Happy First Day of Spring!

We aren't at home right now, so I can't try this, but I just discovered this old legend about eggs on the first day of Spring and was wondering if anyone was trying it.

"the vernal and autmnal equinoxes are the points in time when you can balance an egg on end, a little patience and you can do it."

The Castillo de San Marcos (the fort) at St. Augustine

Tuesday, we toured the old Spanish fort at Saint Augustine with Ula and her boyfriend.













Once upon a time, during a time of danger, 1500 citizens had to squeeze into the walls of the fort for safety, for 50 days. This door and the one next to it were the entrances to the 6 seat privy that accommodated the entire fort.

Beach in Jacksonville

I know I haven't been posting much lately. Life has been getting in the way of computer time, which is not always a bad thing. My oldest daughter, Ula, and her boyfriend are here for Spring Break. They had a rough trip, because of bad weather in Chicago that caused their flight to be about 4 hours late, but they made it to Jacksonville safely, just very tired. Luckily, DH had made hotel reservations for us in Jacksonville, so we were all able to get some sleep and then spend a little time playing on a beach before heading home.


Ula and Blaze had a great time chasing seagulls, while Ula's boyfriend enjoyed the sun and 60 degree temperature.

My New Tiered Bustle Skirt

I finished sewing this a couple weeks ago, but I haven't been very good about posting things here lately.






The accessories for this outfit are mostly "upcycled" old clothes (the only exception being the corset, which I bought at the Tampa Bay Ren. Faire). I removed the dingy white insert in the tank top, that made it look layered, and added some black lace along the neckline. The choker is a collar from a blouse that never fit right, also with black lace added.

Leprechaun Hat Cookies

This week's Corner View theme is "Miniature Worlds". I figured little hats for St. Patrick's Day Leprechauns counted as things from a miniature world.


Leprechaun Hats

1 9-ounce package of plain chocolate cookies ( I used Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers)

1 bag of large marshmallows

1 12-ounce bag of dark chocolate chips

green tinted buttercream frosting

Wilton's gold colored "Sparkle Gel" (cake decorating gel)




Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or in a glass bowl in the microwave. If microwaving, heat for 2 minutes on high, then stir, and return to the microwave for another minute and stir again.

Spread two dozen cookies out on a sheet of waxed paper.

Use a toothpick to hold each marshmallow as it is dipped into the melted chocolate, and spoon additional chocolate over each marshmallow to be sure it is completely covered. Let any excess chocolate drip from the marshmallow before placing it in the middle of a cookie. The spoon can then be used to help remove the toothpick and smooth out the chocolate to cover the hole left by the toothpick.





Let the "hats" sit until the chocolate has hardened. then use green frosting to make the hat bands and the gold Sparkle Gel to make a buckle on the hat band.

Enjoy!




As a variation on this cookie, I also made some little top hats with goggles made out of Smarties candies ( feeding my son's continuing fascination with airship pirates).




I am looking forward to seeing all the other ways this theme has been interpreted. To find other "miniature world", please visit Spain Daily and all of the blogs listed on the sidebar there, on Weds., March 9, 2010.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Our bedtime reading for this week is The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick ( The winner of the 2008 Caldecott Metal Winner).



It is a surprisingly thick book, but don't let that intimidate you. Most of those pages are taken up with lovely pencil drawing that make the book feel as if you are watching a black and white, silent film, which is precisely the idea. Early film making plays a large role in the story. This makes it a good follow-up to our lessons about Thomas Edison and the first films that told stories. The most important movie in the story is the 1903 French film "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" ( A Trip to the Moon), by George Melies, because Melies is an important character in the book.

Other films mentioned in the book are Safety Last, a 1923 movie starring Harold Lloyd, and The Clock Store, a Disney cartoon from 1931.

This is the most memorable scene from Safety Last, and the one mentioned by Hugo Cabret in the book:



The Clock Store:



The story of Hugo Cabret is that of an orphan boy, who had learned how to fix clocks and other mechanical things from his father, who owned a clock shop and repaired things for a local museum. Hugo's father had been trying to repair a mechanical man in the museum attic at the time of his death during a fire that burned down the museum. After his father's death, Hugo finds the automaton (mechanical man) and feels compelled to fix it, hoping all the time that he works on it that it will give him a message from his father when he completes it.






More information about this book and it's author can be found at the official The Invention of Hugo Cabret website:

http://www.theinventionofhugocabret.com/index.htm


If you are planning to use this book as part of a language arts curriculum, you may be interested in the following site, which contains a free lesson :

http://www.highsmith.com/pdf/librarysparks/2008/lsp_nov08_LL_hugo_cabret.pdf

Corner View: Coffee Companion

This is my coffee companion:



I think this picture says it all.


Please visit our wonderful host, Jane, on Spain Daily to find links to all of the other Corner View participants.