English papers--a new batch to grade--have come in, so that means I'm doing all sorts of things to avoid diving into the correcting. The backstory is that my daughter Barbara came a couple of weekends ago and we spent the time making a Cousins Book. She had this nifty machine, a Cricut, that cuts out shapes and letters.

I found it to be quite reasonable at the craft store, and picked up some cartridges on coupon. It now resides on our dining room table as I spent Sunday evening helping a teenage friend work on her project: clipboards for summer camp. Here are some samples.





And just to show you how dedicated I am at avoiding grading, I made a tag for this baby shower gift.

My daughter laughs when I call her for advice. She told me she likes seeing me "out of my element." (As a teenager she spent several tortured hours making a quilt under my direction--my passion is quilting.) But this is fun, too. Did you know they have stacks and stacks of colorful and decorative paper they're more than happy to sell you? And sticky dots, sticker-making machines, ribbons, laminating machines, glue sticks, glue pens. . .