February 2025

Happy last day of February! Thanks for checking in as I link up with Erika from A Little Bit of Everything and Andrea from Momfessionals for:

It's Been A Year....

One year ago this week, my husband was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It's been a whirlwind of treatment, surgery, aftermath symptoms (hopefully, you don't know what this means), etc. Amazingly, his latest CAT scan and blood work look good. For the next several years, he will need follow-up testing every 3 months, but every day is a gift. Here's a picture of Matt from - what he calls - the "before times."

Since diagnosis, he's lost over 40 pounds. Due to his esophagectomy, his stomach has been greatly reduced and is located between his lungs. It's all amazing that medicine is this advanced.

Do you need a unique personalized gift?

When we went to San Juan last year, we were so enchanted with the art in this store: The Poet's Passage. We bought 3 personalized casita doors and 2 prints. Now my niece is engaged and has bought a house in Texas so I am ordering her a casita door, too!

I'm leaning toward this one, but I haven't made my final decision. I just think they're so colorful and fun!

Cuticle Cream Worth Checking Out!

My hands, especially my cuticles are so dried out right now. I've been using this Onsen cuticle cream, and I really love how it absorbs quickly and helping to moisturize my ragged cuticles:

Jane Brocket: Colorful Non-Fiction Books

Every Saturday I take my weekly trip to my local library. The first thing I do in the Children's Room is look at the new books. Lately, I've been trying to find more non-fiction picture books, and this week I was extraordinarily lucky to find a new-to-me series, Jane Brocket's Clever Concepts. Here are 2 examples:

Bright color and photographs automatically attracted me to these books as well as the math connections, shapes and patterns.

Circles, Stars, and Squares has beautiful pictures of real life examples of two and three dimensional shapes:

My students can always review different shapes as well as the difference between 2 and 3 dimensional shapes. Plus, look at those delicious pictures, and that's only one of the pages.

In Spotty, Stripy, Swirly, the pictures are equally vibrant and fascinating.