50+ Great ideas for Scrapbooking Vacation Travel

 In retirement, hubby and I are hoping to explore every nook and cranny of this magnificent continent of ours, from Alaska's spectacular national parks to the MCM neighborhoods of Coral Gables, from lighthouse B&Bs to Elvis shrines to really big balls of twine.  

As an ardent scrapbooker, part of the fun will be capturing these adventures in scrapbook form. But how do I capture the spirit of all these wonderful destinations without becoming repetitive? Clearly I'm going to have to stretch beyond pictures + journaling + brochures to keep things interesting! 

For this reason, I've begun capturing a list of template ideas that should help me introduce variety into our travel layouts, which I am sharing here because what works for me may work for others, right? 

1. Turn the name of the destination into an acronym. Ex: BADLANDS could become "bands of brilliant color, ancient, desolate, lovely, arid, national park, deeply spiritual, serrated slopes of stone"
2. Trace the name in HUGE letters over both pages, then cut out the letters and fill the open letter-shaped frames with pictures from the destination. (Sort of like those old postcards!)
3. Use a HUGE letter stencil to cut the name of the destination out of various brochures depicting parts of the vacation you want to remember
4. Create a crossword puzzle with clues that capture favorite activities or memories.
5. Create a word search! But instead of listing words to find, create "clues" to force you to remember word and relive the associated memory. 
6. Create a bingo board of potential fun experiences and then use markers to indicate which ones you were able to accomplished
7. Organize the page as a series of top 10 lists - top 10 coolest houses, top 10 coolest gardens, etc.
8. Create a "mad libs" journal entry with answers that end up relating a fairly accurate (if slightly silly) version of the visit. I think this would be great for eventful trips, like stays in busy cities.
9. Affix a map of the area to the scrapbook page and then add callouts annotating what happened in each area
10. Turn your photos into postcards by cutting out squares of paper the same size, formatting them to look like the back of a postcard, and using them to record your journaling. Address them to your kids, your long-lost grandmom who always wanted to travel, or your fish! 
11. Stop by a local antique store and pick up a few antique postcards of the place you have seen. Then proceed as described above. :-)
12. Retell your trip in the form of a real estate listing. Works great if you destination is a mansion, historic home, or historic area
13. Retell your trip in the form of an article for the Travel section of a major newspaper. Be sure to include quotes from your family! (Lots of great newspaper templates out there on the internet)
14. Describe/relive a memorable meal in the form of a restaurant review. As before, be sure to include quotes from your family :-)
15. Retell your trip in the form of a magazine article. Part of the fun is picking the right magazine template - perhaps Sports Illustrated for a trip that includes skiing or diving?  Rolling Stone for a trip heavy on live music? National Geographic? History Magazine? Life? 
16. Invite a "guest journalist" to provide a different perspective on the day's events - could be the ghost of someone who's associated with the location, or your pet, or your car, or a local squirrel who spent the day following you around, or your exhausted feet! 
17. Turn your day into a multiple choice test. Bonus points for funny fake answers. (Ex: "Wen we finally arrived at the B&B, Amanda immediately (1) kissed the pavement in relief, (2) threw up, (3) hugged the proprietor, (4) snatched the phone from my hand swearing that she would never, ever let me do my own navigation again.")
18. Turn the town, mansion or resort property you visited into a Clue-like board game with cards that commemorate activities that happened in each room/location
19. Transform the day into a story for children. I tend to favor the old standards, like "Once Upon a Time ..."
20. Transform the day into a coloring book, with captions to explain the significance of each picture
21. Add a "spinner" that lists all the places you visited at a certain destination
22. Create an annotated timeline of the day
23. Capture the events of the day in a poem, or series of haikus
24. Create an advertisement for the destination or town, lauding its many desirable features
25. Create a movie poster for the day that "teases" all the things that happened
26. Create a 2D version of shelves in a visitors center and clutter them with objects that commemorate things that happened on your vacation
27. Turn your journaling into a rebus by using images to replace select words. 
28. Capture your experiences as a series of "Bad Amazon Reviews" in which you find absolutely nothing worth recommending to others.  (Ex: "Grand Canyon- Way too many rocks. Some of the rocks are red. Some aren't. Big whoop. Also not enough forests or shade, and where are the bears?")
29. What your destination used to look like vs. what it looks like now. You can use brochure images or your own sketches. I'm going to make mine funny - the first version is going to be tourists behaving respectfully, while the second version shows tourists behaving the way they're wont to do now ...!
30. Various annotated receipts showing how much you spent and what you spent it on. Money provides a surprisingly useful scaffold for tracking the events of a day. 
31. Annotate each picture you include with a funny Twitter post/explanation.
32. Tell the story of  your day in the form of a simple stick cartoon
33. Tell the story of your day as an exchange of texts with someone who definitely does not share your level of enthusiasm. (Ex: "We ate alligator!" "Let me guess - tastes like chicken.")
34. Connect the dots, where each dot is an annotated event and the final picture is something that represents the destination, or the day
35. Create a faux miniature golf course with holes that describe each event/attraction of your day. 
36. Expected vs. reality 3D "flip & reveal" page - perfect for sharing funny anecdotes about what you expected to exeprience vs. what actually happened.
37. If the destination is associated with a strong smell (ex: maple, sea salt), capture the smell on some sort of scrap, then seal the scent in a sealed wax packet for enjoying later!
38. Create a graph where the x axis is a timeline of your day and the y axis ranks the amount of"funness" (0-10). Then plot the events of the day on the graph as apropriate, with annotations to explain highs and lows
39. Include a tall "signboard" cutout and attach arrows pointing to all the locations or events you attended
40. Use white paper to matte your pictures so that they look like old-fashioned Polaroids and/or slides. Perfect for creating a travel page with a nostalgic feel.
41. Use a brochure or other literature from the destination as your backdrop or border. (Make sure to spray with acid-neutralizing spray before posting, to prevent yellowing!) 
42. Cut out a black asphalt road or hiking trail, then commemorate the events of your day/trip as funny informative signs, billboards, or historical markers along the way
43. List everything you did during the day on a separate square, then beneath the square leave a place for both you and your travel partner to "rank" the event on a scale of 1-10, Olympic judge-style. Great for those trips when one partner is having the time of their lives while the other partner is quietly dying inside.
44. Assign each experience or picture a superlative, either serious or silly (ex: Tackiest Hotel Room, Best Hot Dog Stand Actually Shaped Like a Hot Dog ...)
45. Tell the story of your trip in numbers. First create squares of paper that list numbers that represent memorable events - then add journaling to explain the significance of each number. (If you print the journaling on vellum, you can position the anecdote over top of the number.) 
46.  Create a calendar that spreads over both page and then jot down, calendar style, what you did on each day
47. Depict your day or trip in the form of a maze, with various stops that you have to navigate between. 
48. Tell the story of your trip or day in patches - those souvenir embroidered patches that most gift stores sell. You can even "sew" the patches onto the page
49. Use library cards to tell the story of your day - the title tells the destination, the "description" describes the content of the memory associated with the title. 
50. If you're at a science destination, use squares from the periodic table to spell out your title or header. 
51. Capture your day in the form of a Jeopardy game with categories that match your major activities and questions designed to capture favorite memories
52. Tell the story of your day or trip in the form of a flow chart, with yes/no decisions guiding the way through your adventure! (Using a Choose Your Own Adventure format might be fun too!)
53. Pick an icon or object that symbolizes your destination and use it as the theme for your page (ex: if you're at an apple orchard, cut out frames in the shape of apples and place your picture beneath them
54. Retell your day in the form of a recipe (ex: "Recipe for a Perfect Day at Yellowstone Park"). Be sure to list ingredients (perfect weather, bears...) and then how you combined the ingredients to create memories
55. Retell your day in the form of an "episode guide" for a podcast. (Ex: "Every episode this week will be highlighting a different memory from our trip to Amelia Island. Today's episode: lunch at Jimmy's Oyster Hut. Tomorrow's episode: Touring the Island by bike; or, Why we had to cancel diving the only coral reef in the U.S. because my butt hurt.")
56. Transform your pictures into postage stamps by giving them jagged edges. Then piece them together in the form of a sheet of commemorative postage stamps
57. Shape your various photos into large jigsaw pieces, then loosely assemble them so that your day forms a nice, symmetrical whole
58. Center your photos on pattered squares and stitch them together in the form of a quilt. Ideal for something cozy, like a stay at a B&B or spa.
59. Create a giant checkerboard template and then write your memories on giant checkerboard chips
60. Transform you and your partner into faux paper dolls and then sketch clothes that tell the story of your day or trip

