fauve fauve fauve.

when selecting projects to do with my students, i have been avoiding painting. why? because the reality of painting with large groups of young children and limited time is daunting. but a few weeks ago, i braved the craziness and took out the watercolors. love. the kids behaved. love. the cleanup was easy. love. the pictures turned out awesome. love.

we made fauve portraits. [fauve: characterized by the use of bright colors and simplified forms.]

seriously people, i love my job.

mr. lorenzo, if you please.

sometime in january, i was driving down the road with my boys and i saw a billboard for the yellow green farmers market. i convinced the mister that our life is not complete without a weekly visit to a farmers market, so the following saturday we checked out the place. i tried hard to see this place as the market of my dreams, but reality won...it is a flea market with a few farmers and a pretty name.

fresh herbs. would you like conventional or organic? exactly.

now i have always dreamed of living in a small town - you know, the kind with a main street actually named "main street", home to a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker, where everybody knows my name - so, no surprise that i was itching to include a farmer's market in my weekly grocery shop.

maybe it is the palm tree, but this picture disguises the dinginess of the building.

enter lorenzo's farmers market. a squalid peach-colored building next to the railroad tracks. not exactly the open-air stalls of beautifully laid out produce from my dreams, but i am willing to sacrifice decor for the amazingness that is lorenzo's. a time warp that takes you back thirty years to the days before computerized inventory. here the prices are hand-written on signs and the cashiers have them all memorized to type them into the register. want to change a price? walk to the front of the store and tell the cashiers the new price. wow.

baskets and baskets of deliciousness.

on one side of the parking lot is lorenzo's farmers market. a tiny market bursting with every fruit and vegetable you can imagine and some you cannot. i have found things in that place that i have never heard of and it seems that every trip, there is something new at which to look. golden beets? check. fresh bay leaves? check. fresh garbanzo beans? check. black radishes? check.

love.

and the prices. oh my god, the prices. 99¢ for a pint of grape tomatoes?!? what? 79¢ for an avocado? who are these people? $1.19 for a bag of basil? puh-lease. last saturday i walked out with my three reusable grocery bags bursting at the seams, for a mere $23. heaven.

such an unassuming little place.

across the parking lot is the big daddy market, lorenzo's italian market and restaurant. looks like a whole lot of nothing from the outside. inside it is dreamy. upon entering, the first thing to greet you are two cases of homemade pasta. yum.

fresh, hand-made pasta. oooh la la.

wander around the little store and you will find a restaurant/café alongside several aisles of groceries. wrapped around this is the bakery, deli, butcher, and seafood counter. that is right kids, i found the little market from main street, usa, plopped in the middle of bustling miami. amazeballs.

an aisle devoted to pasta. both sides. dreamy.

and like its little farmers market cousin, it is bursting at the seams with yummy goodness. lots of things i know and a whole lotta craziness of which i had heard, but had never seen and certainly would not know where to buy. 20 pound bags of couscous? check. grape leaves? which brand would you like? pasta? there is an entire aisle!!! tomatoes in every form you can imagine? got it. cardamom pods you could not find anywhere else? check. and while the prices at the italian market are not jaw-droppingly low, they are no higher than the regular grocery store.

grape leaves, if you please.

whoa, olive oil. no joke, somewhere in that collection is a $58 bottle.

it only took me five and a half years of yearning for a farmers market, to discover that all this time, the little shop of my dreams has been 0.8 miles from my house.

p.s. yes, i plan to blatantly ignore the fact that we missed the entire month of march. details.

wonky windows #25.

this installment of wonky windows is brought to you by paper. as an art teacher, paper is essential. unfortunately, i took over a classroom with a shockingly limited supply of paper, but i was so delighted to be teaching art that i was not about to be fazed by a little thing like no paper. and then a colleague suggested i cross my fingers and submit an order to the principal. lo and behold, my principal approved it and the order was promptly placed. so a couple of weeks ago a stack of boxes appeared in my classroom. super exciting.

what is behind curtain number one?

