Friday finish

I've pretty much been taking it easy this summer. I'm taking an online class to renew my license, but I've been having a nice time sleeping, reading, and sewing. As a reward for surviving the school year, I sent a couple quilts off to get quilted. They are in the mail on their way back to me for binding, but I wanted to share them with you. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. My favorite part about the process is that the long arm quilter sends me pictures. :)

Purple Patch quilt:


Close up of Purple Patch quilting:

Star Quilt:


Close up of Star Quilt quilting:


I think these quilts are going to be gorgeous when they're all finished. Is it wrong of me to be proud of myself?

It takes a heap o' livin'

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home
 (see http://sofinesjoyfulmoments.com/quotes/heapoliv.htm for the rest of the poem.).

I've been doing a heap of a lot of living these past few months. I will expound more on that later, but I am still trying to finish out the school year. I have begun the count down to the end of the school year (we've got less than a month to go), but I'm still plugging away daily at grading and lesson planning. I keep hoping it's going to get easier or that I'm going to get the hang of things, but I'm beginning to doubt that. Oh, well. At some point, I'll get caught up.

On the bright side, though, my apartment is finally starting to feel like home. I've been spending some time in the past month or so getting pictures hung and cushions made, and I finally feel like I am ready for visitors. Of course, seeing as how I've pretty much disappeared from off the face of the earth for the past few months, I don't know if I have any friends left who could come and visit me. I'm getting ready to come up for air, so to speak. It's kind of nice to have a sewing room kind of set up (it's a little messy, but I'm getting some stuff done). I'm finding that sewing is truly stress-reducing for me (well, so long as everything is going well!). I have big project plans for the summer. If only we could fast forward May. . . :)

Thanks for hanging in there with me; I will try to be a better blogger as life continues.

My precious

I've wanted one of these for a very long time.



Thanks to my mom's keen eye for a sale and months of saving, my precious has arrived.



Happy birthday to me. :)

(Yes, my birthday was over 2 weeks ago, but hey, I've just been basking in the glory of my precious.)

Urban legend confirmed

Today, one of the teachers at school and his wife had twins. I was chatting with a different teacher in the hall and mentioned that I was relieved to see the babies had normal names. Turns out, the teacher I was talking to had once upon a time (in another state) taught twins named Orangejello and Lemonjello (O-rahn-ge-lo and Le-mon-ge-lo). I had heard about kids being named this, but I now have a direct source for such an occurrence. Is it a bad thing that I practically skipped down the hall after confirming the urban legend?

A rather embarassing moment

Yesterday, I went to pull out a microwaveable dinner as part of my lunch at school. Unfortunately, the plastic wrapping on top was loose, and I ended up getting heated sauce on my hand. Um, yeah. The foods teacher got a second degree burn from a microwaveable meal. What's wrong with this picture?

I keep dreaming about updating my blog, but I don't know that it's going to happen. When I first started, I had big dreams about being one of those fantastic teachers on top of everything. Our first semester is ending on Friday, and I think that just surviving has become my main goal. I guess I knew intellectually that my first year was going to be hard, but I don't think I realized how physically, emotionally, and psychologically draining it is to be a teacher. It makes me appreciate my own high school teachers even more!

Progress

I built my two bookshelves (okay, fine, I just assembled the pieces together), and I am slowly working to unpack boxes. I prepped a lesson on food safety and sanitation tonight; is it any wonder that I had an apple for dinner? I washed it off very well, just in case. I'm already looking forward to Thanksgiving. Anyone up for declaring all of November as a holiday?

Once upon a time

Once upon a time. . .
I could find my digital camera
I had more than 3 outfits unpacked
I could walk through the living room without tripping over boxes
Dinner was slightly more involved than nuking a Lean Cuisine meal
Ah, for the good old days.

Please pardon the long blogging absence. In my limited spare time, I am working on getting my apartment set up. I have most of my belongings (in boxes) moved in, and I'm spending a lot of time sleeping at my apartment. My sewing machine is out and my kitchen is mostly unpacked, but alas, I haven't had any time to sew. I shall let that travesty speak for itself. :)

The story of my life

Questions

The most common question I am asked these days, aside from "Can I use the bathroom" or "Can I go get a drink" is "How are you doing?" In all honesty, I feel like I'm dog paddling like crazy just to stay afloat. Apparently, that's the name of the game for new teachers, but it's pretty exhausting. Add to actual classroom teaching meetings, gradings, planning, and writing exams, and I'm feeling pretty swamped. I might try this weekend to put up something more interesting, but for the moment, I'm just concentrating on surviving. I made it through student teaching and a master's thesis; surely I can handle this, right?

The Staples of Life

I finished my first week of new teacher orientation. Let me tell you, there is a lot that goes on before students EVER arrive at school. The highlight of the week (or perhaps the low light, I suppose) was when I managed to put a staple in my hand. I was replacing the staples in the stapler on my desk, and I pressed down at exactly the wrong moment, so instead of going into my bulletin board, the staple went into my palm. It bled and everything. I do hope this incident isn't indicative of how the year is going to go. At any rate, my classroom is slowly coming together, my lesson plans are coming along, and I'm mentally gearing up for teenagers. I'll keep you posted.