100+ Ways to Waste Time on the Internet

Not that I have time to waste on the internet (other than the time I waste maintaining this blog), but I like the idea of having a list ready to go as preparation for retirement! 

There are lots of these types of lists on the internet, but wanted to assure potential readers that mine isn't a composite of others: all the ideas here are my own, so there are bound to be some novel ideas included. Though I've tried not to identify specific websites (posting internet links is just asking for people to change their links), there are times when I can't resist, because the websites are particular obsessions of mine.  Enjoy .... I'll join you soon! 

1. Take a Myers-Briggs test to find out your personality type. Then spend the next 10hrs incessantly researching your personality type
2. Join Pinterest and create a collection of your favorite toys when you were a child
3. Use Google Earth's "street view" function to travel around the world. All those places you've always wanted to see? Go see them! 
4. Look up historical highway markers in your part of the state
5. Pick a favorite song or artist and look up "reaction videos" of people listening to the song for the first time
6. Look up a craft and make it at home
7. Assemble a month's worth of recipes
8. Look up the website of a magazine you wish you subscribed to and read a bunch of articles
9. Look up stuff that happened in the world on the day you were born
10. Watch a TEDTalk
11. Watch a documentary
12. Listen to old radio shows, like Lux Radio Theater, Gunsmoke, or Yours Truly Johnny Dollar
13. Make a list of desserts you want to try sometime in your life
14. Visit one of those "postsecret" websites and share your deepest secrets with strangers
15. Look up riddles and write down good ones to use later
16. Make a list of new books to read
17. Turn yourself into a bitmoji
18. Play a replica of your favorite childhood video game
19. Read 2 sentence ghost stories
20. Start (or update) a family genealogy
21. Take a virtual tour of your favorite museum
22. Look up toys you used to own and see how much they're worth today
23. Look up optical illusions
24. Look up sarcastic Amazon reviews
25. Download anatomy coloring pages
26. Look up the current Badass of the Week
27. Send online cards to people
28. Go to a contest collection site and enter contests
29. Learn the birdcalls of birds that live in your area
30. Learn to play a simple song on a piano simulator
31. Read fanfiction inspired by a favorite character, TV show or book
32. Learn how to write your name in different languages, including heiroglyphics
33. Do a carbon footprint calculator to see how much CO2 your family generates
34. Catalog your personal library using GoodReads or LibraryThing
35. Use a house decorating website to plan your perfect room (or house)
36. Look up what pets are available for adoption at local animal shelters
37. Use a real estate app like Zillow to see how much your home would sell for - and, of course, how much your neighbors paid for their homes
38. Watch livestreams from underwater bathyscopes, zoos, or aquariums
39. Play The Oregon Trail. Try not to die of dysentery
40. Go to Mix and discover new websites
41. Memorize a poem
42. Do an "on this day" search in Wikipedia to see what interesting things may have happened  
43. Start a blog
44. find a live earthquake map and figure out which places on earth are currently experiencing quakes
45. Find a live FAA feed and see which planes are in the air
46. Tune into a radio station from another country
47. Look up how to do the Hustle or some other line dance
48. Compare how a major news event is covered in U.S. papers vs. European papers
49. Watch clips of Antiques Roadshow personnel as they value antiques
50. Watch clips from Broadway shows, performed by the original performers
51. Learn how to say "I actually speak _____" in multiple languages, so that when you suspect people are talking about you in a foreign language, you can make them feel bad
52. Use a simple story-building app to create a children's storybook 
53. Create a simple video game in Scratch
54. Use one of those "What Should I Read Next" apps to identify books worth reading
55. Apply different filters to your selfie
56. Find an ocean depth simulator and find out how long it will be until your city disappears underwater thanks to climate change-caused sea level rise
57. Start (or continue to work on) personal bucket list
58. Look up new lifehacks
59. Upload your selfie and find out which great work of art you most resemble
60. Do random science simulations at Phet
61. Listen to incoming cosmic rays
62. Check out Snopes to see which scams are going around
63. Download fonts
64. Go to a writing prompt website and use it to write a short story
65. Dissect a frog
66. Listen to a completely different genre of music than you're used to
67. Look up weirdest animals/plants/insects on Earth
68. Take a class from an online MOOG
69. Research tattoos you might want to get
70. Read an online book
71. Watch episodes of Epic Rap Battles of History
72. Watch espisode of ThugLit
73. Watch episodes of Drunk History
74. Find a meme generator and create some original memes
75. Learn and practice Morse Code
76. Add songs to your Spotify (or other) music account
77. Look up funny tombstone inscriptions
