What's in Your Wallet?

Three more days… and half days at that!  Which really just means babysitting and coming up with “educational activities” for the children to do between the parties, grade level plays/musicals, and awards celebrations.  What’s a teacher to do?

Well, I actually DID do something for the past week that I hope and pray will be a life lesson for my fourth graders.  (And it did tie in with our Math standards!)  I borrowed from Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  (If you don’t know about him, you need to!  My husband and I took his class last year.) My students learned how to budget, write checks and use debit cards, and were introduced to the evil “Overdraft Monster” and his partner-in-crime, the “Interest Oppressor”.

Below is a copy of the checkbook and Debit Card we made.  (Sorry the quality isn’t that great… took it with my cell phone!)

It was great teaching them about how debit cards are much safer and have less risk than the evil credit card.  They even started calling it the “C Word” and yelled it out whenever I said the word “credit card”!  We calculated how much the “Interest Oppressor” charged if you only made your minimum credit card payment each month… and were shocked that a $199.00 IPod Touch would actually be $225.00 and would take one year and three moths to pay off!  You might not even want it anymore!  You might want a new version!

These children learned the value of saving their money and the idea of delayed gratification.  It was funny hearing the stories they told about their parents…  Made me think I need a few parent/teacher conferences!  (Or maybe not… Pawley’s Island is calling me name…)

Tuesday's Kitchen Inspirations

We are celebrating the countdown to summer with decorated numbers on our refrigerator.  I printed out the numbers in fun fonts and Jackson colored them.

We are on "Days until school's out... 6".  

How can this NOT be inspiring?!?!?!

 

Jack's Cute Cousin "Daisy"

This week, Hopsy at Monograms and Manicures did a cute post on Jack Roger's Navajo sandals.   Both my cute sister and I are big fans of them... we both own a few pair.  They truly are the perfect "go to" sandal for everything summer.  I'm even wearing a pair right now!

However... as much as I love the whip-stitch design (and I really do!!!) and the amazingly cute color combinations (and I really do!!!), my heart belongs to Daisy.  I bought this pair about three years ago and went crazy with the different flowers...

Yes, they are worn, but they are like a BFF.  That best girlfriend who (in pink) was with you when you went on your first date with your husband.  Who (in white) walked your boys to their classrooms on the first day of their new school.  Who (in turquoise) traipsed across the polo fields that gorgeous spring day.   Who (in black) caused your mother's shoe fetish friend to giggle, "Look at your cuuuuuuuuute shoes!"  Who (in every color) make the little girls in my class giggle and "want to be like Mrs. W" when I show them how I can whip the flower off the sandal and put it back on... Love my little preppy students!

And yes, I do love Jack's cute cousin "Daisy"! 

(Needle) Point Taken

I confess.  I have been a horrible blog friend this week.  With both boys' baseball play-offs going on this week, I have not had time to breath, let alone cook a decent meal... let along read your wonderful blogs!  And I do love them... really!  And I do love to leave comments.  (I am a comment "junkie" myself... I adore getting them!)  So I promise to catch up this weekend, sweet friends!

J's team is now out of the play-offs... very bitter sweet.  S's team has lost one game, but it's double elimination, so we keep on pitching, throwing, and batting.  I am secretly hoping that we only have one more game.  I know.  Bad Mama!

But I have found something to do while watching the games so I am not tempted to partake of the yummy, greasy fries so akin to baseball parks:  I am needlepointing my husband a belt.  I figure if I did it for my college boyfriend twenty years ago, I can certainly make one for my husband!  It is a steeplechase scene for all of the horsi-ness of our town.  He picked it out so it's not going to be a surprise.  But that's really better as I won't have to hide it!

Isn't it just the best?

You can almost see the first two rows of light green 

I had stitched when I took the picture.

But what am I to do when I am finished?  I am getting addicted!  I'm thinking of a cute keychain for myself and maybe gifts for the women in my family.  Hmmm....

