This is what texting was like before digital was invented...

Yup, it's another note. This particular little girl wasn't feeling very well so she slipped me this tiny note before coming to my room.

"I want to sleep in the Quiet Corner in your classroom," the note says, "I'm laying down."

...but on the back she makes an observation:


"I'm drooling on the table."

April Craziness

What a crazy week I've had. I had to videotape myself teaching a student and had to critique myself (gaaaahhhhhh), and my room was used after school several days so I couldn't get my work done (blaaaaahhh) and I had meetings several nights that went until 8:00 (plaaaaahhh) and I had a doctor's appointment on Friday and I was late to that because of this icky yucky slushy stuff that was falling from the sky (waaaaaahhhhh). However, I had these photos on my camera from a walk I took last week that cheered me up-- mmmmm melty Springtime.



In the evenings, my one time to actually sit down for a few minutes, I knit. I had bought this yarn about a year ago and I knew it was time to use it. My sister likes to tease me because I'm drawn to obnoxiously bright primary colors (remember those salt and pepper shakers?) and this time of the year I did not want to knit anything bland or neutral-- thus, here is a purposely-overexposed picture of my new sock:

I've apparently come to the conclusion that if socks don't blind you, then they're not worth knitting.

Another bleeeeezard

So I got THE CALL at 5:40 am that gave me permission to roll back into bed and snooze for a while. I have a cold (or a "code", as the kids call it, because you can't pronounce "cold" when you have one), so a snow day is very very welcome. It's not a bad "code", just an irritating one. Some folks at school have a rather nasty strain of Influenza B, and there's also that vague "stomach thing" that goes around, and even a couple of cases of whooping cough. FUN!!!

It's been snowing pretty heavily since I got up several hours ago-- the pretty snow-globe kind of snow. I took a couple of pictures of it-- my little garden out back, which in the summer is all wild with cosmos and phlox and sunflowers and pumpkins, but now is just a mound of snow...


...and this dead pine branch that fell from the tree with the birdfeeders in it that fascinates me with its convoluted beauty...




A snow day also gives me the chance to just sit and veg and knit and nurse my sore throat and drink gallons of tea. I've been craving a Star Wars marathon for a while (you can't watch just one!) and my VCR's decided to become so infested with gremlins so I figured I'll watch my VHS copies just one more time before the VCR finally dies. I really would love to get a DVD set of the old version of Star Wars, with none of the new crap in it (though I do like the restored "extras" like Han stepping on Jabba the Hutt's tail) but I really think none of the old ones exist any more. I'm a purist like that. The Empire Strikes Back has always been my favorite, and I think it's funny that that's the movie that has very little new stuff in it.

But anyway, enough complaining. Mum came to visit me on Sunday and stayed through until yesterday (Tuesday) morning. Mum's truck is a piece of doo-doo, with slick tires and no weight in the back. As soon as she got to my town she did a 360 and got stuck, and got stuck again overnight when it snowed, and (my personal favorite) got stuck again backing out of the driveway:


I did nothing to help. I just stood there laughing and taking pictures. Finally some of my neighbors (not a single tooth among them) got their truck and a chain and yanked Mum out. It was great.

So anyway, I'm going to go finish up the Star Wars marathon and work on the Hamster's blankie. This panel is about 10 inches long now, and I love how the shades of blue are striping and pooling around... veddy niiiice...

Cherry Blossom sock #1 done!

So this first sock is done. It came out like crap. The yarn is thinner than I like, the divisions between the needles show, I goofed on a needle and K1 P1-ed instead of P1 K1-ing but didn't notice it until about six rounds later, the pattern is lost in the color scheme, the heel turn isn't quite symmetrical, the cuff ribbing is shoddy, and to top it all off I made it too big. But the good news is I tried a new pattern and I think I like it. I couldn't quite "see" the pattern when I was making it, but after taking a bazillion photos in a bazillion different angles and lighting conditions, I think I see diamonds.




I have made the tough decision to start the second sock instead of starting over. If the second sock ends up being the same degree of crappiness, I will call it good. If a miracle happens and it comes out a million times better than the first one, then I will just have to do the first one again.


It's been the only truly crappy sock that I have made in a long time.

Proud to be an American

This is so wrong, and yet..... somehow, it defines everything we truly believe about America today.



Let's just say it made my day.

(again, via BoingBoing)

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhhh more snow.