78. Download paper dolls
79. Look up how to doodle or draw simple shapes
80. Visit the menus of famous restaurants and figure out what you would order
81. Look up upcoming concert dates for favorite musical groups or shows
82. Broaden your vocabulary by looking up obscure words
83. Check out recent editorial cartoons
84. Go to freecycle or some other website that specializes in giving stuff away and see what's available for picking up
85. Find an actuarial table or questionnaire and find out how long you are expected to live (Deathclock)
86. See if there are any sexual offenders living in your neighborhood
87. Watch the best commercials from Superbowls past
88. Write an article and post it to Medium
89. Update your Amazon wishlist
90. Make a list of cocktails you'd like to try
91. Plan a dream vacation. Include all destinations, hotels, and restaurants. Cost is no object!
92. Listen to a podcast
93. Take a Buzzfeed quiz. So many to choose from!
94. Mix your own electronic music (Patatap, Incredibox)
95. Learn card magic tricks
96. Answer people's questions on Quora
97. Update a Wikipedia page
98. Upload your selfie to various makeup sites to try out different hairstyles and looks (DailyMakeover)
99. Make a playlist of exercise videos for when you're feeling more lively
100. Online paint by numbers. Just when you thought paint by numbers was insultingly easy
101. Watch live webcam footage - tourist attractions, cute animals, coral reefs ... whatever floats your boat
102. Go to Google and click "I Feel Lucky"

10 Reasons That Teachers are Exhausted

I'm a teacher and I am tired. There are a lot of reasons I'm tired, but at least one of them is avoidable: I'm tired of articles by journalists that misunderstand, misrepresent, or simplify why teachers are fed up, and why we're quitting in droves.  Perhaps the problem is that they're not interviewing actual teachers, because we're too busy to talk to them? So, instead, journalists speculate. They speculate that teachers are quitting because of federal paperwork, because that's the enduring legacy of No Child Left Behind, right? That we're quitting because kids these days are too exhausting, because everyone loves complaining about how kids these days are unmotivated, socially clue-less, and out of control. Or (this one makes me laugh) they speculate that we're quitting because of culture wars, as if teachers are actually going to undermine the content, quality, or veracity of what they teach no matter how many parents get dragged out of school board meetings.  

No one seems to get the simple fact that we're leaving because we're tired of being overworked. It's both that simple as that to diagnose, and as difficult as that to fix. 

Think about this: Every year new expectations get added to teacher "to do" list with no provisions made for the extra time or effort required to implement them. (In Washington, these initiatives have a name - they're called "unfunded mandates.") What's 15 extra minutes every day, more or less?

The problem: while new expectations continue to get added, the old ones never go away.  I've been a teacher for 15years. At the rate of one new initiative per year, 15 extra minutes per day, this means I'm now working - at a minimum - 3.75hrs longer per day than at the beginning of my career. 

That's on top of the 8hrs I spend in the building and the extra10-15 extra "off the clock" hours per week that every teacher has always been expected to sacrifice to the cause of teaching.  

Over 17 more hours per week, and we're not just talking about temporary "crunch times," as may be common in other careers - a push to finish out a contract, a surge to complete work by the end of a fiscal year - but a never-ending, never-relenting expectation that we put in 65-70hr every week for 10 months out of the year.  Without a hope that the load will ever lighten, and with the entirely realistic expectation that the load will only continue to increase in future.  If we were getting lawyer or doctor pay, the hours might just be worth it. But we all know that that's not the case here.

The obvious solution is to lighten the load by terminating previous initiatives. If only it were that easy. The problem we face is that the vast majority of these new initiatives are genuinely worthy.  Thanks to technology, to research, and to an increased understanding of the science of learning, we're capable of doing a better job of educating students than ever before.  Who wants to make cuts that undermine the effectiveness of teaching?  

Let's play a game. You get to be the Superintendent of a major school district.  You're desperate to stop the hemorrhage of qualified teachers leaving the profession - and leaving your classrooms in the hands of high-school educated "monitors" who's reading levels may be lower than the students they're supervising. Which of the following services do you cut? 

1. Online teaching. It's great that we're moving more teaching online, since students are going to be living in an online world. But who's transitioning all those traditional pen-and-paper activities to online activities? Updating them to accommodate constant upgrades in platforms and apps?  And then constantly transitioning them to different platforms and apps as school systems jump from vendor to vendor? TEACHERS. 

