静水盈盈

Something Beautiful for Someone Special

End-of-year gifts to the teachers who have been working hard for the kids.

Sophie chose OSU colors to bead the necklace. This is for her classroom teacher.

Laura has 5 teachers she would like to give Thank-You gift. Here are what she has finished so far. She'll need to make one more.

 

紫色的圣诞袜

by Laura 雪盈

妹妹最喜欢紫色。因为我最喜欢紫色。可是妈妈只买了一个紫色的圣诞袜，是给我的。买的时候妹妹还小，踮着脚都够不着袜子尖。

那个紫色的袜子是用紫色的天鹅绒做的。上面用银色的线绣着雪花，因为我出生的那一天是个雪天。袜子上还有浅紫色的宝石。

妹妹今年五岁了。可挑！说好听的，有个性。说不好听的，就多了 － 难伺候，不讲理... 烦！！

快到圣诞节了。家里的圣诞树都支好了。就差圣诞袜没挂了。我把四个圣诞袜拿出来，摆在沙发上。
“妹妹，挑圣诞袜了！”妹妹飞快地从里屋跑出来。我突然意识到了什么，一把把紫色的袜子抓起来，攥在手里。妹妹跑到沙发前，扫了一眼，
“我想要那个紫的。”
“不行！”
“我就要那个。”
“No, 你只能选沙发上的。”
“为什么？”
“因为这个紫的是我的。一直是我的。”
“那该是我的turn了！”
“你一直用的就是这个红的。”我指着一个红色天鹅绒的袜子。

妹妹嘴巴紧紧地闭着，眼泪在眼眶里打转。“我只想要那个紫的... ”说完就拖着脚进了里屋。

吵的时候我想赢。可是妹妹一哭我又想去哄她。我把紫天鹅绒袜子塞在红袜子里，然后...

我喜欢看妹妹开心的样子。 

 ＊老师的评语：很温馨。羡慕你有个有“个性”的妹妹，更羡慕你妹妹有你这么体贴的姐姐！

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遥祝所有的朋友们圣诞快乐！

Song of the Stranger --- A Book Report

by Laura

Song of the Stranger is about Karen, a thirteen-year-old girl who’s disapproving grandmother(Obasan) comes to visit without much warning. Obasan always picks on Karen, saying she’s a rude and spoiled girl without Japanese culture. Karen is Japanese-American, but she doesn’t know a lot of Japanese. Karen is yearning for Obasan to leave, but when that day comes, Obasan announces that she is going to take Karen with her to Japan, ONLY to fulfill a deceased family member’s will. Karen thinks it’s the end to her blissful summer, or is it?

I found this book at the book giveaway at our local library after our Creative Writing class. The books on the shelf were free and you could take as many as you wished. 

When I saw the spine, I thought it was some Drama/mystery story.  Much to my surprise, on the cover was an asian girl and an old woman. I could tell the older woman was Japanese by looking at her kimono.  

I started reading the book the next day. It was awesome! Very well written. I could feel the way Karen felt and experience her thoughts. I felt lonely and angry when she did and I felt happy and hopeful when she did. Each character had it’s own personality, which made me look forward to each character’s conversation. It was written so well and truthful that you could have thought it was more like a memoir, not a fictional tale.

I read what was on the back. It turned out that Karen, the girl on the cover was indeed Japanese. She’s kind of like me, except I’m Chinese-American. I was born in America, but my ethnic roots are from China. Some people describe Chinese-Americans as Twinkies because our skin color is yellow on the outside but we are white on the inside. 

Some Chinese-Americans feel they are 100% American. They do everything the American way. However, I feel I am a little bit of both --- part yellow and part white, not exactly a Twinkie. My parents speak Chinese at home and I do too. At home, my language switch automatically turns to Chinese. When I was small, my mom would read me chinese stories and teach me Chinese writing. When I reach school age, I go to American school and learn american history and politics. I get the opportunity to experience different ways of doing things. At home, I eat Chinese food (of course, if dinner options include lasagna or pizza, which do happen sometimes when my mom runs out of ideas, I would go nuts!) Being chinese-american means going to Chinese school, writing chinese with mom, and most of all, having parents that push me TONS to do my best.