 

paaaaaaaaaaaaper!! this sight makes my heart go pitter patter.

wonky windows #24.

these are my travel windows...a few tidbits that made me giggle during our christmas trip to los angeles.

pringle on the plane. checking out the view from 35,000 feet.

have you ever looked closely at the lock on a public bathroom stall? me neither. or maybe i have and there was never anything to see. either way, when i saw the logo on this lock, it made me giggle. hiny hiders!! and check out the logo's picture...soo awesome.

upon returning to fort lauderdale, we saw this dude sitting in a room. whatevs. but then i started feeling a little creepy. we looked a little closer...

he is made of wax. art installation. right then. welcome back to florida.

wonky windows #23.

never a dull moment in miami. here are some windows into my day-to-day encounters with my city.

i was in line behind this lady and i was kind of mesmerized. and that's all i am going to say about that.

i see this bumper sticker semi-regularly. no comprende. i mean if you want to share with the world that you love and/or hate jesus, that is fine by me. but to be honest, with this bumper sticker, i am not sure whose side you are on.

a little old lady, who needs a walker, jaywalking across a six lane road. during rush hour. the epitome of a florida grandma.

wonky windows #22.

a window into my working world.

cut paper faces. this was the second project i did as an art teacher. i gave every student the same materials and then sat back and watched their personalities emerge.

as the sign says, these are collages. magazines, novels, textbooks, wallpaper, construction paper, glue, and scissors... a lot of the students did not grasp the concept, but these students took to it like ducks in water.

some more awesome collages.

one of my sample collages. i was showing the students that collages can be designed around color instead of objects. fun times at work!

this student finished her work early, so i asked her to draw a self-portrait and this is what she came up with. i adore the hair style and hat.

wonky windows #21.

i am always snapping pictures of things i want to share...of course i never seem to find the time to do my sharing. but here are just a few things i have seen recently that made me chuckle.

i took this picture at a cvs pharmacy. in my opinion they need to do a little work on their signage... when i want a soda pop, i have never before thought to myself "let me go and buy a warm beverage."

on wednesdays i work at a different school, which takes me on a different path than usual. i drive by this plaza that hosts the sexy shop and cuban cafe. i will never understand how these two businesses ended up sharing a parking lot. i am equally baffled by the shopping center two blocks further down the road, which houses a bagel store and a gun shop. strange bedfellows.

saw this sweatshirt at a tjmaxx. i immediately recognized that something was strange, but it took me a second glance to see what was amiss. apparently we live in miaim.

holy twenty twelve.

oh my poor blog. malnourished, neglected, and feeling abandoned. i have not yet given up on posting...it just seems that since i returned to work, my blogging time is gone. literally. quantity of time and quality of time. a) there are not enough minutes in the day and b) my favorite time to write (3am) is no longer available, because i have to be sleeping in preparation for working the next day. the good news is that little pringle is suffering from none of the aforementioned neglect. on the contrary, he is thriving...well fed, adorably clothed (thanks in large part to hand-me-downs from his cousin), and infinitely loved.

pringle at the park...back when miami was still warm.

you are probably wondering how i found this time to write this post...i thought you would never ask!!! let's see, it is 4am, so the writing juices are flowing. i should be sleeping, but 45 minutes ago, a car parked almost directly below our bedroom window suddenly started honking. woke up the entire family, including the baby who had to be coaxed back to sleep. thanks to the mister for taking care of that. anyhow, being the wildly imaginative person that i am, i immediately assumed that someone had a heart attack and was face first in their steering wheel, so i called 911. of course, i am the world's most curious creature, so i stood on the balcony and waited. speaking of outside, it is 47° out there. why didn't anyone send me the memo that we would be experiencing a 40 degree temperature drop overnight?!? i have to know these things...i can't wear sandals when it is 47° outside!!! okay, back to the night's craziness. eventually a police cruiser rolled in, stopped next to the car, got out, shined his flashlight around, and apparently found nothing. after watching this mind-numbingly boring scene unfold with excruciating slowness, i finally wandered back to bed. and then my brain started writing this post. so here i am at 4 in the morning, tucked in bed and typing a post on my phone, because otherwise i will forget it. that said, my brain just turned into instant mush...like instant pudding, only without the milk..so i am abruptly going to sleep. i guess i will finish this post tonight. 

ringing in the new year...party animal.

