Hail to the Chief!

The change has come—and I for one am GRATEFUL!  It is a great new day for our country.

Let’s hear it for Barack, ya’ll!

Update….

I am home from Las Vegas now and after sleeping about 12 hours, I am up and at it again.

My students did very well at the AOBA conference!  Marie-Claire was named 6th place winner for the Fashion Design competition.  Kristie was named 3rd place winner in the Fashion Design competition.  Both received ribbons and Kristie received a check for $500.  We also got a very nice plaque to hang in the Fashion Lab.

On Saturday before we left, the Consumer’s Choice award was announced.  All AOBA members who attend the conference can vote on this award.  Kristie won this as well!

All in all, I think it was a good and encouraging experience for the students.  It is good for them to see other work from other student designers and other schools.  It is great for them to see that they are competitive in these circles.  We’ll be back next year, I’m sure.

Now, back to reality and the work for classes next week.

A little less conversation, a little more action, please….

OK, so I am having an “Ocean’s 11″ moment–sue me…..I am in Las Vegas, America’s Playground.  Bummer, I have yet to spot one Elvis impersonator.

On the up side, my students are not only finalists in the Fashion Design competition for AOBA, they have placed somewhere in the top 6….I found out this morning that only those students who are receiving awards were invited to the convention.  We just don’t know what they’ve won yet.  That will be announced at tonight’s reception for the student winners.  All of the design boards were displayed today and I am proud and pleased to say that the work that M.C. and K did for this project/competition is top-rate.  I think that they both will place well.

After attending some conference sessions this morning, the girls and I went out sightseeing.  It was my objective while here to have my “Ocean’s 11″ moment by visiting the Bellagio, seeing the dancing waters and (ocean’s 11 aside) seeing the Dale Chihuly chandelier and other works inside the hotel and casino.  This I accomplished.  The Chihuly stuff is breathtaking to see in person.  I love his work.  The Bellagio has a Chihuly store where you can purchase paintings, glass and other works by him—I decided against the $12,000 gold flecked, limited edition pieces and got a book instead.   If Vegas is in my future, I want to come back and stay at the Bellagio.  It is classy—not a “gaudy monstrosity” like some of the other places on the strip (ALERT–I plan to keep using all the “Ocean’s 11″ references and quotes, so if it is getting old for you, stop reading here:-))

I did a little slots gambling at the Bellagio and won $20.00.  I quit while I was still $10 ahead, so I feel pretty good about my little foray into the dark underworld of the wager.  I just like walking through the casinos and watching the people.  I have noticed a couple of things about the hotels and casinos—First, there is no place to sit down in most of them unless it is in front of a slot or poker machine, a bar or a restaurant.  If you are loitering, they want you gambling.  Second, there is a distinct line dividing the “old Vegas” and the “new Vegas”.  We are staying at the Riviera, a definite part of the old—the buffet is still high on the list, the folks are older and the casino is smokier.  The decor looks like it has probably not been updated since the 1980’s.  At the Bellagio, the Wynn or say the Paris, the crowd is younger and the restaurants and bars are more edgy.  The decor is more up to date, or true to the theme.

Here’s a little example of what I mean:  I had lunch at the Paris….really good veggie sandwich and pomme frittes.  Very French cafe-like.  Then I walked through the casino to get a pain du chocolat from their patisserie…yum.  All the decor is very Parisian.  Nicely done, not kitchy.  Then I return to the Riviera.  I wanted to stop by the “Chocolate Heaven” shop they have to get a little treat for my kids.  Featured prominently amongst the die lollipops and poker chip chocolates are an array of choices in candy attire.   Candy posing pouch, candy thong, candy garter belt and candy pasties.   Old Vegas, baby.

“You think we need one more?  We need one more.  OK, we’ll get one more”

Tonight, we are all thinking of going down to Freemont Street which is really OLD VEGAS, we understand.  There is supposedly a light show and music.  Interesting.  Side note–no one here could confirm or tell me anything about the NEON GRAVEYARD, a place I’ve heard about where all the old Vegas signs that have come down in the past few years have gone to rest.  I’d love to see that.

I’ll update tonight after the awards are announced.  Did I mention that if one of my students wins 1st place that I will get $500?  Wish us luck!

The times, they are a changin’

So Happy New Year again to everyone–I’m counting down to the inauguration and trying new/old things to give myself a kick in the pants–because I figure lots of things will be changing and getting better here and I want to be able to keep pace.

I started taking a water aerobics class this week.  David and the girls and I joined the Frances Meadows Community Center–which is mainly an aquatic complex with 3 pools.  The perks of this membership are that you can take nearly any class being offered at the place for free–included in the membership.  So I attended 2 water aerobics classes this week and a yoga class–which incidentally is being taught by one of my former students!

Anyway, this, coupled with the fact that I have given up meat for the past few days has led to me feeling better, although today I am pretty sore from the sudden increase in activity!  Thank goodness for that Jacuzzi tub.

Right now, I am blowing off doing schoolwork in favor of writing.  Funny how I can always find something ELSE to do when I really need to accomplish a task at hand.

I started classes on Wednesday and so far, everything has gone swimmingly.  My Menswear class is currently deconstructing suit jackets to look at understructure.  My 3-D class is making little paper rectilinear volumes and learning about the dominant, subdominant, subordinate relationships in 3-D design and The Creative Mind class that I developed as an interdisciplinary offering last year finally met for the first time today.  I am team teaching it with our department head, we have 28 students, and so far, we are having a blast!  We let the students input into the syllabus today—it was a great discussion and quite an insight into their expectations, fears and personalities.  I meet with my seniors about their fashion collections on Monday.

So, I will go and do my duty now….David is dangling an episode of the Gilmore Girls as an incentive if I can finish my schoolwork soon.

It’s a family affair…

Yes, my family is visiting from TN.  My grandmother, mom, dad and niece.  That doubles our occupancy here in the manse.  Luckily we have the room now and everyone can have their own space, so to speak, without constantly tripping over one another.

We’ve just finished our New Year’s Day dinner:  black-eyed peas and collard greens for luck, wealth and prosperity in the new year, cornbread, ribs and pulled boston butt.  That last one is a favorite of D&Z–nothing delights a pre-teen more than to be able to legitimately say things like “That butt is good” or “Pass me the butt”–hilarious.

Until just a moment ago, my dad was standing behind me reading this post as I write—and asking, “What are you doing????”

I took the girls and their cousin to the park today to “sled”.  We have those “snow disks” made of plastic, but of course thanks to global warming, no snow here, so there is a very steep hill at one of the community parks here that is perfect for sledding with no snow.  We were there last spring and saw some kids doing this and since none of them sustained any bodily injury, the girls immediately decided that they needed to try it.  David and I finally got the sleds last week and so today they got to try it out.  My only instruction before I turned them loose on the hill was to not break any bones and they complied.

We plan to play some cards tonight–a crazy game called “Hand and Foot” that uses about 10 decks of cards.  It is fun, but takes a long while to play.

Several times today I have tried to briefly reflect on the new year and its significance for me—all I’ve been able to accomplish is not screaming and luring David into the bedroom to snuggle for a few minutes.  I don’t really make resolutions, but I do have goals.  One of those goals is to reflect more—take more time for me, and by extension, for my family and my husband, to enjoy life.  It is a blast, life, when you can be right here right now and enjoy and/or appreciate.  I stand in wonder of my life–it is so good and so fortunate and so blessed.  I hope it continues to be so.

Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year, so far.

BTW, is Ryan Seacrest the new Dick Clark?