2. Preparing our students for 21st century careers. It's great that we're finally focused on the importance of teaching 21st century skills. At last someone has figured out that potential employers almost never ask "So, when did the Civil War begin and end?" but they often do ask "tell me about a time you had to collaborate with peers to analyze a problem and come up with a solution." But who's designing all those student inquiry-directed learning activities that are replacing worksheets and textbooks? Who's infusing the curriculum with mini-lessons on collaboration, creative and critical thinking, communication, resiliency/risk-taking, growth mindset, and ethics? And who's replacing all those old multiple-choice tests with syntheses, analyses, and reflections ... and who's grading them? TEACHERS. 

3. Constantly adopting new/better "best practices."  For instance, it's great that we're shifting our emphasis to mastery based learning, ensuring that no child is "left behind," but that they receive whatever remediation they require to master the content. But who's providing the specific, individualized feedback required for students to identify their academic gaps? Who's designing and delivering the remediation to fill those gaps? And who's grading all those extra assessments? TEACHERS. 

4. Increasing our outreach to parents. It's great that we're becoming more proactive about forming relationships with parents. But who's creating and maintaining those online parent/student portals (often updating them several times throughout a single day)? Rounding up interpreters in order to communicate with parents who speak different languages? Responding to parent emails and phone calls in a timely and professional manner, regardless of whether the requests are appropriate, reasonable, or polite? TEACHERS

5. Improving the legal protections that ensure students receive a Fair and Equal education. It's great that we're putting in place protections to ensure that our special needs students receive the services that they are entitled to. IEPs and 504s are supposed to protect those rights, but every time a new story breaks about the abuses of some bad actor (school district, particular school, etc.), more (and more, and more) layers of protection are required. And who's responsibility is it to ensure that all those layers of protection are scrupulously enforced?  To maintain all the appropriate paperwork, to gather proof of progress against goals, to attend meetings? TEACHERS (particularly special education teachers). 

6. Improving the supports we are able to provide to students with disabilities. It's great that we're constantly improving how we use technology to scaffold common student disabilities such as attention deficits, organizational deficits, and reading/writing deficits. Fonts designed to help dyslexics read, apps that "ding" every 2mins to remind students to remain on task, automated checklists to keep ADHD kids organized, speech-to-text and text-to-speech apps that make reading and writing tasks accessible to all! But who's job is it to keep track of all these newly available scaffolds? Match them to the students that can most benefit from them? Teach students how to use them, and then ensure that students are utilizing them? Measure their effectiveness? TEACHERS (specifically, special ed teachers). 

7. Infusing our curriculum with SEL.  It's great that we've finally acknowledged that we need to be valuing and supporting the social and emotional learning (SEL) of our students as well.   But who's stuck trying to monitor the social-emotional health of 120 students while simultaneously teaching their content? Who's instruction time is constrained when school districts forbid new instruction on religious holidays, and then recognizes 13 days as religious holidays? Who's responsible for modifying instruction to ensure that it includes opportunities to validate the cultural experiences of a multicultural classroom? TEACHERS. 

8. Scrubbing our systems to ensure equality and social justice. It's great that we're finally addressing traditional inequalities in the way we educate, test, and discipline students in "at risk" categories.  But who's changing up the curriculum to infuse best practices for teaching our students who may be living in poverty, learning English as a second language, or who are members of underserved minorities?   Who's attending hours of professional required to learn, exchange, and grow these new strategies? Who's scrubbing the data to ensure that these new strategies are working?  And who's instructional time is sacrificed when teachers are increasingly expected to utilize such techniques as "restorative justice" to deal with students  who are persistently tardy, disrupt the classroom, or interfere with the learning of others ? TEACHERS. 

9. Providing more individualized education based on data. It's great that we're finally centralizing student information so that all the info we need about their lives, their academic abilities, their behaviours, activities, strengths, weaknesses, accommodations, special needs and parent communications are all easily accessible in one place. But who's inputting all that data into these systems? Who's delivering all that standardized testing and logging all those anecdotal inputs? And who's expected to take the time to peruse all the data and use it to differentiate instruction for individual students? TEACHERS. 

10. Training our teachers to be ready to cope with a whole new host of threats, dangers & crises.  It's great that we're doing a better job of preparing teachers to handle crises such as active shooters, worsening weather, students in the throes of various medical crisis (soooo many allergies!), and pandemics. But who's instructional time is robbed to make time for an ever-increasing number of required safety drills and professional trainings? Who's spending more time than ever working their way through mandatory trainings on asthma/epilepsy/diabetes/hypoglycemia? Who's investing dozens of hours figuring out how to cope with the altered reality of pandemic instruction?  TEACHERS. 

Well, Superintendent? Which of the above are you willing to give up? As a teacher, a parent, and a concerned citizen of the U.S., I'm not willing to give up any of them. But neither can we expect the current system to endure. We can't keep loading new expectations onto teachers without dealing with the consequences of those expectations. 

Teachers are tired. Their work-life balance is a joke. They're not getting paid nearly enough to motivate them to remain. And so they're leaving. In multitudes. And the exodus is going to continue unless things change. 

I don't claim to have any answers, but I imagine any plausible solution set will have to include at least some of the following: 

1. We're going to need more bodies in buildings. We need more adults in classroom - co-teachers, ELL support teachers, special ed teachers, IAs, and qualified subs -  to help deliver content, provide differentiation, assess learning and deliver interventions. Also more adults - psychologists, social workers, mentors, and special education case workers - to work one on one with students who need extra social, emotional, or behavioural supports in order to be able to participate meaningfully in classroom instruction.  We need more school security and safety personal to perform oversight duties (supervise bus/cafeteria/halls, oversee restorative justice conferences) that rob teachers of valuable planning time.  Finally, we need more parent volunteers, mentors, and tutors to work with students after school to provide additional resources for intervention.  At this point I'm not sure any amount of money is going to be enough to attract the quantity and quality of teachers we're going to need into the future, but one thing we can do is address work-life imbalances by shortening the number of hours that teacher work in a week. 

