Month: January 2018

The Top Five–Imaginary Places I’d Like to Visit

This list is brought to you courtesy of Bunny. One evening, she asked me if I could pick any imaginary location to visit, what would it be? Well, you know me…I can’t pick just one. So here are my top five (fine…six) imaginary places to which I wish I could actually travel:

  • Land of Make Believe–Didn’t everyone who grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood want to hop on Trolley and visit the Land of Make Believe? Hanging out with Queen Sara Saturday, Lady Aberlin, and the Platypus family would be so much fun! And maybe there would even be a Purple Panda sighting… The older I get, the more convinced I am that it would be an amazing place to stay and stay!
  • The Kingdom of Wisdom—The Phantom Tollbooth was one of my favorite books when I was a child (actually, it still is!), and when I was little, I thought that if I imagined hard enough, I could hop in the car with Milo and visit Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, but hopefully not get stuck in the Doldrums! And if someone dropped that tollbooth in my house today, I would definitely take the trip!
  • Downton Abbey–I would love to visit the real Highclere Castle someday, but I also wish I could visit the fictional world of Downton Abbey…maybe be invited to dinner with the Granthams, or even just work in the castle! I’m not only interested in visiting the place…I’d love to get to know the people there, as well.
  • The Land of Sweets–I think it’s pretty obvious that I love the Nutcracker ballet, and I would love to be able to travel to the Land of Sweets the way Clara did. Even better, I wish I could travel to different companies’ productions of the Land of Sweets, because they’re all so unique and beautiful, and that trip would be almost never-ending!
  • Vic Fontaine’s–I would love to spend an evening at Vic’s Lounge in the holosuite on Deep Space Nine, listening to him sing. It would be like an evening with the Rat Pack at The Sands, only better, because I could run into Dax, Worf, and Doctor Bashir while I was there!
  • The Columbia Inn, Pine Tree, Vermont–The setting of my favorite Christmas movie would also make the perfect Christmas vacation spot. Song and dance, snow and scenery, and a fun indoor fire pit for roasting hot dogs and making s’mores. But does the trip come with the dream vintage wardrobe from White Christmas…?

Sartorial Saturday–Sabrina

I have been wanting to try a Sabrina top from Pinup Girl Clothing for quite a while. But not just any Sabrina top…I had my heart set on the grey version that was in the “coming soon” section of their website all last fall. I was so excited when it finally became available right after Christmas, especially since I had a little Christmas money to pay for it!

This top is a gorgeous shade of grey, and in addition to being a great match for the pictured Mary Blair elephants Jenny skirt, the Yellow House Harlequin Long Jun skirt, and the Skeleton Band Bella skirt, it goes with quite a few more of my skirts as well! It’s a bit different for me, as it’s made from a stretchy ponte fabric as opposed to the more structured material of the peasant tops I often wear. The stretch is wonderfully comfortable, and much more accommodating in the upper arm area than many tops, but as is the case with knits, it does show off every lump and bump. I don’t care, though…I love the fit, I love the color, and I’m really happy to have something with longer sleeves in my wardrobe!

Grasso Plaza

This vintage road sign is a little different from the ones I usually share, because it’s a shopping center sign, instead of one for an individual business. It’s also very simple, but I love the lettering and the flame…it definitely has a cool, retro vibe!

Chickadee Thursday

It was a cold morning on Chicago’s lakefront, but that didn’t stop Chickadee from going out on the Adler Planetarium patio to look at the sun through a telescope equipped with a solar filter!

The Top Five–Children’s Toys

Time for another “Top Five” list…and this time, I actually kept it to exactly five! Today I’m looking at my favorite children’s toys…and with one exception, they’re all toys I played with when I was a child, in addition to all being toys my children have enjoyed/still enjoy playing with!

