Leaves

Olivia is fascinated with the leaves that fall from the trees in the front yard.



She wanted to make a big pile of them, so we pulled some together with our feet.

We didn't have to work very hard -- they were dropping pretty fast. Every time another leaf fell, she'd say, "Thanks, trees!"




Is there anything better than this?

Second Day of School, Also, Cleaned up my Office

So, today is our second day of school. It's a non-profit, cooperative preschool, so it relies heavily on parental involvement to make it work. The board has hired a teacher to run the class, but the parents are used on a rotation basis to act as teacher's aides. Today is my turn. It's more work than a preschool where you drop off your child and then just pick them up a couple of hours later, but it will be nice to see how they're progressing in the actual class setting. There's fifteen kids in the class, so roughly every fifteen classes, I get to go to school with Olivia.


Every so often, I get this overwhelming urge to organize. A couple of weeks ago, I did my room. Since we have a four bedroom house, I get one room for all of my stuff.




I love these wire mesh cubes that I found.

It makes my yarn stash look just like my own personal yarn store.



When I was constructing these, all smug with my little find, Donnie happened to wander in to see my progress. He was a little scared by the amount (I have a matching one in the other corner). I told him that if my yarn stash scared him, he should see the fabric collection. By its sheer volume, it transcends 'stash'.


This is the usual view of my computer desk. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times the door has been actually closed, because I keep it running most of the time, and it just gets so hot with the doors closed. I painted the inset panels with blackboard paint, so I can write notes to myself. Olivia also likes to add to my lists. I might change one side to a bulletin board, so I can tack up things that I collect along the way.

I needed a place to store my knitting needles. I can't remember where I saw this idea, but I liked it. Now, it would probably look nicer if all my needles were bamboo, or those ones with the fancy ends on them, but I think it's a lot nicer than having them stuck in a box in a closet.

First day of preschool!

We had a very momentous day yesterday: it was Olivia's first day of preschool. She was so excited, and has been talking about nothing but school for the last week. She packed her knapsack with her 'homework' (a page to colour) and tried to get me to pack her a lunch. She was only going to be there for two hours, but you can never be too prepared. They made handprints with paint, read stories, had a snack, and played with toys.



When we dropped her off, she was busy checking out the place -- sizing up what kind of toys there were, and doing that four-year-old way of making friends with some of the other kids...standing there, staring at each other and grinning hugely. After a couple of minutes, when she decided that all was going to be okay, she came over to me and said, "Mom, I'll be fine. Really."

And she was. So now we get to do this again tomorrow, and then on Friday is our first foray into ballet lessons.