2. We need to be finding new ways to form school/parent/community partnerships. We're going to need a much more effective and equitable way to involve parents and communities. If we can't get more adults into the building, then we need to be recruiting more adults outside of the building to perform the essential functions listed above. 

3. We're going to need more IT support, and a little restraint. We're teachers, not graphic organizers, apps creators, or systems engineers. Some of us couldn't even figure out how to use copiers. We need IT support personnel in every school to help troubleshoot hardware and apps; but more than that, we need IT coaches that can help teachers move content online, optimize blended learning to deliver learning and assessment as efficiently as possible, and identify opportunities to leverage learning through tech.  Finally, we need school districts to stop switching out classroom management apps every 2-3yrs! Each time there's a switch, teachers spend dozens of hours porting work from one platform to another.  What a ridiculous - and totally avoidable - waste of time. We get that the salesmen at educational company are really good at convincing Superintendents that they need more capability than they have, but what use are bells and whistles when no one has the time to use them? 

4. We should be rethinking curriculum priorities. Are we using what precious classroom hours we have on the right things? The world is changing; shouldn't our curriculum be changing too? For instance, why are we still insisting that students memorize a foreign language, in a world where universal translators sell for $100? Would classes that focus on global issues/understandings rather than global languages give us more time to focus on 21st century skills, student-based inquiry, SEL, equity, and social justice? Should we be rethinking about how we might repurpose some PE time to focus on mindfulness and other practices that support not just physical health, but also social and emotional health?  Most of all, we need to be sure we're sticking to data-proven best practices and not allow ourselves to be distracted by educational fads being promoted by educational consultants marketing their latest bestseller

As I say, I don't claim to have any answers, but I do have one prediction: if we don't figure out a way to lighten the load on teachers, and do it soon, the mass exodus is going to continue. 

15+ Novel Types of Gardens - Because why can't a gardens be fun as well as practical?

 

Now that I'm close to retirement, I'm thinking I may finally have time to start a garden. The question is: what kind? I'm the kind of person who likes to rethink the way things have always been done, which is how I ended up compiling the following list of ideas for gardens that might be a little more "exotic" than your traditional backyard kitchen or spice plot. Gardening is too laborious and dedicated a task not to spend the time creating something that will bring you genuine and lasting delight ...!

1. Poison garden. A garden in which all the plants and flowers are toxic. Some of these species are actually quite lovely, and the experience might inform usefully inform my career as a murder mystery writer. On the negative side, however, this might perhaps make the neighbors nervous and have a chilling effect on the local wildlife. 
2. Dinosaur garden. A garden including only species that were around at the same time as the dinosaurs: ferns, cycads, horsetails, sequoias, cypresses, pines and ginkgos.  Back when everyone was paleo, and paleo wasn't even hip yet. Just for fun, I'd love to add plastic dinosaurs peaking out from the foliage and wait to see how long it takes for the neighborhood kids to notice!
3. Midnight garden.  A garden meant to be enjoyed at night - from flowers that bloom only at night to varieties with smells that become even more exotic in the dark.
4. Hanging garden. Create a long tunnel-like trellis structure and plant it with either fruits or veggies that can be trained to climb. I love the idea of being able to walk though a shady, fragrant tunnel of foliage and pick my dinner or desert as I go along! 
5. Medicinal garden. A garden in which all the plants and flowers have medicinal value - aloe, St. Johns Wart, etc.  I've always wanted to be an apothecary and formulate my own prescriptions.
6. Hobo garden. I'm a big fan of plain, chunky stews, so a garden that grows ingredients for all my favorite soups is appealing. 
7. Train garden.  Even as an adult, I still find myself transfixed by miniature train sets. So why not plan a garden garden around raised wooden planks that could be transformed into platforms for train tracks at any time?  I might throw in "houses" and "stations" crafted out of natural materials. It would be like a fairy garden for adults!
8. Art garden. I wonder if it would be possible to replicate a famous impressionist painting in flower colors?  Maybe something swirly, like one of Van Gogh's starry night constellations? 
9. Shakespeare garden. A garden constituted solely from plants and flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's poetry or plays.  
10. Sculpture garden. Plant only species that can be easily groomed (or that would easily grow over statuary), then trim/train the garden into a whole whimsical tableau - perhaps Alice and her tea party? Or trolls feasting on bones? 
11. Tea garden. A garden constituted solely from plants that can be brewed onto teas. 
12. Seedpod garden.  All the plants would be required to sport gorgeous or unique seedpods.
13. Pilgrim garden. Featuring only fruits and vegetables that would have been available to America's first European settlers. I imagine the varieties available these days barely resemble the plants in their original form, but one could at least recreate a garden that replicates the species that were available then. Bring on the Scuppernogg wine!
14. Turtle & Frog garden.  The trick would be to landscape the pond and surrounds using native species, so that the frogs and turtles who stop by for a visit would feel right at home and stay a while.  There's nothing I enjoy more in spring than watching tadpoles develop into frogs! 
15. Cocktail garden.  All the plants are ingredients in exotic cocktails.  Time to whip out my copy of The Drunken Botonist and start listing species! 
16. Booze garden.  All the plants can actually be transformed into alcohol - which I realize, technically speaking, would include all plants, but I'd focus on the more traditional and or interesting varieties. My moonshining Kentucky forebears would be so proud! 

10 Things Large Women Wish Clothes Designers Understood

1. Being large doesn’t mean we don’t have taste. PLEASE, no more garish fabrics with huge hibiscus flowers or other prints that should never have left the mumu factory! But that doesn’t mean we want to wear solid colors all our lives either.  Just use the same prints you use for all the other women.