Tuesday's Pawley's Inspiration

This past weekend was one of the best I have had in a long time.  My mother (Mimi to those who are regular readers!), sister and I spent the weekend at my parents' home at Pawley's Island.  Pawley's  is a small but well-established beach community located in coastal South Carolina, about 70 miles north of Charleston and 20 or so miles south of Myrtle Beach. This relaxed resort area is often described - with great pride - as "arrogantly shabby" and is known to be one of the oldest and most popular summer resorts on the East Coast.  The quaint community is surrounded by salt marshes on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.  Historically, plantation owners flocked to the area seeking a retreat from the balmy air of the Waccamaw River in search of the cool sea breezes. Pawley's Island preserves its commitment to its roots, having only 600 homes on the entire island and no stores or restaurants  Not bad for a small, non-commercial island that is only four miles long and a quarter of a mile wide!

My father's parents built their home in the 1940s.  Not antebellum... but "arrogantly shabby" none-the-less!  We have been summering there all my life.  And this past weekend lived up to all I imagined it would with the two women closest to me.

All Mama wanted for Mother's Day this year was for the three of us to spend a weekend at Pawley's.  When I arrived late Friday afternoon, AS (my sister) and mother greeted me with a glass of white wine and an invite to "cocktail hour" on the dock.  We must have laughed for hours...

The next day was spent buying treasures at the shops on the mainland and a pedicure for our tired feet.  AS and I love our Jack Rogers...

But that night was what we were really looking forward to: supper at the divine Frank's Outback where we solved problems of the world over numerous cosmos and scrumptious food.  Again, we laughed and laughed, flirted (as only happily married women can do and get away with it!) with the waiter, and dined on some of the best food on the east coast.  We had so much fun that a family of three decided that we were perhaps too much fun to sit next to... so they moved tables!  The mother "humphed" a bit at this sixty-five year old lady and her two daughters. What a coup that was!  It made the evening that much better.

 

Yes, AS and I made it down to the beach the next day.  Sorry, no pictures of the sun goddesses... on purpose.  However, two discoveries were made:  A) When beach bags are concerned, great minds (or sisters) think alike!

and B) Who knew Perrier came in beach friendly bottles (plastic)?  They rock!

 

It was a Golden weekend... and one we plan on doing year after year!

"I Can't Live Without My Pearls"... Are You a Member Too?

If someone asked me the one item that epitomizes class and understated elegance on a woman, it would have to be the simple strand of pearls.  I wear mine almost every day.  They make me feel like I'm just a little bit dressed up... even when I'm just going to the grocery store or running another errand.  I see others wearing their strand and I notice, "They're in the I can't live without my pearls club too."  I love the perfect roundness and smoothness of each one.  I love the fact that they start out as an imperfection.  An inconvenience.  An irritation.  And then, by sheer miracle, that piece of sand (or other fragment) goes through a metamorphosis to become a precious and priceless thing of beauty. 

Throughout high school and college, I either wore fake or my mother's strand (but only on special occasions).  I can remember Mama clasping her's around my neck before my debutante balls.  Wearing those, as well as her kid leather elbow-length gloves, made me feel a princess.

Finally, I received my own.  One gift my parents gave me when I graduated from college was a exquisite 18 inch strand of pure elegance.  A few other girls got cars.  A few got trips.  But I got pearls.  Finally.  I had my own to play with or finger whenever I was talking... or flirting!  I didn't have to borrow for special occasions... or plain old everyday.  This June baby (whose birthstone is the pearl!) was in heaven.

Sometimes I think about those cars that were given as graduation gifts twenty years ago.  Do those girls know where they are now?  Probably not.  But I know where my pearls are... circling my neck and will be for the next twenty years.  Because... I can't live without my pearls.

Tuesday's Kitchen Inspirations

Is summertime calling you?  This picture is on the bulletin board in my kitchen, and, oh, am I inspired to go to the lake and take a ride on the open water!  These nine children represent four families who spent time at the lake together last summer.  My sweet sister and her husband came around the bend and into our cove with these smiling faces, and...  Oh. my. word!  I almost doubled over with laughter.  It was just too much!  You'd never guess the boat is 20 ft. - it looks much smaller with all those happy chillens'!

Anyway, I just love this picture.  Reminds me of those clown cars at the circus with a million clowns pouring out... Get ready for summer, I guess!