Spidey Sense and Crepe Paper

https://www.pinterest.com/smill/spider-man-party-ideas/

During every spare minute this week, I've been ruthlessly preparing for my youngest child's upcoming birthday party. The chosen theme is Spiderman and I'm truly grateful for Pinterest to save my brain from overuse. I created a board and filled it with ideas that we could choose from. Since we try to avoid food dyes, this idea with strawberries is a must to get the theme and the red color on the snack table. Now that the party is just a few days away, we are cleaning out extra clutter and preparing what we can to keep the final preparations to a minimum. I'm actually looking forward to the fun! Thanks, Pinterest!

(sing with me) "Some ...Enchanted... Evening"

It's prom planning time at my daughter's high school and the parent dance committee I'm a part of is in focus mode. My job is to make "save the date" cards, fliers and tickets. It is not easy to find images that allow reuse and that will work size-wise for this project. I'm not giving up. The students are going to vote on one of two themes: Arabian Nights or Enchanted Forest. The committee is hoping they chose Enchanted Forest because there are so many easy and natural decorations that go along with that theme. This photo is one of the ones I came across in my initial search today. It looks like a magical place to hike and picnic. I wish I could go there!

Attribution:  By David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada (Enchanted Forest Nature Park  Uploaded by russavia) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Description:  The entrance to Enchanted Forest Nature Park on South Pender Island, Southern Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada.

Date taken: 16 August 2012

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Leaves Background by Sarah Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


In going back to school, some technology has changed (just a little!). I'm having to learn a much more complicated version of Photoshop than what was around 10 years ago. One of the challenges is my fast-paced media graphics class is finding background images online. This is a photo I took in my back yard that seems to fit several types of projects. I plan on using it and I hope others can, too.

We've met before. Remember?

I find that hilarious moments like the one shared in this interview are all too common to me in recent years. We remember events one way and others can remember the same event so differently. Once you've been around long enough, it's easy to laugh at the silly mistakes or misunderstandings (even missed opportunities!) that happen in your twenties.

A day in the life of the non-traditional student

I wish I could say that I rarely think about the age difference between my classmates and myself. It really shouldn't matter too much. We are are learning the same things and taking the same tests to earn our degrees and work in the same fields. But it often matters. My life experience usually shows in my reaction to questions as part of class discussions. These blantant differences showed themselves in my lab class last Friday. The discussion was on freshman and sophomore demographics at our university. In naming some of these factors, someone asked about married versus unmarried students. Another student responded that no 19-year-old students would be married like it was an impossible probability. The professor asked if anyone in the class was married. Out of the 20 students, I was the only one to raise my hand. I added, without thinking, that not only was I married but I got married when I was 19. Crickets. I turned red and looked back at my keyboard to continue the assignment. Remembering the moment makes me smile now.