Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Favorite and Fashion Faux Pas

Currently, I'm listening to my Spooks playlist and listening to Felix howl like a wolf on the Little Red Riding Hood song. Cute.

Today is Tuesday, which is pretty much my favorite day of the week at work. On Tuesdays, I have three kindergarten classes, one Special Ed class, and the rest of the day is considered a planning day. We (my teacher and I) listen to Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole, or whatever else just happens to grab our attention. My lovely teacher, who is actually a REAL certified teacher so she has ACTUAL work on Tuesday (lesson plans), but I get to do what she calls "paper dolls". I call it "doing bulletin boards". I didn't realize how much I would enjoy this, and I get slightly carried away with what I get to do (imagine that). For instance, for October I had a big scarecrow and a big pumpkin that was laminated. I did a yellow background and orange edging. I decided that I would make "curly" grass (made from construction paper with the edges curled with scissors). Staple, staple, staple. Old school scarecrow is super-cute; he has the movable legs (I'm sure you can picture this scarecrow; nearly every family I knew in the early 80's had either the scarecrow or the witch with movable legs on their front door), so I make him look like he's dancing. Still, it kind of looks very... ordinary. Can't have that. I decide to make a haystack. Make a haystack. Don't like the haystack. So I decide that a cornstalk will be better. Make cornstalk with silky things hanging from cobs. Staple, staple. Hmmm... Old Pete (I've given the scarecrow a name) needs a fence behind him. Remove Pete, pumpkin, but not cornstalk. Make a fence. Staple, staple. Put Pete and pumpkin back. Staple, staple. Hmmm... (when I say, "hmmm...", this translates to at least five minutes of my head cocked to the side, quizzical look on my brow, and squinting my eyes to see what else I think my bulletin board needs). I had borrowed some colored chalk from the art teacher earlier that morning and, even though I had never shaded with chalk before, I set to work. Blue sky over yellow background, with orange and pink fading out at the top. Shade the fence with black and put a couple of knotholes in it. Shade the cornstalk with yellow, brown, and grays. Add additional long, grass blades behind curly grass. Finished, with my hands and fingernails filthy and chalk all over my clothes. But I love the look. And I enjoyed myself immensely. Not artwork, mind you, but not hideous. What next? Our school is doing a "Bee Drug-Free" (which makes me a little sad-they're in K-5 and 1st grade!) door contest, so I'm thinking a GIGANTIC (my teacher teased about my word choice earlier today) bee with GIGANTIC grass, and GIGANTIC (see why she teased me?) flowers. Maybe the bee has on a cute bow-tie or something.

On a completely different note:
We have a highschool helper on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Our helper is a very cute 16-year old girl who always has cute hair and awesome purses. She's very stylish. Which is why what she wore today concerned me GREATLY:

She. Had. On. Acid. Washed. Skinny-leg. Tapered. Jeans.

Let us all scream collectively. I'm having remembrances of this:

That hair was my dream hair day in 1989.
I asked her if she was wearing acid-washed jeans. To which she replied, "Yeah, aren't they cool?" Uh, no. She was also wearing Air-walk slip-ons with hearts on it. Hello, I'm screaming, "Is it REALLY coming back to eighties fashion?" If I start curling my front bangs and using excessive amounts of hairspray, just shake your head and gently lead me away. Take the orange face tinter out of my hands and wipe the crystallized pink lipstick off my mouth. Tell me you love me, but you're not going to let me do it. Relive the eighties, that is.

I think I remember saying the same thing about flared pants.
Oh, crap.

8 comments:

care-in said...

You would have definitely gotten a 100% from Dr. Bette Talley for that bulletin board!

Leah said...

Ugh. I'm pretty horrified about the acid wash jeans coming back in style again. Someone else posted about this yesterday and I told her that I will not wear anything as an adult that I wore in elementary school... so the acid wash jeans are a big resounding NO for me!

Great post and great playlist!

Amy said...

I am totally embarrassed when my kids pull out any photos of me from any year before 2000! ugh!

Anonymous said...

16 year olds can get away with a heck of a lot more than we can, my dear! and on them it's fashionable, but on us is just sad. which is one of the reasons i love being friends with rachel, so i can live vicariously through her and her fashion. like a stage mom, only less scarey! i would have KILLED for that 80s hair. and i want it to come back. love love love big ole' pagent hair. i had thick bangs and long waiste length hair that i would leave in curlers for hours. then i would tease and use the RAVE hairspray until my entire head would be so stiff that not even a hurrican could blow that style over. and i remember small burns on my forehead and neck as i tried, unsuccessfully, to use a curling iron. i'm cool with the 80s coming back as long as i don't have to wear giant bubble suits and big bows on my butt.

great post about the bulletin board too. i envision your obsessiveness and thank god i'm not the only one who feels this way about things when i'm in charge of them!

Anonymous said...

i also want to add i want white jeans to come back and blue eye shadow. i'm just saying.....

Missy said...

Yep, I just saw the acid washed tight tight tight legged jeans at Target the other day. I cringed fo sho!
Please don't do it Kimberly! I am begging you!!!

I am soooooooo proud of your bulleting board skills. You should take a picture of it and post it here for us to all admire your crafty Octoberness :)

Peyton said...

i like those jeans. sometimes i wear my skinny jeans with my blue high tops. and my old school sun glasses. i love it.

heather said...

nothing in fashion is really every new anymore so sad. I also love making bulletin boards it is a form of art. I am sure the other teachers are jealous of your amazing skills.