2. We realize that leggings are cheap and easy to manufacture in a variety of sizes, but they do NOT flatter the legs of larger women. Displaying small ankles just highlights the size of our calves and thighs. Bootleg cut pants, in contrast, make legs look thinner by sandwiching them between wider lengths of fabric at the ankles and waist

3. So why do we buy leggings? Two words: thigh rub. It’s a major discomfort for large women, especially in shorts.  Please give us more bike-type shorts – snug without clinging but in slick fabrics that move freely as we walk rather than catching and rubbing. (And add some pockets while you’re at it – overweight women are tired of being cheated of pockets!)

4. Bathing suits. Large women don’t like them. Thigh rub is one reason. Having to wrestle our way out of wet one piece bathing suits just to go to the bathroom is another. The fact that many designs feature ruffles that stop right at the widest part of our booties is yet another.  We need two-piece bathing suits that come with shorts rather than panties, and longer tops that drape all the way over our booties.  Think old-fashioned wading dresses, but in cuter fabrics and more sexy designs

5. What’s the deal with sweaters? Why are you always trying to sell us long, baggy sweaters? Large women run hot – the last thing we want to be doing is wearing extra layers of wool. If you want to sell us extra layers, consider thinner fabrics

6. While I appreciate irony, there’s nothing more frustrating than shopping in the big/tall section only to discover that the shirts are shorter than those in every other department. While some women have shaped booties that deserve to be shown off, a lot of us don’t; we need shirts in a range of lengths, from short to extra long

7. And speaking of upsizing shirt lengths, please stop upsizing the length of the arms as well.  We’re ordering longer shirts not because we’re giantesses, but because we want some fabric concealing our tummies and booties. Our arms don't need to be flopping around in 6” of extra, unwanted sleeve.

8. Design isn’t everything – fabrics matter too.  Cute tunics in jersey fabrics are useless, because they catch on our pants and look terrible. Ditto wool and cheap cotton. A little spandex goes a long way towards helping our clothes hang in a flattering way.

9. Speaking of which, could we get some recognition that our booties are often wider than our shoulders? Stovepipe designs are made for people without curves.  Shirts that flair at the bottom give our booties room to move.

10. Large women deserve cute shoes that don’t collapse under our weight! When designing wider sizes, we need you to build in more structural supports – and make the toe openings wider on sandals, while you’re at it!

20+ Tips for Living With a Teacher

Few jobs impact marriage the way that teaching does. Forget boundaries: teaching is one of those careers that delights not just in blurring them, but erasing them entirely.  Here are some tips that may help you cope: 

1.  Never throw away those Back to School sales flyers! In the weeks leading up to the new school year, you will be dragged to every store in a 10mile radius offering loss-leaders like 10 cent composition notebooks
2. Thou shalt not touch the Flair pens.  They are for grading papers. They are NOT for borrowing.
3. Don’t expect dinner or cleaning services around the end of the quarter or semester. For that matter, don’t expect company or conversation. A teacher in grading mode is basically as accessible as a coma patient
4. Do not, under any circumstances, begrudge us our summer vacation, or expect us to work through our summer vacation. We earn our vacation the way soldiers returning from the front have earned shore leave.
5. When we return from school in the afternoon, we don’t want to talk about our day. At least not yet. What we really want is 20-30 mins of blissful, peaceful silence. (After that, however, brace yourself – once we start talking about our day, the anecdotes tend to just keep coming.)
6.  Just pretend you understand all the acronyms we spout. It will speed up conversations.
7. Unless you have experienced the thankless task of writing a sub plan that anticipates every possible nightmare classroom scenario, don’t bother trying to convince us not to go into work unless we are actually attached by tubes to hospital equipment
8. We may not be able to figure out how to use the new grading software the county recently hoisted on us, but there’s not a copy machine in the world we can’t fix
9. If we could have brushed the glitter off our clothes at school instead of getting it all over the car, we would have
10. No need to feed us the last 2 weeks before Christmas break – we’ll be surviving entirely on plates of cookies brought to us by our students as gifts, peace offerings, and or bribes.
11. Accept that we will never see anything wrong or embarrassing about wearing novelty math ties and/or DNA earrings in public.  Because, secretly, we all see ourselves as Ms. Frizzle.
12. Accept that, starting 7-10 days before before the slightest chance of snow, we will be glued to the weather channel like Susan Lucci waiting for the list of Golden Globe nominees to be announced.
13. Pretend you don’t mind when we correct your grammar. It’s like a tic; we literally can’t help ourselves.
14. Prepare for the fact that every time you go out shopping there’s the chance we may end up entrapped in a spontaneous parent teacher conference. (Tip: If, while running errands we suddenly stage-whisper “Quick – duck into the next aisle!” … don’t delay, don’t ask questions – just GO.)
15. Friday nights are NOT date nights.  Friday nights are “go to bed as early as humanly possible” nights. Sunday nights are not date nights either: they are “prepare our battle plans for tomorrow” nights.  Saturdays are the sweet spot – snatch them up before they’re donated to grading!
16. Speaking of date nights, get used to spending at least part of outing running into our students. For some reason, date nights attract students like honey attracts bees – the more romantic the occasion, the more times the two of you will be interrupted by students squealing our names like they just spotted Beyonce
17. You may want to stockpile extra wine in advance of the following occasions: full moons, the day before Christmas break, the day after Halloween, and the last day of school
18. Don’t even try to out-anecdote us. No matter how outrageous that thing that happened to you at the office today, we can top that.
19. Don’t make us use our teacher voice
20. Just accept that every mug in the cabinet will be emblazoned with either the school's logo or some variation on "World's Best Teacher."
21. We’ll spend all year yearning for the end of school, then spend all summer preparing for the next school year. Just accept it.
22. Thou shalt not mock the salary. We know it sucks. We appreciate not being reminded that it sucks.

150 Signs That You May Be a Baby Boomer ....

 

I arrived right at the end of the Baby Boom generation, but my parents lived the dream.  Take a walk with me through 150 "best generation" memories ... and add your own if you feel so inclined!