It’s summer break. If I were in China right now, I would probably be in Summer school. However, I am in America. In America summer is more relaxing. But when my mom says, “It’s time to do some math!” I just go do the math worksheet. When I’m done with it, I feel a sense of accomplishment that I learned something new or strengthened some skills. In my mind, without a good balance between relaxing and learning in the summer, I feel the summer’s not complete. My parents are helping me even it out, with summer meaning relaxing, swimming, doing hobbies, and also learning new things so that when school starts again, I will feel prepared. I feel that’s the right balance. But sometimes it can be hard to find the right place to draw the line. That was why I thought it would be interesting to learn about another asian-american girl about my age. I’ve never really seen a book with quite a topic like this. 

After I read the book, I thought this book was really good and well written. The only disappointment I had was that the storyline didn’t really stick to the summary on the back. The summary on the back was talking about how different cultures can interfere with each other. That was suppose to be why Obasan was so disapproving of Karen. Instead, the story was more about the relationship between Karen and her Obasan and about Karen’s adventures in Japan.

It was a good summer read. Learning how Karen deals with the problem may help me when I’m in the similar situation later on. I mean, who knows?

 

5th Grade Legacy Project

For this year, the 5th Grade Legacy Project is the gate for the Sangre Ridge Elementary Outdoor Classroom. Laura took the lead, and worked hard on the painting of the door. Here is an excerpt from her Graduation Memory:

"... one of my favorite memories is definitely painting the 5th grade legacy gate. It's such an honor to be part of it. All those hours under the hot sun paid off. I enjoyed it immensely. It makes me feel proud to leave behind such a meaningful project. The gate was challenging, but that was why it was so fun. I learned much about working with oil-based paint. Be careful! You don't want any of it in your clothing or hair. I learned it hard way. It's quite permanent for a while! Anyway, every stroke was a stroke of enjoyment. I really liked working on it..."

On the last day of the school, a Ribbon-Cutting ceremony was held for the gate. Laura was chosen to do the cutting with the teacher. It was quite an honor.

What a great way to conclude the year!

 

5th Grade Graduation

American Legion Award ( One of six winners in the grade):

Presidential Academic Award ( Straight A in both 4th and 5th grade):

End-of-School-Year Gifts

For Sophie's preschool teachers, Sophie drew a frame, and a picture of her was put in the middle.

For Laura's teachers, several Laura's art works were printed out and put in the Frame Cards. She also did a portrait sketch for her 5th grade teacher.

Farewell Gift

Crazy Bands Earrings

You would know what crazy bands are if you have school-aged kids. They are basically silicon bands bracelets that come in different colors and shapes. And they always return to original shape after use. 

Laura has a few and loves them. But she's not totally crazy over them. Well, I bet she would love to collect more of them. When we saw these mini crazy band rings over the weekend at the local book store, we thought them so cute that we bought them immediately. 

Later that day, Laura showed me these earrings. Don't you love it? What a "crazy" idea!

Ladybug Blankie

Laura's been working on this gift for Sophie in the past few weeks, and now it's finally done. 

It's a little security blanket of ladybug. Laura came up with this idea quite a long time ago. It was on the way back from the Oklahoma City. We were on the highway, and Sophie, Laura and I were on the back seat. It was well past noon, which was Sophie's nap time. The little girl started to drift off, with her dearest puppy blankie snuggly under her chin, AND a little ladybug in her hand. She calls all her ladybugs "maybugs" --- maybug pillows, maybug dress, maybug cushions, maybug headband, maybug pin, maybug PJ, maybug necklace, maybug socks... 

"Mom, I know what I want to do for Sophie's birthday! I'll make a maybug blankie!" Laura was so excited with the idea. Combine two of Sophie's favorite things, what could be better than that?!

The rest was to find the right materials for the project, which was easy. The hard part was neither sewing nor assembling. It was the long process that made Laura frustrated. She wanted too much to finish it in one take. But when cutting and sewing the polka dots along took her a whole afternoon, she began to accept the fact that this was a project that couldn't be rushed. 

Patience, patience, and  more patience. Even after it's done, Laura had to wait patiently for Sophie's birthday to come. 

"Mom, will Sophie like it?"

