Haven't post for a while. So much happens at the beginning of every year. I attend a quilting retreat in Buellton, CA on the first weekend in January. Three days of eating and quilting and talking and giving opinions on work and fabrics and eating and talking and quilting and shopping, and eating and quilting and talking...you get the picture, with 17 other women, and sometimes men, who enjoy the art of quilting as much as I do. My husband gives me this trip every years as a early birthday present (my birthday is Jan. 16th) but what even makes it nicer is that he pays for our daughter and daughter-in-law to go along, if their schedules permit. We go down Thursday night so that we can be ready at 8:00 on Friday morning, when the retreat center opens, to unload all our tools of the art: sewing machines, projects, extra supplies, projects, extension cords, power strips, projects (yes, I know, I mentioned projects quite a few times; most people bring several depending on the whim of the moment.) Then we sew etc... all day Friday, all day Saturday and until 3:00 or so on Sunday afternoon. A good time is had by all and what is nice is you get a chance to get a ton of stuff done, unless you gab and visit and snack and shop, which we all do. But it turns out to be a productive, rejuvenating 3 days in spite of all that.
Monday after retreat came school. Our spring semester usually starts with a Professional Development day and this year we got an additional day as a teacher work day, which was nice, before the kids came back on Wednesday. I have 2 classes of World Literature (10th grade) and one class of Introduction to Literature (9th grade). I have not taught World Literature in a couple of years so it was nice to have the extra day to prep at least the first week of work. Once we get started in any grade level, it more or less takes on a path of its own and I just have to keep up. I have made my life easier by doing some things in EVERY grade I teach, like grammar lessons and journals, so I have a stock of them already. But my computer went down, this time it got stuck in a perpetual loop installing and uninstalling a service pack, so until I got that back on Friday my days seemed chaotic and stressful. I have a perfectly good laptop that Doug hooked up to the Internet and I eventually succumbed to taking roll and looking at the school e-mail on that. But I like routine and when my routine is messed up I feel out of joint and irritable. I like things to be as I like them and going without a computer for two weeks when I have grade books etc... to set up is just disturbing. I am a tad OCD in that way, sorry.
On the 10th we celebrated Paul's birthday. Well, actually we did it on the weekend and stuck our two birthdays together. We had a great Chinese dinner. He turned 35 and I turned 57. I spent some of the weekend getting ready for my first guild meeting as President. A lot of little things to think about and get ready. We are preparing for a quilt show in April and that is keeping everybody busy. The rest of the month is filled with school during the day, doctor appts. in the afternoons (why do they all come at the same time?) and the push to get a project done for a special challenge some of the members of the guild are doing.
So, here I am today, finally getting to blog. Since I have restarted this process I feel guilty if I wait too long between blogs. Not that I have a huge audience that is waiting on my every word. I just feel like the structure of writing on a regular basis is valuable, especially since I love to write and I get frustrated when I can't. I looked back at some of the things I talked about incorporating into my life at the first of the year. Just to report, I am laughing more with my students and I am trying to compliment someone every day. So far so good on two!
No comments:
Post a Comment