This is my car. See the while stuff on my car? See the white flakes? See me shake my tiny fist in the air and howl like a Wookiee. 10-12 more inches of it expected tonight! Argh. Feeling just a smidgen of cabin fever here. Just a smidgen. Even when I go out there's no place to go because it's the holidays and nothing is open and the roads are terrible. I don't know how I feel that tomorrow school might be canceled-- on one hand, I love getting that early-morning "no-school-go-back-to-bed" phone call, but on the other hand, I may just die from the monotony.

Just talked to Mum and Dad-- they are both bored to tears as well. Dad went to school just to get out of the house and while he was out Mum ate all of Dad's roast beef. I think there's a nursery rhyme in there somewhere.

So yesterday I made this soup stuff-- get this: black beans boiled for a while, then rice, then pasta; then spices (which included fennel seed, ginger root and orange peel, which are all rumored to take the gas out of beans), then lots of dried onion, all simmered together with lots of parmesan cheese, then Bisquick dumplings on top. I know it sounds revolting, but it wasn't bad. I wanted soup but I didn't have any vegetables nor a soup starter mix, so this is what I ended up with. I wanted stew, a nice thick meatless stew with carrots and potatoes and onions, with dumplings on top, but I ended up with a sort of thick minestrone sans vegetables. Interesting. It made my house smell wonderful. I love homemade soup smell. The funny thing was today when I went out to get the mail I smelled soup coming from several of the other houses. I guess they all had the same urge too.

This picture cracks me up. I think Eeyore has every right to be terrified of a spiky potato.

Snow Snow Snow Snow (ala Bing, Danny, Rosemary and Vera-Ellen)

So I woke up this morning and there is another good 4-5 inches out there. It's very pretty--and since it's still relatively early in the season I don't mind shoveling so much.

I slept for twelve hours last night-- I woke up and was like, it's going to be about 7 o'clock, and I'll have time to putter and then jump back in bed for a little while, and it won't be all that late when I get up again.... I looked at my watch and it said 11 o'clock. Whoaaaa. Like Ellen, it will take me a few days to get over being at Mum's house-- the allergies aren't all that bad when I'm there, but when I come home and breathe normal air again my eyes burn and my nose plugs up and my throat gets all icky and I am generally just miserable. No asthma, though-- but my poor sister's lungs just cease working and she has to break out the iron lung or something.

Nothing much exciting happening today-- I have to do some cleaning, and some laundry, and play with the kitties and bunnies... I think they all enjoyed traveling, but they are all happy to be home. Julian is such a needy kitty-- he needs to have his little cat carrier box thing in the front seat of the car where he can see me at all times. Now that we're home he won't leave me alone-- he follows me everywhere, and if I sit down he has to perch on the highest spot in the room and "protects" me (protects me from what I will never know-- he's scared of thunderstorms, vacuums, plows, trick-or-treaters...). Right now he is curled up in the warm spot in my bed. Silly kitty. Zeekie just rolls her eyes at her big brother and goes back to sleep.

Happy Solstice!

It's the Winter Solstice, and that means it's time to bring out the special candles and light up the night. I've been puttering all day-- it's vacation!-- so I napped, worked on Dad's socks, and braved the crowds at Walmart (sigh) to finish up the last of the Christmas shopping. I am almost done-- just Dad's big thing, which I still have to think about. Luckily the things I have in mind for him are sold in stores which will be (mostly) open the next few days. Plus, if I need to, I don't absolutely have to get it by the 25th as we will be having our second Christmas later in the week with the rest of the relatives. 'Tis the season for procrastination!

I absolutely hate shopping at Walmart. I detest it. The crowds, the lack of open registers, the crappy merchandise they sell, the corporate nightmare, the brainwashing monopoly they hold on the availability of items (if they doesn't have it, you don't need it and your life will be just fine without it; conversely, if they do have it, you need to have it and you'd better get it)... and yet I shop there, as we all do, feeling sick to our stomachs at the dire prospects.
..........That having been said, I got "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" wrapping paper!! Woot!

So, sock update! I am on the toe of Dad's sock #2. They are so very gorgeous-- when I brought them to school to work on them, everyone was oohing and aaahing over the colors. They're manly but still fun (from a distance they look like a very dark reddish brown, but up close you can really see the greens and blues and golds), and the dark green toes just make them. The second sock will be done tonight, and then I can wash them! I don't have a blocker big enough for them, and I hate using coat hanger blockers, so I'll just put them on the small blockers to dry and then as Dad wears them they will eventually block themselves.

.....And for the zillionth time, I wish I had a camera so I could show you!!!