"I'm sure Sophie will be thrilled to have it. But don't expect your ladybug blankie will take the place of her puppy blankie." I have to make this clear, to say it upfront BEFORE the possible worst scenario happens. What if Sophie didn't like it? Or what if she totally ignored it after the birthday? Laura would be heartbreaking.

"But she has to. I'll make her!" Quite determined. 

New Additions

All hand-made by Laura, these are a few new additions to my earring collections.

 

Crafts Weekend

Four more days for Laura, one more day for Sophie until school's out for the summer Fuuuuuuuuuuuun! 

Over the weekend, girls were busy working on the end-of-the-school-year-gifts for their teachers and friends.

 

This is Sophie's Gifts --- home-made Butter Pecan Biscuits wrapped with bracelets of teachers' names. Sophie did three bracelets all by herself. Of course, Laura helped her with final steps.

 

Laura's are more "sophisticated":

 

Happy Summer! 

Tornado Scare

by Laura

It was just when I got home when I heard the sirens.  I recognized that sound immediately. It is very often to hear that in tornado alley. 

When school was over, I went to my piano lesson as usual on Wednesdays. But on the door there was a note scrawled on a piece of paper. It said, “Carmelita will not be teaching this week because of an unusual situaion.” Carmelita Reynolds is my piano teacher. My mom called her daughter Carma, and she said my teacher was in the hospital. 

    

Then we went to Orange Leaf, a self-serve frozen yogurt store. Mom took us there to cheer us up. There was a special topping today: Strawberry Bobo. It was like a eatable balloon with sweet juice inside. You would bite on it, and it would pop and squirt juice! 

       

The "fun" didn’t stop there. When we got home, it was around 6:20pm. I haven’t even sat down yet, the sirens started wailing. I didn’t waste a microsecond to get to weatherunderground.com. And sure enough, “Tornado Warning in Stillwater, OK.” Mom, Sophie, and I rushed to the door. I didn’t have time to grab anything but my Laalaa. 

We went to the Student Union first. Daddy told us that was the first place to go when something like this happens. But there were no parking spaces left. That’s the most accessible tornado shelter in Stillwater. I guess we were the last ones. The dark clouds were closing in. I felt nervous and unsure. Mom told me we were going to the Public Library. There is a tornado safe sign on the brick wall. We chose that place because we guessed there wasn’t going to be too many people there. 

The black clouds ate its way through. The street was literally empty. It is rush hour, but today it didn’t look like it. The street didn’t feel safe. We parked and made a run for it inside the library. A lady showed us to the lowest level of the library. We scrambled down and placed ourselves in a safe spot near a corner. Some people had already arrived. We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. 

It didn’t take long before Sophie got bored. Mom offered to tell her a story. Sophie refused and demanded a book. So mom got out the only book in the bag. It happened to be a Chinese textbook. Mom tried to sound cheerful and pleasant. But she didn’t make it sound so cheerful as it was supposed to be. After all, knowing that 2 tornadoes was going to hit anytime soon, and knowing that you only have 1 flashlight and stairway to protect you was not easy. 

I just sat there, staring at the ceiling. I tried to reassure myself with some facts I learned: “The tornado will die down once it reaches the city... The tornado can change directions...There hasn’t been a tornado in Stillwater for more than 30 years...We are in a pretty safe spot, under the stairs...” Soon, I felt very bored, and also seeing that some people have already gone up and walked for a little bit, I walked up the many, many stairs up to the highest level. There was a big window. Dark clouds blanketed the sky. Rain gushed from the heavy clouds. I decided downstairs was a better choice than being beside a window in the middle of a storm. 

Soon, the lady in charge said it was about clear except for thunderstorms and bad weather. Mom drove us home. The minute the car stopped, I rushed and turned on the radar. The storm was gone! In Norman things are getting a little hairy though...

    

Mom made us Alfredo’s chicken pasta for dinner. What a nervous night it had been!

Laura's Hard Shoe Dance

Laura had her Irish Dance Recital last weekend. It turned out to be one of the best recital with well planned program and hard-working dancers.

I've been watching her dance for more than a year, I know almost every dance, every piece of music in and out. But that night, their passions, their spirits and the smiles touched me. 

