Martha Stewart Living

I love magazines.  I'm obsessed with them.  I love sitting outside on a Saturday or Sunday morning and reading a magazine from cover to cover.  I try very somewhat hard not to hoard them, but throwing away a good magazine is just so, so hard for me to do.  I have them all over my house - in the guest room, my scrapbook room, the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen, our bedroom, my car.  Yes, I do mean EVERYWHERE!  I learn such truly fascinating facts from magazines -- like, who knew it takes 5,204 olives to make 1 gallon of olive oil (thanks Filippo Berio ad for this bit of knowledge).

Because I was off work on Friday for the holiday, I was afforded the opportunity to enjoy a rare Friday sitting-in-the-sun magazine-reading morning.  It was GLORIOUS!

Martha Stewart's Living magazine came with me outside for the morning of relaxation.

They always show Martha's calendar near the front of the magazine.  I usually roll my eyes and realize how very different my life is from Martha's.  My daily calendar looks something like buy new trash bags, throw away rotten potatoes from the pantry, wash sheets.  Martha's calendar has things like give donkeys Billy, Chive, and Rufus their summer haircuts, call fishmonger for today's catch, and film HSN segments in St. Petersburg.  I did actually see some items on her calendar that I chose to put on mine -- deadhead perennials, refill birdbaths, schedule dermatologist appointment. 

One of the next things that caught my eye was a craft project for kids (page 26).  Although I find myself between children in my home (my only son is grown and married, but grandchildren are still years away), I do have special guests that visit with children.  Therefore I'm always on the hunt for fun things for them to do at my house.  I long to be the fun house they love to visit.  The craft was titled "The Big Picture".  You have the child do a line drawing in black market on a piece of 8-1/2x11 piece of white paper.  Take the drawing to a print shop and have them enlarge it to a giant size, you take it home and tape it on a wall.  Then that said child colors in the picture.  Really.  At first, I'm thinking how cool this could be.  Then, as I sat there envisioning this activity I'm seeing the child enthusiastically coloring and then moving closer and closer to the edge of the paper until he's coloring all over my wall.  His parents are mortified and apologizing profusely.  Am I the only one that could see the child coloring all over the wall?  Wouldn't you spend most of the time saying, "Please stay on the paper."  I'm just not so sure about this one.  What do you think of this project?

Anyone try this one?  Would love to hear your comments.