A Work in Progress

During those long car trips to take my two younger children to college, I've used my time wisely and stitched these canvas ornaments. These are Kathy Schenkel designs from a series called "Countdown to Christmas." The first two or three ornaments took me around five hours to complete. Now I have it down to a science and each one takes about three hours. Except for this one which took me about three months. That pesky satin stitch on the candle (see close up below) was ripped out, oh, about four times, before I could get it to a reasonable facsimile of the way the stitch looked in the diagram. Fronts will be joined to backs (not by me--way beyond my finishing competencies) and embellished with ribbons and hangers to go on a small tree that serves as an Advent calendar. In fact, I tried to drop these off at the needlepoint shop on Monday, but forgot they aren't open on Mondays. It wasn't a wasted trip as I had breakfast near the shop with a good friend and enjoyed...

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I work in a public school. I provide a special education service which means that I must follow a federal law governing the rights of the students. One of those rights is that parents can sue the school district if they make a case that appropriate services are not being provided to their child. For the first time in over 25 years in the schools, I was involved in such as case. The issue was more with classroom services than with my services, and our lawyer feels strongly that the school district will win. Nonetheless, I had to participate in the legal proceedings last week and testified for two hours. It is an understatement to say that it was a nervewracking experience, one that I hope never to have to repeat. I spent most of the day following my testimony laying around the house and trying to regroup. Gradually over the weekend I managed to pull myself together and my energy is returning. I'm now allowing myself to fall into my ...

I mentioned in a previous post that I don't buy books anymore--well, not many books and certainly not very often. This is why. It's about half the books that are stored in a closet in my sunroom. They were moved there three years ago when we remodeled our master bath and I had to take books out from under my bed and nightstand. They're causing the shelves to sag slightly. And I'm not even showing you the books that have crept back under my bed and my nightstand, nor the ones that are piled on top of the TV in my bedroom. (We rarely watch the TV but it makes a great bookshelf.) So I'm making a commitment to read at least 10 of these books while I'm off for the summer. That's one book a week. Now if I could just keep from checking the latest bestseller out of the library.

Today was the last day of school for me and for my daughter. She survived the junior year of high school--her first, our last. It's hard to believe that my little girl is now a senior. The last day of school has had a lot of variations over the years. There have been the years when I was copying a report that needed to be sent out that day as the principal was locking up her office and looking pointedly at her watch. Other years, I've finished all my work the day before, and enjoyed a morning of saying goodbye to the students who are moving on to the next school. This year, I was working up until the last minute because I took the time to really clean out my room. It was time. I started in my current position 17 years ago and today I threw out some things that my predecessor had left. I took a short break to join the rest of the staff as we waved goodbye to the buses. I'm not ashamed to admit that's one of the best moments of the school year! Then it was off to the staf...