Here is a short clip from Laura's hard shoe performance, called "Triple Time". She's the only young girl in the dance: the middle one in the front row. You can tell from the different attires. Advanced bigger girls wear black tights. She's pretty excited and proud about that. She did great!

Fancy Mother

“Mom, you look fancy!” Laura looked at me excitedly. How could I NOT be with the new Mother’s Day earrings dangling, two necklaces around the neck, two new bracelets, one from Laura, one extremely colorful, which you can tell is from Sophie.

“Mom, will you go out like this?”

“Of course!”

“Mom, that’s the first Mother’s Day gift I made for you.” Laura was talking about the long necklace with alternating beading pattern.

“Yeah. You made it when you were four, in the preschool in Seattle.” I’m so glad I’ve kept it well so that every Mother’s Day I know where to take it out.

“Mom, I can do so much better than that now.” Indeed, with a big box of all sorts of beads, cords, claps, and pliers, Laura now make beautiful earrings, necklaces and bracelets, not only for me, but also for her friends, teachers, and grannies living next door. 

“You’re right. I love all the gifts you made for me dearly. But this first one will always hold a special place in my heart.”

Next year, I’ll be fancier I’m sure. The older, the fancier, the happier. That’s the way it goes. 

I'm Invited!

Tomorrow is "Mother's Day Tea" party at Sophie's preschool, and I am invited! 

Look how cute this invitation Sophie brought home from school! 

Don't you love the blue, purple and that patch of orange on the bottom! 

Three consecutive exclamation marks, I just noticed. 

Yes, I'm excited! And I know they've been working hard at school in the past week. I cannot wait to see that "First" Mother's Day gift from Sophie. 

Stay tuned!

Doll Sisters

Laura seldom keeps her bedroom door shut. Ever since Sophie knew how to work the door knob, it's impossible to keep it closed. Laura wouldn't mind as long as Sophie doesn't mess up the doll display on her shelf. It has become her last territory.

This is Laura's latest doll arrangement. She calls it "Doll Sisters", with each pair wearing the matching outfit.

Pincushion Ring

小蛙最近就像那拔节儿的竹子，一个劲儿地窜个儿。10岁了，买12号的都偏短，可14号又太宽，谁让我们只窜个儿，不长肉呢？！

这买回来的衣服，裤子和裙子，就很少能直接穿的 --- 都得跟半成品似的，进行二次加工：或收边儿，或掐腰。于是这缝纫用的大头针就得常用着，得把要缝的地方先固定好呀！

昨天又得给小蛙改缝一条裙子(14号的)。她站在镜子前，我用大头针把过长的肩带收短，固定住。好像还不合适，我便取下大头针，抿在嘴里，然后重新调整她的肩带。小蛙看见了，“妈妈，又放嘴里！我帮你拿着。” 我笑着摇摇头，她还是伸手把它取了出来。

后来小蛙就闷在自己屋里，给我做了这个针垫戒指(Pincushion Ring)。拿在手里，鼻子酸酸的，心里暖暖的。

Easter Egg Dolls & 买椟还珠

We still have candies from last Halloween in our pantry. The heart-shaped lollipops are in their original wrappings with tags on. They're from Sophie's Valentine's Day Party. I believe I threw away most of what's in Laura's Valentine Sack. 

With Easter still almost a month away, the candies, chocolates and all kinds of sweet treats are already overflowing store shelves. It seems the candy season is a year-round thing which makes us more and more challenging to survive.

But this time, those chocolate Easter Eggs turned out to be more than sweet. Laura never was crazy about chocolates. But when she saw the chocolate Easter Eggs in Sophie's hand after dinner, she knew what she's gonna do with the rest of the night. She made doll dresses out of the foil wraps.

The foil dresses turn out to be so pretty that the delicate flowers on the rich colors of blue, green and purple just shine with oriental flair. For one night, Sophie ignored all the chocolates on the table, watching in awe, as her big sister turing wraps into beautiful dresses.

Those "bare" Easter Egg chocolates? Sophie never asked about them again. But Laura wanted another package, with exactly the same wrapping. 

 

Sampling Dumplings

Today Laura will share with her class the Chinese Spring Festival. It will be her 5th year doing this. She started it at 5 when she was in Kindergarten at North Beach Elementary in Seattle. 