1.                You and your friends rode EVERYWHERE on your bikes, which you “pimped out” for special occasions with playing cards tucked into the spokes.

2.                You paid for groceries with checks

3.                You remember the smell of mimeographed worksheets

4.                Your English class was color-coded SRI cards from a box

5.                You spent hours in front of MTV waiting for your favorite videos to show

6.                You remember when Luke and Laura got married

7.                You drank Cool-aid out of character glasses from the local gas stations, cooled by ice cubes from a metal tray

8.                You remember the sweet, sweet agony of standing in front of 20 different jello parfaits at the Hot Shoppes, knowing you could only pick one

9.                Your parents let you play outside.  All day. Unattended

10.            You anxiously awaited the release of the next Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book

11.            If your wanted pizza, you had to go out for it

12.            Your phone had a rotary dial and only one person could use it at a time. (Bonus points if you remember yelling at everyone to get off the phone so you could connect to the internet.)

13.            You had to call out-of-state relatives after 8pm because that’s when long distance rates went down

14.            You caught fireflies in a jar and used them to light your room at night

15.            You rode in the back of pickup trucks and no one thought that was questionable

16.            You had a record collection

17.            You weren’t sure if Princess Leia would end up with Han or Luke

18.            If you liked a movie, you had to hope they would re-release it the next year

19.            You saved the TV Guide from the Sunday paper so you knew what TV programs were on

20.            You called a phone # if you wanted to know the time or weather

21.            You remember the agony of busy signals

22.            You ate casseroles made out of canned soup and vegetables

23.            You sewed “peace sign” and “smiley face” patches on your bell-bottoms

24.            You tied your ponytails with pieces of thick, colored yarn

25.            Your favorite day in PE was “parachute day”

26.            You sang Beatles songs in chorus

27.            You rode a Big Wheel

28.            You remember gym class mostly as a series of humiliations: dodgeball, chin-ups, rope climbing, polyester gym clothes that reeked of BO no matter how many times they were laundered, and public showers

29.            TV dinners were the coolest thing ever – even if the fruit compost was always at least partially frozen despite 2hrs in the oven at 350 degrees.

30.            You remember the Hawaii episode of Brady Bunch (yes, the one where Peter finds the cursed Tiki)

31.            You identified with one of the characters in Breakfast Club

32.            You remember watching filmstrips in elementary school

33.            You had an M.I.A. bracelet

34.            You remember the magical feeling of walking through a shopping mall draped with decorations at Christmas

35.            You wore a plastic mask and stiff, scratchy packaged costume for Halloween. (Bonus points if you remember collecting money for UNICEF at the same time.)

36.            You had no idea how many of the songs you loved were actually about drugs

37.            You watched variety shows on TV (Carol Burnett, Sonny & Cher, The Captain & Teneil)

38.            You learned to read from Golden Books

39.            You ordered something from K’Tel

40.            You played ALL the politically incorrect games – Smear the Queer, Red Rover, dodgeball - without realizing they were so very wrong

41.            You decorated your room with posters from Teen Beat or Woolworths

42.            You wore suntan lotion designed to make you MORE tan, not less

43.            On special occasions, your family went out to dinner at Tiki-tastic faux Polynesian restaurants at the local strip mall

44.            Your worksheets came from a “ditto machine”

45.            You still think of Sprite as the “Uncola”

46.            Your bologna had a first and second name. (And sometimes your mom served it fried)

47.            Your friends collected hot wheels, comics, or _____

48.            You didn’t always understand everything in MAD Magazine, but you knew it was inappropriate

49.            Your TV required time to “warm up” and came with an antennae that had to be minutely adjusted to ensure reception. (Bonus if you remember using tinfoil to strengthen the signal)

50.            You popped popcorn on the stove, or in a popcorn popper

51.            Your bought your pet from the Woolworths

52.            You remember the excitement of a Kmart Blue Light Special

53.            The guy at the shoe store measured your foot using this incredibly complex metal tool that was always cold – and yet somehow the shoes never quite fit

54.            Birthday parties were held at houses, not restaurants, bowling allies or indoor playgrounds. You wore party hats, played some games, ate cake, watched the birthday boy/girl open presents, and then waited for your parents to pick you back up. (Bonus points if you remember your mom insisting that you dress up.)

55.            Playground equipment was made out of concrete and metal, and no one had a problem with that

56.            College actually WAS like Animal House

57.            You sat next to the radio with your hand poised over the “record” button of your tape recorder, hoping to catch your favorite song

58.            You made mix tapes and gave them to your friends

59.            You owned a bottle of Aquanet

60.            Your Mom bought her makeup from the Avon Lady

61.            They played “Celebrate” by Sly & the Family Stone at least once at your prom

62.            You had to go to the TV set to turn the channel

63.            You learned your grammar, history and multiplication tables from Schoolhouse Rock

64.            You learned how to type on a manual typewriter

65.            On road trips, you stopped at the Stuckeys or Howard Johnsons for meals

66.            You knew your way around a yoyo

67.            You got pinched for not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day

68.            You started monitoring the TV Guide weeks in advance of each holiday so you wouldn’t miss the holiday specials – especially Charlie Brown & The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

69.            Your aspirin tasted like oranges

70.            You owned a beeper or Palm Pilot

71.            Your diet plan included Tab, Slimfast and/or Jazzercize

72.            The furniture in your room included a mushroom lamp, _________, and/or shag carpeting

73.            You waited all week wondering what was going to be on the Wonderful World of Disney TV hour next Sunday

74.            Your TV was color but many of the shows you watched (I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, etc.) were in black and white

75.            You remember when your local arcade introduced the first video game

76.            Your school supplies included books wrapped in repurposed brown shopping bags, a pencil box, paste, and a metal lunchbox with glass-lined thermos that always broke

