M & C...the best shopping in the state.

Mother and Child has to be the single most brilliant retail concept on planet earth.
It's a consignment shop that has expanded to offer organic clothing lines, elite mother and baby acoutraments that are normally found only in upscale catalogues, as well as hand made jewelry, arts and crafts that would make your Etsy account jealous.

Because they sell only mall brand clothing like American Eagle, Delia's, and Abercrombie, you cannot just dump off your Walmart specials, and hope to earn store credit.  You can, however, trade in all your old cool clothes, and shop for free, once your items have sold.

At this point, almost everything I wear comes from Mother and Child.  Nothing beats free shopping,
and you're recycling at the same time! 

Mother and Child is now transitioning their name to M and C, since there is a rising tide of hipster teen boys shopping there, and they feel they have outgrown their name.

I suggested to the owner, who is also my neighbor, that there may be a certain hipster panache afforded to pre teen Indie boys who can boast that they shop at "Mother and Child."  It's hard to say just how far irony will go; I fully support their name transition, from a marketing position.


I am such an enthusiast that the owner has now supplied me with referral cards (pictured)!

More dubious portrait sketches

More musicians from Riverwalk Cafe Open Mic Night...

 

Valenitines etc.

Levity created this fold up heart/ice cream cone valentine with no direction from me.  I am fairly impressed with the imaginative quality of the design.

Cat snowflake design by Levity

Jude the Dude, and his chompers

Arabella's Valentine design...Volcom? 

"Fish Makes a Friend," by Arabella DeBow

Arabella has written her first book, which she entitled "Fish Makes a Friend."  The illustration on the front is supplied, and then she dictated the story, inspired by the image.

"One day the guy who was a scuba diver was running to get the boat.  The scuba diver did not get the boat."

"The bigger kid did get the boat and the fish was like "oooh, I want to see the people."

"Then the fish stopped crying because the bigger boy gave the boat back.  And then the fish saw the people, made friends with the people, and they lived happily ever after."

Literary Composition

I am quite impressed with Levity's advancement this year in composition, handwriting, and reading.  We've used a very helpful graphic organization strategy called "Diamond Notes" that has quite effectively taken the mystery out of paragraph creation.  Because Levity still dreads extended writing, I offered to have her dictate about 60% of the process.  One of the advantages of home education is that I can afford to take certain subjects slowly, or modify them, so that they do not become black holes of contention. 

  

Here is the Home Educator's Delight:  A spontaneously composed unassigned book report poster that Levity cooked up before class on Tuesday morning, while I was still sleeping.  Really?  Yes, really!

Cool Kid Art

Created and contributed by the DeBow girls and the Jeans children, courtesy of a play date extraordinaire this week.

 

Keane on U2.

Waiting my turn to play at the Riverwalk Cafe's open mic night, tonight,  I was minding my own business, feverishly reading A girl named Zippy, for book club is in the morning, when some woman from the crowd shouted:

"Hey!  Where's that girl singer?"  The boy next to me jostled my elbow, said,

"Ahh, I think they're asking for you."

Now, I am truly flattered.  I did not even recognize this woman.  However, just how sad is it that I have made a name for myself as THE girl singer.  If any of you are reading this, and are female, you owe it to yourself to get off the sidelines.  Please. 

I'd already taken my turn, giving a mildly crappy cover of "She has no time," Keane, and a not so crappy cover of "With or without you," U2, when we were drowned out by the death metal band in the basement below us, courtesy of the cool guys at Tattomb.  (sigh...)