At first, she just handed out store-bought Red Envelopes with chocolate coins. Later on, she added some other small treats. When she's ready to speak in front of the class, she would bring a small picture book* on the Spring Festival to read. Last year, she started to use her drawing skills on the Spring Festival theme. She made every one a name tag. More artifacts of the festival were brought to the class. But still, I did most of the talking. 

 This year, besides the custom-made Red Envelopes with her drawings and a grant displaying board, Laura brought in some dumplings to share with her class. We made each student one little dumpling with sausage as the filling. We call it HDCD. It has nothing to do with high definition or whatsoever. It actually stands for Hot Dog Chinese Dumpling. 

I helped her carry all the stuff to her class, then she gave me a kiss and waved me goodbye. I went back home with Sophie, feeling a little bit loss. Well, I'm not completely out of job yet. Sophie will start her pre-K next year. I assume I don't need an interview for that one.

*Here are two of the picture books Laura used to share with her class: Lucky New Year by Mary Man-Kong, and Dragon Dance by Joan Holub. I'm sure there are more options out there. We happened to have those two books at home. They have bright illustrations and fun images under the flaps, which is perfect for little children. 

I Smell Breakfast!

MLK Day, no school. Laura stays at home. I stayed up late the night before again, figuring I didn't have to get up early to send the girls to school. 

"I smell breakfast." This was what I saw when I sat up. The plate was sitting right on my nightstand above a pile of books and paper. 

Laura did it AGAIN! 

Of course I got up immediately. I went to get the camera, took the picture, brought the plate to the kitchen, where I found Laura, who was making breakfast for Sophie.

I made Laura's breakfast. Then the three of us sat at the big table, really taking our time eating, talking, and laughing. 

"Cheers!" As 2 cups of milk and one cup of coffee touched together, our breakfast was perfectly concluded with a nice toast, made by Sophie. 

Christmas Performance - Irish Dance

Here are a few short clips (not HD version )of Laura's Irish Dance Christmas Performance. Like what she put on this year's Christmas Card, "I Rish You A Happy Holiday!" 

From Stillwater, OKlahoma, we wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

(p.s. Laura's been Irish Dancing for more than a year. We haven't been able to record her performances due to varies reasons. This year, the end-of-the-year performance was set at the Gym of a local school, where an elevated stage was available. It was supposed to be good for filming but the lighting wasn't set right. The good thing was Laura enjoyed her dancing just as much. I hope you enjoyed her dance. Thank you!)

Handmade Gift

On the last day of the Sunday Chinese Class, Laura gave this pair of earrings to her teacher as the Christmas present. It's a farewell gift as well, since it's her last class with the teacher.

She was careful enough to notice that her teacher loves wearing earrings, and the dangling kind. All the materials were "recycled", or "dissembled" from old stuff. I helped, with hot glue. Daddy helped with the final knots.

I liked it so much I had to take a picture before they were given away.

They say, giving gives your more joy than receiving. Laura must have known that better.

Lotion Saver

Laura's Lotion Saver Station drew large crowds at the Invention Convention. The slogan "Empty Your Bottle, Not Your Wallet" was an instant hit. People came to see her poster and tried the Lotion Saver. 

"They almost used up all the lotion in there, Mom!" She's so pleased and proud. Hard work paid off. A century-old lesson learned in such a creative and pleasant way.

 

Laura's Invention School Project

Laura has been working diligently through the past 9 weeks with her Enrichment Program teacher and the classmates, learning and exploring inventions and the invention process.

Much of the work was done in class. The model and the poster of the invention were completed at home. Laura's invention is called "Lotion Saver". Basically it is a lotion bottle placed upside down with the inner long tube shortened(detached) so that the left over lotion could be pumped out. It works very much like a soap dispenser fixed on the wall you see at most public places.

It's quite simple in terms of idea and the design. For Laura, the hard part was how to hold the lotion bottle in the upside down position with simple solution. The tissue box was her initial design. It's a straightforward idea. What interested Laura most was that it's a popular household item, something you can just grab and make yourself at home, which made the invention very neat and cost effective. 

