Bags

I have no idea why, but I love bags -- handbags, tote bags, clutches.  I have loved them since I was little.  Easter shopping was fun because my parents allowed me to get a white patent leather purse to match my white patent leather shoes.  Although I've grown out of my love for white patent leather, I do still love bags.

My latest obsession is with fabric bags.  A woman in my community makes a living as a seamstress.  She is from the Czech Republic and, while my age, seems old worldy in her skills.  Here's the scoop:  she makes window treatments, pillows and fitted slip covers.  Her jobs come from some super swank clients in Manhattan.  She uses custom made fabrics that the clients choose and is allowed to keep the left over.  Now this isn't some cotton stuff found in Walmart; this is beautiful fabric made of linen or embroidered with wool.  What's a woman to do with so much extra, glorious fabric lying around?  She makes bags.

The bag on the left is the first bag I bought from her.  While it's big enough to be a tote bag, I use it for a handbag.  It's big and simple.  And I get tons of compliments whenever I carry it.  The spring/summer farmer's market had a preview this past weekend and advertised Irena as one of the vendors -- I put the date on the calendar and set out as soon as the market opened.  The bag on the right is my newest purchase.  Outwardly they look the same, however, the new bag is lined and is constructed with heavier fabric.  The flowers are embroidered too!

These fabric bags are not the first of my obsession, however.  Many years ago, my father dated a woman who carried at lined velvet tote bag.  I LOVED that bag.  So, when my father saw some in Paris while on a business trip, he bought it for me.

I got this bag when I was a senior in high school.  I still love it as much now as I did then.  Although the black, cheese cloth like lining could be replaced, I wouldn't swap this bag for anything.

My friend Andrea claims she loves shoes because no matter how much she weighs, shoes always look good on her feet.  I suppose that's how I feel about bags.

Free Stuff

Last year at this time, I was in Las Vegas counting the days to come back to NY.  To pass the time, I found myself gravitating toward garden magazines that focused on shabby-chic stuff.  Another way to pass time is to check out my friends on facebook.  Gardening and facebook dovetailed nicely when I spotted my friend Debbie's posts about her garden.  Debbie has an eye for color and design and puts all that together with shabby-chic pieces.  (Yes, Debbie wants an old bed frame in the garden to plant a bed of flowers.)  I was so intrigued that I invited myself to Debbie's house to check the garden out.

Wow!  It is something else.  She started small and added over the years.  One idea Debbie had that worked beautifully was to add the cheap solar panels you can purchase for garden paths and putting them in mason jars.  Those mason jars were hanging about on fence posts and an old ladder (one her husband saved from street side trash).  Deb says when the sun goes down, the lights give the garden a nice glow.  She also used a wood pallet for planting vegetables.  Basically, you lay the pallet down, put dirt in the slat openings, then plant the seed.   From what I saw the pallet worked well -- no weeds could place themselves in between the rows of vegetables and the brussels sprouts were popping through.

So, I was motivated to do some gardening after I came home from Debbie's place.  It's been a slow go since the winter came through and I have little in the way of available funds.  Still, Rod was able to construct an arbor for me out of the dismantled swing set we had.  Also, when Rod tore down the old bungalow on the property, he separated out usable wood, burnable wood, and junk.  We paid for the junk to be hauled away in a dumpster.  The rest of the stuff has sat in the yard.

This spring we put in a new vegetable garden.  With the exception of the cost of the chicken wire and the seeds, everything else has been constructed with free material.  And, this weekend we are putting a windowed door on my little garden shed.  The door is a left over from when we built the house.  By accident, Rod ordered the wrong sized door for the basement entry.  We lived with it for a couple years, then when money wasn't so tight, we bought a bigger door.  Rod, mister gets-rid-of-nothing, kept the old door.  Finally it'll find a new home.

the old door to basement; new to shed

Not everyone has the room to store so much stuff as Rod and I have.  There is a plethora of free things out there, however.  Try Craigslist.  There is a free section.  If you're lucky, you have a designated spring cleaning time when everyone puts their junk curbside.  Need plants?  Ask.  I wanted to get some philodendron.  Instead of buying a plant, I got some cuttings from others for free.  Once they form roots, I'll have my own plant.

It's great to get stuff for free.  It's good for the environment; it's good for the pocketbook; it's good for the soul.

Testing

It's testing season.

Kids are miserable; teachers are stressed.

How did we get here????

When the reports came out in the mid 80s that students were graduating from high school without the ability to read, the you-know-what hit the fan.  And it should have.  What a waste of taxpayer money to allow students to miss such an important part of schooling.  Change needed to be made.

The answer?  Tests.

As usual, this country has gone too far.  We test all the time and have ensured that our students reach mediocrity.  How pathetic.

It's time for change.  It's time to stop incessant testing.  It's time to start teaching and allowing kids to learn not perform on tests.

Works in Progress

As a knitter I often have several things going at a time.  This week there are four.  Oddly enough, as of today, I am only still knitting one thing:  a sock.  The good news is that this is sock number 2 so I am pretty close to having a pair.
















Today my goal is to finish the sweater I began after Christmas.  Since I was tired of knitting for others, I decided to knit for myself.  All I need on this sweater are buttons.

