Let summer (finally!) begin!

Yes, I know. It's been a while. Summer school is officially over, though, so I can finally sit down for more than 10 seconds at a time.

I've been knitting

Look familiar? This is the Mimbres vest, Part II. This picture was taken right after I cut the steeks - I'm finishing the double I-Cord edging right now. I should have this done by Monday or Tuesday, and it will be sent off. This is the replacement for KnitPicks - I made a mistake in the armhole measurements on the first one. I also knit 2 socks in one of the new KnitPicks sock yarns:

I must have forgotten to take pictures of the finished socks - I can't find them in my computer. You can see them here, though - I knit the Aurora and the Clay socks. This is very soft, very nice sock yarn!!! I knit them both at once, toe up, on 2 circulars. I got some very funny looks from people - these colors look pretty wild when they're both on the needles at once!

I've been gardening:

(and I obviously haven't been weeding too much...)

I've been arguing with the city that they need to come out and fix this:

I wasn't happy when I came home and discovered this. The neighbors on both sides got new culverts under their driveways, and on one side they just decided to keep digging all the way across my front yard. This picture was taken 3 days after our last rain. The reason that the water is standing in my yard is because the other side looks like this: The city workers obviously don't understand the way that gravity works. When you dig a 2 foot deep trench on one side and leave the other side 1-1/2 feet higher, the water won't drain the way that it's supposed to. Grade is an amazing concept. I called my city councilman; he was livid that they did this (without talking to us first) and that they just left it. Hopefully they'll do something soon - I'm worried about mosquitoes in all of this standing water. It's been over a month now and it's still not fixed...

I found out last week that I need bifocals - ugh. I'm really not surprised, though; since I was in high school, eye doctors have been telling me that I would need them by the time that I was 40.

I came home from school yesterday and this was the sight that greeted me:

I now have 2 tuba players in my house. Kelson is teaching Kyle to play so that he can switch over from the clarinet. The school let us borrow a 3/4 tuba so Kyle can learn, so I now have 3 school tubas here (concert, marching, and 3/4). God help me.

Slight Change of Plans!!!

Wow....just when I think that summer vacation has finally started, a small kink is thrown into the works. It's a good kink, though (I think)....I was hired to teach English 12 in summer school at a high school on the west side of Cleveland. Their regular teacher can't do the first session, so I was hired, sight unseen and with no interview, over the phone on Thursday. I will have 6 students starting tomorrow, and I will teach until June 29th.

I went in for teacher orientation this morning. They handed me a textbook and a gradebook and said "There you go!" Nothing else - no other resources will be made available to me. Oy. Time to put my "winging it" skills into play, I guess! :-)

What's really interesting is that I don't have to supply lesson plans, either. It's pretty much "Teach what you think they'll need."

Luckily, English 12 is British Lit, and I'll be doing the first session - the Anglo Saxon period to the Renaissance (Beowulf to Shakespeare) - and I can teach that in my sleep.

I also have to have them read a novel. Now, these guys are here because they didn't do the classwork the first time around; I don't think that I'm going to have very much luck getting them to read something like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. I'm going to have them read "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells instead - it's a shorter book with a tad more action. :-)

I'm also still doing home instruction for 3 hours twice a week for a student with leukemia. She's catching up with her work quickly, but I'll probably be going out to visit her for most of the summer. Like summer school, it takes up a lot of my summer, but I can't turn down almost $25 an hour for either teaching job! Home instruction gets added to my bi-weekly paycheck, which is nice, but my summer school check will be paid in one lump sum...right before I leave for Knitting Camp!

As a nice bonus....I stopped at the Salvation Army store on my way home to look for summery-type skirts for work. I found 2 nice skirts for $3.00 each, but I also found some really nice, vintage (Fischer's Knitting Yarns), worsted weight 100% wool yarn! It's a beautiful red color, and I got 24 balls for $8.00! 33 cents a ball!! The balls are still in their original plastic wrap, so they're in pristine shape, and it's pretty soft! I'm thinking that I'm going to use them for the Bavarian Twisted Stitch Cardigan...

LAST DAY!!!!

LASTDAYLASTDAYLASTDAYLASTDAYLASTDAYOF SCHOOL!!

And there was much rejoicing!!!!!! :-)

Retirement presents and secret pal goodies!

A while ago, my secret pal sent me this yarnand I tried to decided what it wanted to be. Well, a good friend of mine, Carol, is retiring after 20 years as a secretary in the school district. Today was her retirement party, and I wanted to knit her something that she could use. Her hands are cold quite a lot of the time, so I decided to make her a pair of sideways gloves.

One of the other secretaries is modeling these for me...and the flash makes the colors look *much* brighter than they actually are. They're actually quite a bit darker with very subdued color changes, and they're quite pretty. (The hues are a lot closer to the picture of the balls of yarn)

Carol really liked them! I am really going to miss her.

When I got home today, there was a package waiting for me from my secret pal. Inside was a beautiful lace bag

And inside there was Dark Chocolate!! And Cat Bordhi!! (I've picked up this book many, many times at the bookstore, but I have never bought it)

And, wrapped in tissue paper, there was Koigu PPPM!!!

I have always heard sooo many good things about this yarn, but I've never actually touched it until now!! Aren't the colors gorgeous?? THANK YOU very much, Secret Pal!!!

Tomorrow is the last day of school - WOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!

Knee Update

Good news - it's not a torn meniscus. No surgery!! The orthopedic surgeon said that I have Chondromalacia, which is why the brace and prednisone made most of the pain go away. If it starts up again, he'll give me a cortisone shot and possibly a shot of lubricant in my knee. It still aches in the evening, but it's nothing that ibuprofen can't handle.

Hooray!!