The Hunt for Cool October

Sometimes I hate October. Rather, I hate the unpredictability of it. Many times we have gone from using the air conditioner to turning on the heater without ever opening up the windows. Other times we open the windows and freeze in the mornings and sweat in the afternoons. Today however, seems to be a wonderful breezy day with just the right temperature all around. Unfortunately it isn't supposed to last (says the weatherman). For the time being though, if I can just keep my allergies under control I can truly enjoy the outdoors.

Today I went to the girls' school and volunteered in Alisa's classroom (a combined 3rd and 4th grade class) for the morning. This was my first time observing the class up close. I was happily impressed. The class did a lot of small group work and although it got slightly noisy at times, it was always a controlled chaos, if you will. Their first exercise was to get into small groups of three, and each group was "given" $100 to spend. They had an ad from Walgreens that they were to use to pick out what they could buy. Additionally they had coupons they could use to maximize their spending. The group that got the most items for their $100 would win, with the exception that they couldn't cheat by buying 500 bags of candy corn. Wise, that teacher. Even wiser, those kids for asking about it.

This week Jessica's class is presenting a semester long project they are doing on natural disasters. They worked in groups of 4 and are presenting their work to the parents on Thursday night. I think it's great that the students are learning to present at such a young age (5/6 graders). Many people have public speaking anxiety and the only way to get over performance anxiety is to perform, perform, perform. Something I have yet to overcome.

Last Friday I saw Clinton Kelly from What Not to Wear at the Macy's in Scottsdale. It was great! He was off-the-cuff funny, down to earth, and had great fashion advice that one doesn't usually hear about on the show. What I liked best was his farewell speech about how us women need to stop beating ourselves up about our bodies. No one is perfect and we are all special in our own way. Media portrays females as perfect, something we all try to achieve, but those women are not real. Airbrushing, hair extensions, contacts, plastic surgery and constant hair and make-up people attending to you every 5 minutes is not real life. Now can he tell that same speech to the men out there?