I also chose to knit something for my house.  It seems that more and more interiors are handknit and I wanted in on the action.  So, I chose to knit a rug (it will be placed on the floor in front of the kitchen sink).  All I need to do on this project is weave in the ends and sew a rubber like back on it so no one slips.

Finally, the baby sweater.  One of Julia's friends had a baby and I knit this little number for him.  I still need to weave in the ends and get some cute buttons for it.  I should have it done by the end of the weekend.

So, what will I put on my needles next??  I need another work in progress.

Riding the Rails

I don't mind saying that I am pretty proud of myself for accomplishing something I couldn't have done several years ago -- I traveled the subway system in NYC.  I had an info session to attend in Brooklyn in the morning and an interview in the Bronx in the afternoon.  Midway between I stopped on the upper East side for lunch with my friend.

Phew!

I never considered myself one who could read a map.  The MTA subway map is simple enough, but there are some stations that are not necessarily connected.  So, you get off the subway in one place and have to find the other place to catch a connector.  I learned this before I went to Las Vegas when my daughter and I had an interview in Queens.  She was able to figure out that the subway we needed to catch was NOT in Grand Central and she figured where we had to go.  This was notable especially on my trip to the Bronx.

The school where I interviewed is the same stop as the Bronx Zoo.  If you look at the school's website, it says you can take the 5 or the 2.  However, when you take a close look at the map, the 5 seems not to go the stop I needed.  So, I had to connect to the 2.  (For the record, the 5 train seems never to be around.)

Once you arrive at your designated stop, you need to figure where to go from there.  Once above ground in Brooklyn, I only knew what street I needed to be on and what the cross streets were on the way.  Naturally I began by walking in the wrong direction.  Nevertheless, I found my way.  And back again.

There were hiccups.

On the C train headed toward Brooklyn, I looked again at the map and it seemed as though I made an error and needed to be on the A train.  I got off; got the A train only to discover that I should have been on the C train in the first place.  Off I got and WAITED for another C train.  Then, on my way back to the upper East side, I knew I could take the 5 train.  I got on an express and overshot my stop.  I had to get on again going in the other direction direction.

On my way out of the Bronx I realized that despite my comfort level with Grand Central Station, it made no sense to travel from 177th street (or there about) to 42nd street only to catch a train that would pass 125th street.  Previously I avoided the 125th Street station because it was not actually connected to the subway.  Well, I conquered that fear too.

Did I mention that with all of this I was dragging my luggage?

What a day.  But I did it and feel much more comfortable with my abilities than I had before.  And, as usual, when in doubt, just ask someone for help.  New Yorkers have a reputation for being mean, but it's been my experience that they are just the opposite.

Bullying the Bully

http://bronx.news12.com/news/tri-state/timothy-doherty-of-highland-falls-accused-of-making-threats-to-highland-falls-intermediate-school-1.5021052


It never fails to amaze me when a child who is getting bullied finally retaliates and then winds up getting in more trouble than the person who was picking on him.  I have seen this countless times as a middle school teacher, but more recently I am witnessing the same thing with a parent.

For the past five years (at least) one of Tyler's classmates has been picked on at school.  His parents have contacted the school any number of times with little result.  In fact, one principal passed it off on the lunch monitor who couldn't possibly watch all kids at all times.  It's enough to make you scream.  (Well, it's enough to make me scream.)

Flash forward five years and we find ourselves in the middle of a seemingly scary situation.  Again this child was bullied; he came home beaten up and the school called the parents blaming the child.  The father went nuts and made threats.  Now, he looks like the bully and the school and its students victims.

I do know that the child is one of those provocative kids who invites trouble.  Still, that is part of the nature of dealing with bullies.  I have sat through several professional development conferences that focus on bullying in schools and one of the issues is how to deal with the provocative student.  Regardless of whether or not they ask for it, students need to be safe.  Just because a kid is not intelligent is no reason to call him stupid.  The same logic should apply to the provocative student.

Further, I do not condone a parent making any sort of threat, but I do fully understand it.  And, in these times we need to be extra cautious about what we say.  Making reference to blood and Sandy Hook Elementary school is dumb.  Still, focusing only on a parent's reaction to what happened to his child is only one part of the story.  If we only focus on the reaction of parents (or children) without looking at what caused the problem only ensures that the same thing will repeat.

If we really want our kids to be safe in school, we need to look the problems in the eye and deal with them when they happen.

Spring Cleaning

One of my favorite stories is about my friend Gretchen.  She had just moved back to New York from Georgia and lived in a nice place in Larchmont, NY.  On her way home from work she noticed a lot of "stuff" on the curbs.  When she mentioned it to her roommate, Gretchen learned that it was spring cleaning.  The stuff was put out as trash.

Gretchen got in her car and did some furniture shopping.

Just yesterday the people who live across the street put several pieces of furniture out at the curb for pick up.  That stuff didn't last long.  Literally, within an hour of placement all pieces were gone.  And, I basically live on a dead end street (albeit a long one).  It's good hunting.

But, if this town had a designated spring cleaning day, there would be good pickings.