Pacific Palisades (Emphasis on the Pacific)

A day after my final teacher workday, Robert and I celebrated the start of summer with a trip to Los Angeles, California to visit my sister and her boyfriend. We stayed in their Pacific Palisades apartment, which was a stone's throw from the beach (Well, a stone's throw if you're really impressive at throwing stones. It was a short walk.) We spent a good bit of time hanging out on the beach, and I thought I'd share my beach style with you guys. I accidentally included menswear in every look! Above, I am a fan girl to Robert's surfer boy. (It gets a little chilly in the mornings. Lucky Californians.) That's his shirt. He didn't need it at the time. Clearly.

Above, I am rocking my sister's boyfriend's sunhat. I eventually bought one of my own (seen below) as it is sunny in sunny California, and he wanted to eventually get his hat back. The look is completed with my red polka-dot swimsuit, short shorts and some movie star shades (I wore contacts the whole trip because I wanted to wear movie star shades as much as possible due to their fabulousness and sunny California's sunniness).

After I got a pretty significant sunburn, I started covering my shoulders at the beach. So in two out of three beach photos, I am wearing shirts that belong to Robert, all of which I picked out for him... Gotta love doubling your wardrobe through shopping for your significant other. As I've stated before, I'm a sucker for a good man's shirt. I'm also a sucker for sunhats -- the one I'm wearing is my new favorite, bought on the Santa Monica Pier.

.

Robert did not get sunburned and did not need any of his shirts to cover up during his beach/ocean frolics. He declared the West coast beach to be truly delightful. (We used the word "delightful" a lot on the trip. So many things were simply delightful.)

You're welcome

In this photo, Robert Redford and Paul Newman are being awesome and playing ping pong in short-shorts in the most manly way possible. I have posted it on my blog. Clearly. Obviously. Because.

Midnight City

I have a tendency to find a song I love and then just listen to it over and over.

If this song were a man, it would find my immediate adoration and devotion a little disconcerting and would probably want some space. This song would want me to see other songs.

But this song isn't a man. It's a song. And it's totally cool with me listening to it over and over.

You can listen to it over and over too if you want. I'm not the jealous type.

On one woman's love of beef jerky

Portrait of a Marriage 

"You don't love me despite beef jerky, you love me because of beef jerky." -- Me. 

"I know." -- Him 

Cate meets Blanche

Woody Allen's latest looks awesome and Cate Blanchett seems to be playing a very Blanche Dubois character.



I am very into this. It seems very much like this:

Loving lately

Lately I have been loving...

Colored bobbypins
Thrifted T-shirts that make me think of Rothko
Anticipation
Pastel toenails
Listening to the book "Beautiful Creatures" as I drive/do chores
Packing up my classroom and daydreaming about next year
My nephew's third birthday
Giving him "Harold and the Purple Crayon" as a present (Best. Book.)
Thunderstorms
Giggling toddlers
Thrifted Dr. Scholl's sandals
The promise of SUMMER (just a few workdays away)

Hot pink with polka dots

 I saved my hot-pink polka-dot dress for my fifth-grade students' promotion ceremony. I have to admit, I used to be one of those people who looked at this sort of thing side-eyed (as in: Um. It's not a real graduation.) But after spending a year with these kids (and these are such great kids), the ceremony was an awesome closure to the year and caused me to be very emotional to say the least.

Seriously. They're just going to go away and that's it? I taught them how to divide decimals! We went ziplining together! I cannot change my nail polish without receiving input! What is the deal?!

So yeah. Hot pink polka-dots. Ballet flats cause that's where it's at.

And I know I should be all foot-loose and fancy-free embracing summer, but I'm totally faking it in the above photo. I think I need a good cry. I'm going to have to watch "Up" or something (that movie always gets me). I'm also going to listen to the following advice from a veteran-educator friend of mine:  "(Feeling emotional) goes with the territory no matter what age you are teaching. A sign that you have given all to your students and are depleted. Now, listen up, you must use the summer to re-build yourself, fill the void by experiencing life, and that way you will be whole and ready for new class in fall so it is a must to learn, experience, live life  to the fullest and rebuild your spirit!"