[14 hours later]. i was a wreck today. first day back at work after the long winter recess and i was running on empty. most folks arrived at work looking refreshed from their vacation. and then there was me. rolling in at the last minute with bloodshot eyes and no tea in hand. thank goodness i teach art...otherwise spending the day with boatloads of other people's children might have been tantamount to torture. this whole, skip the caffeine for the baby's sake is starting to wear on me. seriously people, i want a gigantic cup of caffeinated coffee. alas, pringle is already a bundle of energy and i am not going to up the ante by adding caffeine into the mix. okay, so i think it is safe to say that we have a reached a point where continuing this post will take us on a long, slow, ride through my completely exhausted brain. i will spare you. you are welcome. 

and happy new year. for reals. happy new year.

art shmart.

hard to leave this little face at home.

three weeks ago marked the end of my maternity leave. (obviously it also marked the end of my free time, hence the abrupt end to blog posts.) it was a bummer because as a happy homebody, i do not suffer from a burning desire to be employed. alas, there are bills to pay, so back to the grindstone. but the exciting part about returning to work is that at the beginning of the year my principal did some finagling and managed to hold open the art position just long enough for me to get my art certification. and now, that's right, i am an art teacher. and it is divine. i teach art to all the students in the second through fifth grades. it is official. i love my job. 

two fourth grade classes at one time. crazy, but we survive.

now i am not one for complaining. well actually, that's a lie. i complain a lot. however, at work i try to keep my chin up, because i have learned that the place is what you make of it. i wander the halls with a big smile, because my personal motto is "a happy face makes a happy place." are you gagging? sorry. now where was i? oh right, about to tell you about the trash pile i inherited that is supposed to pass for an art classroom. yikes.

six 1" squares of fabric clipped together and stored in a box. what the what? why save these?

floppy discs from 1993. how did we manage with 2mb of storage?

okay, so i am thrilled to have a classroom - not all art teachers are so lucky - but this place was a dump. bursting at every seam with bits of paper, jumbled up crayons, oozing tubes of ink, lumpy paint, broken pencils, and dust. oh my god, so much dust.

politically correct crayons. i heart crayola.

the good news is that under the craziness, i unearthed a surprisingly good selection of art supplies. three weeks of tossing, scrubbing, sorting, cleaning, and organizing, and i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. i still have six boxes of paper scraps to sort by size and two hundred large art reproductions to organize, but then i will have a dream classroom.

making adinkra "cloth" with a third grade class.

and my days will consist of wrangling children to create gloriousness, wandering the internet for project inspiration, and creating sample projects. did i say, i love my job? i do. i love my job.

wonky windows #20.

looking at the world through my eyes.

yesterday, i went a-hunting for some toys for pringle. i did find some goodies at target, but i have to admit, some of the prices seem ridiculous, especially for toys the kid will discard after a few months. so thinking i might be able to find something in good condition and easy to disinfect (hello BLEACH!), i wandered over to the local goodwill store, where i found a couple great toys. yay. and then i saw these shoes. and if this one isn't bad enough, just know that there is an entire display. it is a ten-foot-square, waist high stack of boxes filled with this ridiculous footwear. i am eagerly anticipating the day when i see someone trying to walk down the street in these. as i am typing this, i am terribly bummed to realize i did not look at the price. clearly i was too mesmerized. unfortunately that means i cannot finish the sentence..."these can be yours for the bargain price of __________ dollars."

sometimes i try to act like an adult. here and there i think i manage to fool a few people, but not in the grocery store. i am like a five year old. who needs lunch when you can have a box of animal cookies?

wonky windows #19.

