It's Official

P is officially signed up for preschool. She will be attending the Chelsea Children's Co-op just like her brothers. Of course, it was very different when the boys attended.  I was a much younger mother then. We did not have email. The school was in the basement of a church and one of the parents had to come in and set up the school every Sunday evening. Other parents packed things away every Friday afternoon. The parent helper jobs are easier now. The school is now housed in the first floor of this building.

For  many years this was the parochial school for St Mary's Catholic Church. In 1998 the church sold the building to actor Jeff Daniels and his wife who then donated it to the Chelsea Center for the Arts. The preschool has three classrooms on the first floor. Thursday, P and I attended the open house and got registered for the fall. She really loved her play time there.  She enjoyed play dough, snack, puzzles, art, rice table, the indoor slide, and the play kitchen (where she called Dad on the wood phone). She also got to paint at an easel - where they have APRONS! They even have a library and the teacher let her check out a book.  It will be a long wait until September. She is already asking to go to preschool again!

She will have to keep busy with her books here.

She already spends a lot of time on her "homework" after the boys are home from school. She can concentrate very hard on her serious pencil and paper work.

Factory Tours

Before Jeff Daniels became famous and opened his local theater, The Purple Rose, Chelsea's claim to fame was that it was the home of Jiffy Mix. Chelsea is the only place in the world where those little boxes of Jiffy Mix are made.

Chelsea Milling also gives free factory tours. Some of the equipment is over fifty years old. I love the old mechanical machinery. The box builder machine is great. I could stand and watch that for a long time.  P is not old enough to take the Jiffy tour; you have to be 6.For now, we will watch Mr Rogers DVDs from the library.  I enjoyed watching Mr Rogers with the boys too. I never did like the other kids' shows that were on TV. They were, and I guess still are, too fast paced for my taste. They were like MTV for little kids.  Mr Rogers was different.  He talked TO his audience.  He asked questions. M would always answer. M liked Mr Rogers a lot.  He would wear cardigan sweaters and would always leave them  hanging on hangers in his dresser when he was not wearing them. M liked that his dresser had a door like Mr Rogers' closet. He wore this sweater that P wears now. No, I did not knit it; I got it for 50 cents at a garage sale!  I did put new buttons on it, though.

P watched her first Mr Rogers episode with me the other day. He toured a pretzel factory. She was mesmerized. First, they showed how to make pretzels by hand, and then they toured the automated factory.P is very eager to make pretzels now. We will be trying that soon. Does anyone have a good soft pretzel recipe that they would recommend?

The Potting Shed

I love to spend time in The Potting Shed.

It is a great little shop in my town full of treasures. It is a shop that sells eclectic items for original gift giving and unique things for your home vintage and new. She has garden items, household items, children's items, kitschy stuff, jewelry, greeting cards and more. My recent finds there include this amazing old handkerchief

and this great old apron.

In addition to my greeting cards, she now has these.

I like to support local businesses and I also like that this one supports local artists.