77.            You know all the words to at least one song from the album “Free to Be You and Me”

78.            Your mom owned at least one wig

79.            You kept the prizes from cereal boxes, because they were actually cool

80.            You still remember how amazed you were when you heard microwaves could bake a potato in 10mins

81.            The women in your life used clear nail polish to stop runs in your pantyhose (Bonus if you remember that the pantyhose came in an egg-shaped container)

82.            Your car had ashtrays, no A/C, and handles for rolling down the windows

83.            Your mom set your hair in rollers as a kid; later, you got it regularly permed at the local salon

84.            You remember the summer everyone in your neighborhood installed a bug zapper

85.            At Christmas, the neighborhood dads ran those strings of big lightbulbs all the way up to the top of the roof

86.            If you want on vacation with your family, it was usually to your grandparents’ house

87.            You owned a pet rock

88.            Your mom did all the cooking; your dad did all the home maintenance & outdoor chores

89.            Ouija boards, Doodle Art posters, and prank phone calls were a staple of slumber parties

90.            On snow days, they put chains on the wheels of the school buses

91.            You partied with Bartle and James

92.            You remember playing Pong

93.            Your elementary school celebrated May Day

94.            You rocked either shoulder pads or a wide tie

95.            Airlines gave you a free mini-suitcase of toys if you were a kid (and the kit always included a pin with wings)

96.            Your eggs and milk were left in an insulated box on the front porch by the milkman

97.            Your idea of a playlist was a stack of 45s on the record player

98.            You remember seeing movies at the drive-in

99.            You remember cigarette machines

100.        Every Christmas you thumbed through the Sears Wishbook to pick out the toys you wanted for Christmas

101.        You glued S&H stamps into booklets which you then redeemed for such glamourous prizes as toasters, juicers, and towels.

102.        You watched Evel Knievel perform trick motorcycle jumps

103.        You remember  these words: “The thrill of victory …. The agony of defeat”

104.        You know what Joe Namath looks like in panty hose

105.        You used an adding machine to figure out your taxes

106.        You watched Howdy Doody, Romper Room, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Captain Kangaroo, or The Mickey Mouse Club without irony.

107.        Your think of NASA every time you see a bottle of Tang orange drink

108.        You receiving AOL CDs in the mail every week

109.        You remember people smoking in movie theaters, restaurants, and the grocery store

110.        You remember when Salisbury steak, chicken livers, and eggplant parmesan were cafeteria staples

111.        You remember when TV channels used to sign off at the end of the night. (Bonus points if you remember the anguish of waking up early on a weekend morning, only to discover the TV channels weren’t yet back on.)

112.        Woolworths stocked everything you could imagine ever needing – from clothes to farming supplies to pets

113.        You remember TV commercials and billboards advertising smoking

114.        Your mom served you strange combinations of fruits, vegetables, marshmallows and nuts suspended in layers of colored jello

115.        You looked up telephone numbers in the phone book

116.        Party invitations came in the form of cards that arrived in the mail

117.        Your mom brought out the “good china” for special occasions, like dinner parties or holidays

118.        You wrote and mailed formal thank-you notes to people who gave you gifts

119.        You have a polio vaccine scar on your arm

120.        You used a pencil to rewind your cassette tapes

121.        You died of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Over and over again.

122.        You remember Asking Jeeves or following technical advice from a talking paper clip

123.        The store placed your credit card on a machine that physically embossed the information onto a thin sheet of copy paper

124.        Your teacher used a chalkboard

125.        You suffered serious physical harm playing on the playground equipment at the local park – shooting off the side of a spinning merry-go-round due to centrifugal force, face-planting onto a wooden see-saw, or tumbling off the top of towering metal climbing bars.

126.        You remember when hashtags were used for either numbers or playing tic-tac-toe

127.        You can still say “twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesoniononasesameseedbun” really, really fast

128.        Doctors, dentists and banks ensured a regular supply of lollipops. (Bonus points if you remember lollipops with teardrop-shaped stems and/or long rows of lollipops attached by their cellophane sleeves)

129.        Your high school had smoking halls; perhaps even a smoking courtyard

130.        Your camera came with flashcubes. (Bonus if you also dropped off your film at one of those parking-lot film stands.)

131.        You learned cooking from Julia Childs or the Galloping Goumet

132.        After decorating the Christmas tree, you blanketed the whole thing in an impenetrable layer of silver icicles.

133.        Your bathroom rocked a shag toilet lid cover and patterned TP

134.        You remember the burn of mercurochrome as your mom slathered it onto your open wounds

135.        You begged your mom for a quarter to ride the mechanical horses/cars/rocket ships outside the local grocery store or gas station

136.        You got pretty good at drawing Winky

137.        You succumbed to the lure of Columbia House’s offer of 13 records or cassette tapes for $1

138.        You slathered suntan lotion on your skin so you could become MORE tan.(Bonus points if you also lightened your hair using lemon juice.)

139.        You watched Soul Train and American Bandstand to learn how to dance

140.        Your list of childhood pets includes an ant farm and/or sea monkeys

141.        You remember when curbs overflowed with metal pop-top rings and cigarette butts discarded by passing drivers

142.        You entrusted your deepest secrets to a diary with a cheap metal key

143.        Your friends wrote actual messages in your yearbook, not just signatures

144.        You competed with your friends over who could create the longest gum wrapper chain (Bonus points if you also used a loom to make potholders)

145.        You stocked up on canned food in the basement in case Cuba & her Russian allies decided to launch a missile attack on the U.S.

146.        You remember why the Native American standing next to the Grand Canyon was crying

147.        You remember making shrinky-dinks, creepy crawlers and dip-flowers

148.        You stored your school supplies in a pencil box

149.        You still remember the smell of Colorforms

150.     Your parents owned engraved silver cigarette lighters which they refilled with lighter fluid 

151.        No one ever shopped on Sunday because all the stores were closed

152.     Your family had their picture taken at Olan Mills