Super Rachel Zana's Spot

This is the second grade version of me, competing in the clothespin drop contest at playday.  The object of this contest was to stand on the chair and drop clothespins into a jar that you can barely see in the bottom of the picture.   When Sarah saw this picture,…

Although I love winter, and I'm not even all that terribly tired of it yet, this week, yet another week of extremely cold temperatures and a lot of staying inside, has made me crave green foilage a little bit. Aren't house plants nice? Mine would be even nicer if I…

It was a festive morning at Mr. Sneaky Pant's preschool today.  The Banana and I attended a parade, where three long dragons wound themselves around the room.  The dragon heads were boxes painted by the students, and behind each dragon head tromped many dragon feet under a long piece of…

Today, in the car on the way home from preschool: Mr. Sneaky Pants:  Did you know Mrs. Lindgren has those things on her teeth? Those bracelets?  And she can't ever take them off until summer time.  That's a long time from now.  She has to eat her cheese stick very…

The entire St. Olaf choir concert was breathtakingly beautiful, but there were a group of three pieces by the barely-older-than-me composer Eric Whitacre that have stayed with me for the past few days.  It would be safe to say that I am seriously hooked on music by Eric Whitacre now.…

On Saturday evening Greg and I zipped down the hill to attend the live broadcast of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.  To say we were excited about this would be a major understatement.  We had been wanting to get tickets to A Prairie Home Companion since before we were even…

Inspired by the new windows in my office, Dr. Peds and I decided to do a little rearranging with the writing/art space for the kidlets.  We moved out our old kitchen table that served as the writing table, and Dr. Peds found a more narrow table that fit against the…

Last week during our cold snap, my cozy indoor life was interupted by a phone call from a desperate mom whose son attends preschool with Mr. Sneaky Pants. Her little boy was having a birthday party on Saturday, and was convinced that Noah would be attending.  Could he come?  I…

I'm copycatting my friend Sara who made a list of numbers on her blog a few weeks ago. 6 . . . The number of days I stayed inside my house without even setting one toe out of the door last week during our cold snap into the deep freeze.  I seriously…

Here is my husband.  He's online shopping for long surfboards.  Again.  He's been rather obsessed about getting a surfboard for the last several months.  I keep trying to hold him off, but it's not working.  I never envisioned contemplating owning a surfboard, especially while living in Minnesota.   He wants…