 this week in our wonky world.

on monday we found this sign hanging in our building. now, the mister and i are no strangers to living life without running water, but no water at all? for five hours? with a baby? oh dear. i decided to fill the bathtub, so there would be water for washing hands and bucket baths. yes, a bath in a bucket. the mister filled up a giant soup pot. when i was filling up a pitcher and some water bottles, the mister suggested that i was going a bit overboard, because we would not need that much water.

and then i woke up in the morning and found this...every thing that would stand still long enough to hold water was full. when i asked the mister what it was for, he said it was just in case we needed some more water. apparently, he had changed his tune. 

despite our preparation, i still managed to end up in the shower with no water. see, i went to the gym and when i returned, i planned to use pringle's bathtub to take a bucket bath. but then the mister pointed out that the water had not yet been shut off, so i could take a shower. my gut told me it was a bad idea, but i did it anyways. that's right. i drained the bathtub and got in the shower. of course you know where this is going...i got halfway through my shower and whoops, the water stopped. so there i was, dripping wet, with conditioner in my hair, and no water. thank goodness for the mister's arbitrary desire to fill every container in the kitchen. i raided the mister's stash of water, dumped it in a bucket and finished my bath. thankfully, the rest of the water shutoff was a total non-event.

grease be gone.

i do not often do product reviews, but i simply HAD to tell you about my fancy new shampoo. i know, random, but seriously, this stuff is too cool for school.

stacks of solid shampoo by LUSH.

you see, last year when my pregnancy was headed into the second trimester, my head turned into a grease factory. so much for that "healthy hair" everyone had promised. it was awful, but i found a new shampoo and conditioner and figured it would all wash away (literally) after the baby was born. so problem solved.

and then i gave birth to pringle. thanks to some wild post-pregnancy hormones everything was once again out of whack. argh! at first i did not notice, because i was too busy oohing and aahing about my baby. but six weeks after pringle's grand entrance, i emerged from my cloud of euphoria long enough to chop off my locks. oh dear. now there was nowhere for the goo to hide. so at the moment when you feel like a lumpy sack of potatoes and your only saving grace is your hair...i was stuck with a greasy do. depressing to say the least. i tried skipping the conditioner. no dice. i scoured the shelves at target and tried out five different shampoos, but apparently the oil factory had amped up production, because nothing was working.

solid shampoo by LUSH.

i attempted to find some information on the internet, but the searching yielded few results. apparently oily hair is a taboo topic. why? i do not know. so i am taking the topic out of hiding and putting it in the spotlight. during my googling, the only useful thing i found was this list of the top 10 shampoos for oily hair. i have always been a drugstore shampoo kinda girl, so i balked at the idea of spending $30 or more for a bottle of shampoo based solely on some random online review. and i was even less convinced that i should buy a bar of shampoo. yes, a BAR of shampoo. 

jumping juniper shampoo by LUSH.

but i had reached a point of desperation, so pringle and i headed to the mall and went to LUSH to pick up a bar of their jumping juniper shampoo. ummm..can we say wow? i was totally skeptical that bar soap for my noggin would work, but the reviews were nothing short of glowing. and now i have to add my two cents...this shampoo is beyond fabulous. 1) my hair is 100% not greasy. yay. 2) it lathers better than any shampoo i have ever had. 3) it only costs ten dollars 4) it seems to last forever. 5) it is not liquid, so the transportation security administration does not care how much shampoo i have in my carry-on. 6) it will not spill in my luggage or gym bag. 7) it is a BAR of shampoo people!

jungle conditioner by LUSH.

so for everyone out there with oily hair or any other hair issues or non-issues...seriously, you should check out LUSH's solid shampoos. there are 15 varieties designed to combat every possible hair problem. i like my little puck so much that i am heading to LUSH to buy their solid conditioner. yay for shiny, happy hair!!

this product has earned the pickel stamp of approval.

note 1: i was not given any compensation to write this review.
note 2: all photos of LUSH products are courtesy of the internets.