Okay.

I'm on it.

Pirates of Penzanze

I grew up watching musicals and old Hollywood classics, and I LOVED them and still do.

My students these days are into horror movies and/or Disney.

But maybe that's what kids were into back in the '80s too, and I have just been a freak since childhood. I mean, what 11-year-old loves a cheerful operetta? All of them? Do all of them love them? Or just the oddballs? Goal for next year: Encourage children to embrace Gilbert and Sullivan. (Also other goals like have children improve their reading levels and identify themes and write, you know, coherently, and perhaps even divide some fractions. But also: to have children embrace Gilbert and Sullivan. And maybe Audrey Hepburn too. Or should I save that for my third-year of teaching?)



Who doesn't love pirate kings?

Although, I'll have to hit them early. Fifth-graders are already too cool for school. My third-graders could very well fall in love with black and white movies and musicals and black-and-white movie musicals (and "Pirates of Penzanze" cause duh).

and this dapper priest is peak

Mmkay. Thanks to Lydia at and this is peak, I have become devoted to Style Like U. Lydia features one of the videos every Sunday, and this one was featured months ago, but I just found it digging through her blog, and I'm soooo into it. Because of his style yes for sure. But also because he is the cutest most dapper, odd, thoughtful, handsome priest ever. This man needs to be put into a saga immediately -- a Maeve Binchy type thing where there's lots of stories going on, but the best one features a handsome priest who is chaplain at the art university (you know a university of art of some sort), and a flirtation develops between him and an art history professor... or something like that. Yes.

My husband's shirt

I've started thrifting for my husband. It's not quite as fun as thrifting for myself, but I still get that thrift-high when I find an awesome shirt for $1.50 that will look dynamite on him. Then I steal that shirt.

And I wear that shirt. And, frankly, I rock the shirt. And when Robert wears it, he rocks the shirt too, but the look is very different. (Because as Mr. Rogers taught us, we are all special in our own special way.)

It's such a feminine thing to wear masculine clothing, isn't it? I mean, it can also be a masculine thing to wear masculine clothing, but you unbutton a couple of buttons and wear it with rolled up jeans and ballet flats it's just early '60s adorable in my opinion.

Plus it's kind of a sweet thing to do when the shirt belongs to your lovah. Although, I did feel like I matched my husband a little too much as we walked hand in hand through the grocery store in our thrifted-plaid-button-down shirts. We're a slightly too much sometimes I think. (At least we like each other.)

Oh the anxiety

In the one year in my class, my literacy students grew their reading levels two grades on average. On the end of the year exam for the school, my math students were 100 percent proficient and 100 percent of them showed growth. This is huge news for me. And yet, last night, I couldn't sleep because I had anxiety.

"What is this about?" I asked myself. All year I worried I wasn't a good teacher yet, and now I have great data (and data is a big deal), and I'm filled with anxiety? Shouldn't I be filled with glee? And summer is a week away! Come on, what's the deal?

And then I figured it out: I have been completely consumed with this job. I LOVE my students. My whole life for the past 10 months has been mostly about the classroom, and I have been exhausted and stressed, but I've also had so much fun and found it so rewarding... and it's almost over.

I am a first-year teacher and I am saying goodbye to students who are mine for the first time, and I'm feeling a little bit "What is this about? I work my booty off for a year and then they just leave? We have a good thing going!"

I teach a multi-age class of third-through-fifth-grade students so only 1/3 of my kids are actually leaving me. The rest are coming back next year (We loop together).  Thank goodness. I was drawn to teaching because there is so much change -- the year always ends, a new year always begins, but, man, I think I'm going to be shedding a tear or two at our fifth-grade promotion ceremony next week.

So many people thought I was a crazy lady when I made the career change, but I'm really glad I became a teacher. Now I need to shift my anxiety into excitement. Summer is a-coming!