Happy New Year!

Jan 16, 2013 By Sharon Feliciano in Uncategorized

So, remember when I said I was going to start posting more often and I totally lied? Sorry about that! It seems that making the transition to working outside of the home has been a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. That, and when the people at the school told me “You’ll get paid for 19 hours, but you’ll wind up ‘volunteering’ for more than that” — they weren’t kidding. I totally love my job, though, and I’ve even been able to geek it up a little.

I was horrified by the massive amounts of paper that went out in our first day of school packet and my tiny contribution was to make our family directory submission form an online Google form. Not only did this save more than a ream of paper it totally eliminated the step of having to data-enter all of the parent information by hand. It was all dumped into a spreadsheet. That became a bit stressful as I looked at the crazy spreadsheet full of messy data and realized I was going to have to make sense of it. Super-Dad saved the day and geeked it up even further by writing a ~~PERL~~ perl (SD has informed me that it should be all lower-case) script to parse the data so that I could pretty it up quickly. My hope is to convince the parents that we can host the directory online next year (something many of them are wary of) to save even more paper.

Nate gets to go skiing as part of school’s Winter Enrichment Program. The school schleps 250+ kids up to a ski resort once a week for six weeks. You guys, skiing is expensive! Between the ski lessons, the charter bus, paying our share of chaperone tickets, a season lift pass and new gloves, a coat, goggles and renting equipment for a season we are probably close to having dropped $800. I’m super glad that he gets the opportunity but the first line of the welcome packet should say “Welcome to Middle School, give us all your money!”.

Kit turns six (six!!! What happened to my tiny baby?) in a few weeks. After a lively pirate unit in Kindergarten that culminated in watching a performance of “Treasure Island”, she’s decided that she would like a pirate party. I’m pretty excited to plan this one. I have found some sweet printables for decor, and I’m thinking we’ll have a Decorate Your Eye Patch Station and some sort of treasure hunt. I think I may be more excited than she is.

Nate did a little modeling for Zulily.com. He really enjoys it, and I enjoy making Zoolander jokes.

Next up for Nate: “The Nate Feliciano School for Kids who Don’t Read Good and Want to do Other Stuff Good Too”

What have you guys been up to?

Elmo will live on.

Nov 20, 2012 By Sharon Feliciano in muppets, Sesame Street

If you read this blog you probably know that I am HUGE Sesame Street fan. One of the highlights of my “Life List” (instead of a morbid “Bucket List” I prefer to keep track of the cool things I’ve already had a chance to do) is meeting Kevin Clash, Elmo’s puppeteer

The news today that Clash has resigned his post has left me heartbroken. Not because of Elmo, as Sesame Workshop said in a statement:

“Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of ‘Sesame Street’ to engage, educate and inspire children around the world,”

We all adjusted to “new” Kermit, and after a few episodes and some time, kids won’t notice a difference with Elmo either. Clash has created a legacy with Elmo that will survive his leaving. Though, I’m sure giving up performing Elmo will cause him some grief. I’m pretty sure Elmo has a life of his own, and I
m pretty sure Clash loves him.

I’m more upset because Clash was a huge part of the Sesame Workshop team. He co-executive produced Sesame Street, and was the Muppet Captain on the show. Footage from the documentary Being Elmo shows Clash traveling around the world to teach international versions of his signature Muppet how to, well…Be Elmo.

Sesame Workshop is one of my favorite organizations. They offer free early-childhood education to kids around the world. They teach kids internationally about social issues that matter to them. In the United States they have recently launched initiatives to help military families deal with Iraq-War related injuries, with learning to save money and ending childhood obesity. In Israel, Pakistan and Jordan they teach children about cultural diversity, in Africa they teach kids about AIDS. They are a fantastic organization, and losing Clash is a sad moment for them and the children they serve.

I don’t know if the accusations made against Clash are true or not. I met Clash last year, and I didn’t get a single sinister vibe from the guy. On the contrary, he was one of the nicest and most gracious people I’ve ever met. Regardless, it’s a real loss for kids everywhere.

As Super-Dad said of the situation: “It sucks when stuff like this happens.”

To read about when I met Elmo click here.
To donate to Sesame Workshop click here.

Best Buy tells us what we already know, women are gamers, too!

Nov 15, 2012 By Sharon Feliciano in Uncategorized

I watching Hulu this morning, and this Best Buy ad came on. The guy buys his lady friend a copy of Black Ops 2 and then they play together. The fact that she’s a female is not the point of the ad, they seem to be genuinely be marketing video games (a shooter, even!) as gifts for women, which is AWESOME.

It was 15 seconds that made my morning.