I decided to pick three winners to receive our new and improved Superhero Cape Pattern!

So without further ado, the winners are:

Holly who said:

I made the girls your capes few years back, I need to make some new ones they’ve both grown like weeds since then. We’re actually experiencing an early autumn here (Quinte West, Ontario, Canada) which isn’t all that surprising since summer came early as well. It’s cool-ish (17 degrees Celcius, hmm 62.6 degrees Farenheit) and the trees are starting to change it was also dark by 8:30 last night!

Robert who said:

It was in the 70s, but felt much hotter, even on the coast. I’m ready for some cool weather!

and

Carmel who said:

ami to late?
this pattern looks so cute!
i would love to win it!
thanks!!

So no, Carmel, you weren’t too late! I’ll be sending your patterns to the email you entered at the time of your comment. Thanks for entering and have a great Monday!

It happened again without my permission. The students came back. I do love living in a college town, but I have to admit – I LOVE the summers when they’re all gone! I get so comfortable being able to check out at the grocery store on a Saturday night without waiting in line for 20 minutes. I like the freely moving traffic and the lack of (or mostly lack of ) bad drivers on the road. I like not having to hear their empty and meaningless banter.

And always, it hits me like a semi truck. But how can 30,000 students NOT hit you like a semi truck? And that’s just the university that is closest to us. There’s another one just a few miles away that has just as many.

To be fair, though, I used to be one of those students. *hides* So I really should be more charitable. But to be honest, I didn’t GO anywhere when I was a student. I had no car. That’s how it was done back then. Most of us didn’t have cars. I’d hitch a ride to the grocery store once a week with a roommate and I would walk to school every day. *gasp* I KNOW!

This is Catherine. Last night she asked me how much college costs. I told her a lot. Because, let’s face it. Even at a state school it is going to be a big ticket when she gets there in ten years. She then decided that she needs to start saving. And she also needs to take an SAT prep course. She’s concerned about these things.

WHERE DOES THIS STUFF COME FROM??

I’ve never told her about the SAT. If I had, I’d probably mention the ACT as well because no one ever told me to prepare for that one and it turned out it was the only one that mattered at my university of choice. No hard feelings.

So as I begrudge the returning students this fall, my own little Catherine is pondering her own college career. She also wants me to help her study when she gets to college. Because it sounds “kind of scary.” Good idea! I’ll just come along with her because I will die a thousand deaths when she leaves. She is my rock.

Don’t forget to go enter the fab giveaway this week!

I must brag. I don’t normally have it in me, but this time I must. We had an AWESOME, no-stress, lovely first day of school this week! Mostly I’m posting this so I can come back to it later in the year when I find myself flailing my arms yelling incoherent things at my children when we have a really tough day at homeschool.

It helps that our school area is better defined, better equipped, and more accessible than last year. I’m sure each year will get better and better in that respect. I even have a globe! I’m so excited! Granted, Yugoslavia still exists and Czechoslovakia is still a semi-whole entity, but those things I can fix with a tiny sharpie. Plus, a retired homeschooling mom told me that it will teach the kids that even though the globe seems permanent and concrete, things will always be changing. Politically, at least.

Anyhoo, we made this lovely box for crayons, pencils, and what-not a few weeks ago. I actually found it on my porch even though I’d never seen it before. So we painted it, mod-podged it, and glued some baby food jars in it. Voilá!

I decided to include everyone (well, except Eli) for the first day since I’d been telling all of them “No, that’s for school,” for weeks now. Although it took much longer than I expected (I always underestimate the depth of the creative process), we made time capsules. Each one decorated a paper towel tube (I was supposed to use Pringles cans, but the thought of eating four cans of Pringles had me looking elsewhere) and put the following items inside:

1. A tracing of their hands
2. A handwriting sample

Then we glued some repurposed cardboard to the ends to seal it up.

We’ll open them on the last day of school and see how far we’ve come (at least I hope. . .)!

We did some “fun” (read: not B&W) worksheets as well. I was pleasantly surprised by how much they did not forget. Yay!