Links: School Lunch, Chick Flicks, Chowderfest, and More

I have some links for you, but first look at this adorable furniture a friend hand-me-down-gifted to us! How cute is that?!?

There’s actually a chair to match the sofa and rocker, but it fits exactly into the space where her little vanity stool used to go, and that stool’s been rickety for years. So the stool’s been sent curbside, where’s it’s sticking its thumb out and hoping for a good home. J’s room is now a bit crowded for my tastes, but she loves-loves-loves it and says that it feels like she has a living room and a bedroom. Did I tell you that at Christmas she told me that she was hoping that Santa Claus would repaint all of the walls in her room and replace her comforter and carpet with blue and green instead of the pink all over? Needless to say, Santa wasn’t able to manage that, but we ditched her old bedspread and canopy (you can see from this old post) and I found one of M’s old comforters to tone down all the pink until we get to a full re-do, probably this summer.  So the furniture with green cushions helped with that effort, too.

Okay, here are some links:

So, first of all, if you need new additions for your Netflix queue, the Athena Film Festival in New York is celebrating films with powerful and heroic women and girls.

M and J’s school district, Niskayuna, is opting out of federal guidelines (and money) for school lunches, and they’re talking about it on the TU’s Parent to Parent blog and the Huffington Post.

If all this talk of lunch is making you hungry (or maybe you’re just cold), Mamatoga’s got her Family Chowderfest Map 2013–yep, plan for some chowder on February 2nd.

Kveller had a post on How to Throw the Best (Cheap) Star Wars Birthday Party Ever.

Albany Kid has 20 Ideas for Winter Fun.

Feel like a little mushy-gushy romance? Upworthy shared this short autism-awareness young love story video and Jezebel recommends we read this very sweet young-love-of-oldsters romance from New York Times Modern Love column.