine Cards filled out and ready for handing out... check
• Two lunch box surprises packed into lunches....check

• Two place settings ready... check

Any wonder this holiday wears me out? But it will be fun for them.

Fancy Nancy Skating Party

The girls got dressed up to attend the Fancy Nancy skating party at Leddy park arena today.

One of Alexa's friends wanted to go but was too shy to attend without a buddy. Her mom asked me if Alexa would like to go too. Lex was excited. Chloe was less so. In my defense it DID say for kids ages 5-10. Chloe warmed up to the idea after a long discussion the night before about it. She looked really cute. However when we started to walk into the arena she was hiding behind parked cars to no one would spot her. Then when we got inside and she saw all the other kids all ages 5-7. She was really unhappy with me. I was prepared for this and had brought some pants for her and she rushed into the bathroom and pulled the dress off and pants on.  She sat out of all of the craft projects and snacks.

Alexa had a great time.

Chloe did warm up to the skating portion of things.

Of course, I had to apologize lots for signing her up and offer to make it up to her.