The empty tissue box with one side being cut out became very wobbly after the big lotion bottle was place upside down in there. Laura had to tie it to the box. She didn't like the look. Something more stable and stronger was needed for the task. She turned to Daddy for help. There's nothing Daddy couldn't come up with, in Laura's eyes.

Daddy gave her a frame. Still, she had to figure out the rest of the design. She thought of making a string net to hang on the frame, or crochet a yarn net. Eventually she decided on knitting one. I helped her cast on, she took over from there. It's been quite some time since she last knitted, but she picked it up fairly fast. I helped her cast off. When it's finished, it looked so much like a basketball hoop. A orange bow tie helped finish the look. Laura liked it.

Next step was making the poster. That's something Laura's good at. Planning, writing, drawing, printing, it took her one whole Saturday. When it's finally done, looking at her finished work, she couldn't hide her excitement and pride. 

But wait, it's not time to breathe that sign of relief yet. The Invention Convention is tonight. Laura's going to present her work, demonstrate her invention, and take on the challenging questions.

Laura

Everyone has childhood memories. For me, “Little House on the Prairie” is one of the sweetest. Laura even got her name from the little girl  in there. 

The show was translated into Chinese and aired in the prime time for quite a long time back in the 80’s. I was a teenager at that time, should be in middle school. There were a lot of good shows around that time actually, including some quite good cartoons,  like the cute little Czech 'mole' who never talked more than two words, or the little blue 'Smurfs' who lived happily in the woods. But I guess the Little House was the only one that got the approval from my parents, because that’s the one I always got to watch late. 

I was the second child with a quiet temperament.  My mom and dad were both well educated and worked hard, so hard that I didn’t remember any weekend family time together. Daddy used to work in town. Every other weekend, he came home to the small mountain village where we used to live.  It was usually dark by the time he got home. Mom told us that it would take Daddy more than two hours one way on a bicycle! That was just a number to me.  Last summer I took both my girls to the little village. We took the taxi. 

The building where we used to live were still standing, among all the new apartment complex. A tall brick fence was installed right beneath the foot of the mountain. It was not there when we were little. A few minutes was all it took for us to get onto the mountain from our apartment. Winter time was the merriest when the slope of snow gave us endless fun. The sled was put together by Daddy. It had to be him. But even that memory there’s no trace of Mom and Dad. I always played with my big brother, who’s five years older than me. I’m thinking while I was screaming down the slop with my brother, Mom was either at work, or at meetings, or cooking at home. Dad was working in town, as always. He must have made the sled for us when we were sleeping at night.

The life of the girls in the Little House was fascinating to me. It overturned my every perception about the family. Girls get to hang around with Ma all the time, sisters play carelessly on the prairie all day long,  Pa sings and dances with girls, bedtime is always with stories, soft lullabies and fiddler music. Even their treacherous journey to the west in the big covered wagon looks romantic and irresistible. What could be more fun to go through everything as a whole family?! We didn’t even get to eat dinner together. It’s always just me, my brother and Mom. When mom was busy, she would cook for us and went back to work. Then there were only me and my brother at the dinner table. We would eat and clean after ourselves. Then we would do the homework on the dinner table. There’s time when mom wasn’t able to get back. Brother would do the cooking. I didn’t like what he made and refused to eat. Then we would walk more than half an hour to my aunt’s for dinner. Now my brother still loves cooking for me whenever he gets a chance. I don’t complain his food now. What he put in the dishes are more than condiments.  

When my first girl was born, I named her Laura,  just like the little girl with sun-kissed freckles in the Little House. We were no where near the prairie, and we didn’t live in a house. The apartment was small, crammed with toys, old furniture, and lots and lots of books, books about the Little House, books about the Laura (Ingalls Wilder), chapter books, picture books, coloring books, craft books, all about the Little House. Laura grew up with them,  reading them  as we moved from Ohio to Washington. The garden backyard right down our Seattle apartment building was not big. Laura had fine time picking rosemary branches in there. The smell of the rosemary was so intense that it almost became the scent of Seattle in my memory. Now in the far end corner of our backyard, the rosemary bush is growing big and tall. I seldom used it in our cooking. It’s more of something I thought I brought from a place where we used to live. We finally had a house of our own, in the middle of the big prairie.

... ... 

(To Be Continued)