sewing

Kids Clothing Week Challenge, Fall 2011

It’s time for the Kids Clothing Week Challenge, Fall edition over at Elsie Marley! Pretty please, can I play too? It’s only two days in and already there’s cool stuff in the Flickr pool, like this skirt and this dress. But Caitlyn doesn’t really need anything in the clothes department this month. I’ll probably need my own version of KCWC come December or January when she suddenly puts on another inch or two, but right now she’s got dresses and skirts aplenty. I’ve got ideas about making some shirts someday, but that’s a project that’s a bit down the road …

education

Leaving Everyone Behind

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We’ve received two interesting letters from the school district last week.  One was to let us know that Caitlyn scored well during testing last spring and would we like to consider doing more testing?  The other was a notice about how the district isn’t doing so well according to the standards established by No Child Left Behind. According to the letter, school districts need to meet a set standard (which was left undefined) in up to 111 categories to qualify as making “Adequate Yearly Progress”.  (Is it progress if you meet the standard two years in a row?  Or is …

homesteading, in the kitchen

Harvest Review

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The garden suffered this summer from the weather and neglect. I didn’t make it out as often as I might have to really maximize production. I should be grateful we didn’t have a scorcher of a summer; I barely watered and things still limped along, more or less. On the other hand, I did assemble a checklist early in the year to guide me through the various harvests so I would know how much of what I was planning on putting by for winter. I may have only coaxed three whole carrots out of the garden this year, but I’ve …

Caitlyn, Seasons

Back to School

 

Caitlyn has been pleading for pigtails as a hair style for at least a year, and I have finally caved. I’ve never been fond of the hair style and I may have been concerned it would take too long for Miss Fidget. But she holds still, more or less, and will even hold half her hair to the side so that the part is mostly straight down the back of her head. We’ve also discovered that this is the current best hair style for circus class, since there’s no lump of ponytail on the back of her head to make …

Seasons

My Summer Vacation

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And just like that, the summer is over. We went from clear skies and mid-80s to overcast and 68 degrees basically overnight. Not a moment too soon, in my opinion. It’ll be tomato canning time shortly and that’s never fun when it’s still toasty outside. But more than that, I’m ready for autumn. Our summer was very full, not always in the ways I’d planned, and not particularly relaxing. I’m still trying to overcome my disappointment that I wasn’t able to give Caitlyn the kind of summer vacation I wanted to, with outings and hikes and projects of either artistic …