  • Little People–Fisher Price’s Little People were originally introduced in the 1950s. The barrel-shaped, armless, Little People I had (including those that came with the iconic house and the farm), looked quite a bit different from the chunky, more-detailed ones my children have played with, but the basic concept is still the same, and they’re extremely sturdy! They have been the basis for many hours of imaginary play!
  • Lego–Lego is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the brick this year! Of course the Lego company has gotten bigger over those years, and the sets have become more complicated, especially as they have introduced licensed lines, but the bricks themselves really haven’t changed. As a matter of fact, it’s my understanding that the first Lego bricks, the Lego bricks I played with, and the zillions of Lego bricks in our house today, just waiting for someone with bare feet to step on them, will all work together. That is impressive commitment to standardization and quality control! I’m also not ashamed to admit that I’m still building with Lego bricks, as is Ryan, so this is one toy that is literally enjoyed by every single person in our house!
  • American Girl/Beforever–What we know as American Girl today started as the Pleasant Company in 1986. I had one and only one American Girl doll when I was a child (Kirsten), and I still have her today. Bunny and Ladybug have…well, way more dolls, some they received as gifts, and some they saved their hard-earned money to purchase themselves. In addition to being very high quality (my doll still looks great 25+ years later!), they’re a great tool for learning about history. And not only do they encourage imaginative play, they also encourage reading, because you just have to learn the story of your doll! Like Lego, this is a toy that I’m still playing with, and I even added a second doll to my collection last year when the children gave me Melody for my birthday!
  • Crayola–Crayola crayons have been around since 1903! I don’t know if everyone would consider drawing materials (plus all of the other fabulous arts and crafts stuff Crayola makes) to be toys, but I do. They inspire so many hours of creativity, and what parent doesn’t have a house filled with artwork created with Crayola? And there’s something special about the smell the first time you open a new box of crayons…
  • Build-a-Bear–This is the most recent toy on the market to make my list (they were founded right here in the St. Louis area in 1997, and their first store opened in the St. Louis Galleria), and the one toy here that I didn’t play with in my childhood. The stuffed animals are high quality, and let’s face it, getting to make your own bear, make as wish on its heart, “wash” it in the store, and dress it is a lot of fun! Of course, it can also get expensive really quickly, but that’s true for pretty much all toys. If you’re feeling really crazy, you can even have a child’s party in store, and they even have a new concept called the Build-a-Bear Bakeshop where you can decorate cupcakes and enjoy other treats.

There are so many other toys my children have enjoyed playing with over the years…pretty much anything made by Fisher-Price, Webkinz, Leapfrog, Transformers, and My Little Pony to name a few, but these five are really special, and I hope they’re around for a long time to come!

Retro Schnucks Sign

I really have no idea how old this Cahokia Schnucks sign actually is (the store itself appears to be an old Kroger, so old enough, I suppose), but it feels retro to me, maybe because it’s a cube. I also think the Schnucks soldier probably has something to do with it…while you see him on their trucks and in their advertising, he doesn’t appear on store signs too often!

Update: The good people at Schnucks were kind enough to give me a little background on the store location and sign. I was correct that it was originally a Kroger store, which opened in 1982, and was purchased by Schnucks in 1986. They inserted the Schnucks soldier logo (which debuted way back in 1968 as part of their “Revolutionary Low Prices” campaign), into the original store sign at that point.

2017-18 School Year–Week Seventeen

Finally back to work after our Christmas vacation!

I will confess, we kind of took things easy this week. We didn’t do every subject every day (and we never did get around to literature at all), but I still feel like we got a lot accomplished.

Turkey and Bunny found the surface area of various solids in math. Ladybug got to use a compass for the first time, to draw circles of various sizes, which she found very exciting! Chickadee continued working on counting larger numbers, as well as more basic addition.

We had a very exciting week in science. Ladybug started a new chapter on ungulates. The very first animal we learned about was the elephant, which thrilled Chickadee…they’re her favorite animal! We also learned a bit about wooly mammoths and mastodons, and I’m hoping we may have a related field trip next week. Turkey and Bunny are still learning about cells, and they jumped right into the thick of things with DNA, RNA, transcription, translation, and mitosis this week! It was a lot of information, but also very interesting.

In history, Turkey and Bunny learned about different city-states in China, and then moved west to learn more about Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt. Ladybug learned about the Medes and the Persians and Cyrus the Great (Turkey and Bunny will be learning about all that next week).

We also got out of the house on Thursday, when it was (briefly) nice outside and visited the Missouri Botanical Garden. I love how it doesn’t matter how many times we’ve been there, or what time of the year it is, we always see and learn something new. We enjoyed the walk outside, as well as through the three greenhouses, and we especially enjoyed getting to watch some ducks and geese in the Japanese Garden!

I’d like to say we’ll be back on our regular schedule next week, but we have some extra special things planned, so it will be a fun, but very disjointed school week!