Countdown to 49!

Goodness...I didn't realize how long it had been since I have posted on here...almost a year! So, what has the last year brought? Some freedom, some frustration, some sadness, some happiness...it has brought life!

Eleanor is almost 17 now and has been driving for a long time. We managed to buy her a nice used car last summer and it has given her more independence and has given me the opportunity not to be the dance taxi any longer. In exchange for the car, insurance and gas, she has taken over the carpooling responsibilities, freeing me up for time at home, time with friends and time with Will. She started dating Michael last May when school got out and they are still "an item" having attended all important school functions that required my purchasing special clothes this year including homecoming, Sadie Hawkins and prom. She has been to the lake several time with his family and will be traveling with them to Orlando for a few days when school gets out the end of May. She needs to start thinking about where she wants to go to college so we can fit in a few college visits.

Amelia is 14 and finishing up her year of purgatory at the Freshman Center. The only thing worse than having to start high school at a dedicated FC is the fact that they are closing the FC next year, reintegrating the freshman in with everyone else and making her a part of the last class to be "segregated" away from "real" high school. She is teaching the preschool ballet class on Saturday mornings and earning a little bit of cash. She has the lofty goal of saving up for a car....which is hard to do on $10 a week. I want to encourage her to save in general though, so I'm trying not to rain on that parade.

Olivia participated in show choir this year and they competed twice, winning once and coming in second place the other time. It was a good showing for them. I don't think she will try out again for next year, but we still have a couple of weeks until those applications will come out and she has the opportunity to change that mind. They will be traveling to Disney in May to perform and it will be her first trip away without parents, beside camp in the summer.

I did not get any of the summer seminars that I applied for, but I was chosen to be an AP reader in Daytona in June, so I need to start sharpening my FRQ grading techniques. I have also been chosen to be a delegate to the NEA annual meeting in Chicago...considering the move by many state legislatures to destroy public unions in America at this time, I think this will be an interesting meeting to attend. Richard S. and I are going to ask for professional development funds to attend the AP Annual Conference in San Francisco in late July. The PD offerings look really great and it will be a nice opportunity to learn with other AP teachers. I've never been to San Francisco either, so I look forward to that opportunity.

Will is still working hard with ESPNU and is looking forward to summer and the slower, more relaxing pace of the summer. It has been a hard year in many ways, although he has been blessed with so much work that it is hard to complain without sounding ungrateful. He is also starting to stop by the admissions office at promising college campuses he visits and asking for information for Eleanor's college search.

What else is going on with me? I have moved from knitting as a hobby to knitting as a lifestyle. I knit daily now. I have made many good friends at Memory Hagler Knitting in Vestavia and have become a valuable member of the group. We meet a couple of nights a week for fellowship and knitting, and are enjoying planning new activities for the new shop location which will move this summer. I taught my first knitting class today, on a beaded necklace project, to 11 women. It was a great experience and I will be repeating the class next month, with 6 already on the list to take it. Very humbling.

Next week, as I celebrate my 49th birthday, I will do so by taking classes at Stitches South in Atlanta. Stitches is a knitting convention that takes place quarterly in different parts of the country. Last year, I was unable to attend because Eleanor could not yet drive and they had to get to rehearsals. I was unwilling to ask for the help of the grandparents when rehearsals were involved, and of course, it is still college sports season so Will was working. This year, I decided that I not only wanted to go, but I wanted to work on increasing my technical skills. I have knit 3 sweaters since late July and I will be taking 9 hours of class at Stitches on sweater construction techniques to help me increase that skill toward independence and design. I will be able to go and stay using frequent hotel points and cannot wait for the PJ party on Friday night! Of course, the market is also a draw, but less so than the classes (which is better for my pocketbook). I'll have to report back afterward and update on how it was. The girls will enjoy spending time with the grandparents.

For now, I will continue working on multiple knitting projects. I have started knitting samples for the shop, which is a win-win. It allows me to work on different skills and projects than I might normally choose for myself, using yarn that is provided by Holly at no cost to me. I also get the ego stroke of knitting beautiful things and having them admired! Current projects include mesh jewelry, a market bag and a baby blanket. I recently knit a doll sweater and skirt for the shop and the beaded necklace that I taught in a class today. I'm watching for other potential sample projects and class ideas for when the shop moves and has a separate classroom. In personal knitting, I have knit a baby sweater for a family member, a skirt for Amy K.'s daughter, a sweater, a shawl, a cowl, some fingerless gloves, and several small gifts for friends during 2011...I think I have finished 15 projects so far and hope to continue that pace for the rest of the year!

I am blessed!

Knitting in the Fast Lane

I haven't updated this thing in a long while. I need to do better at that. School has just ended for 2009-2010 and I managed to graduate a group of young people that I think will do well in the world...at least for the most part. I had a student teacher this spring and so I rediscovered my knitting passion...less time lesson planning and grading gave me more leisure time. This blog will probably end up being a blog of my knitting projects. I currently have four projects on needles....one is a linen blend table runner for an upcoming family wedding (6/19), one is my first sweater project (back finished, front started), one is a pair of footie socks for Eleanor, and one is a shawl (hibernating for now). I have enjoyed rediscovering the relaxing properties of knitting for pleasure. I have attended a few knitting circle nights at Memory Hagler in Vestavia and enjoyed that a lot. I will unfortunately not be able to join them for World Wide Knit in Public day on 6/19, but I'm doing my bit to knit in public on other days.

So, what is going on in our lives....

Eleanor, my oldest baby, will turn 16 on Tuesday, 6/1. That is an important and momentous occasion. We plan to celebrate by spending our day at the DMV. I sure hope we are early enough to be first in road skills test line! Pray for no rain that day since they won't do the road skills test in the rain. She is also volunteering at McWane this summer for IB CAS hours, and getting ready for her upcoming ballet intensive in Serbia. I am not joining her on her European adventure this year. It makes me sad, but she is mature enough to go with the group without me along.

Amelia has finished middle school and is heading to high school in the fall. She is currently at the beach with some friends for the long weekend and having a great time if her Facebook status updates are anything to judge by. Yes, I relented and let her get a Facebook in the past week. Now starts the difficulty of teaching her what is and is not appropriate to post. She will be going to summer school in June to get ahead on high school credits (computer apps) and is looking forward to lots of days of sunshine and the swimming pool.

Olivia will be 12 on Wednesday and is growing up quickly. She has so far spent her 2 days of summer vacation accomplishing absolutely nothing. She doesn't have anything specific on tap this summer other than camp in July. She is completely happy with that status quo, but I'm going to try to get her involved with something active to keep her from becoming a complete slugabed this summer.

Will and I are busy as always and I have a list of projects (other than my knitting) that is a mile long. Mostly they are organizational, but a couple involve actually finishing something around here. If nothing else, we need to clean up a bit. Eleanor is starting to date, and I don't want to be embarrassed to let her date come into the house!

Update on Life

Wow, I didn't realize it had been quite THAT long since I put anything up on here. To catch up....obviously, I've been very busy the past year. Along with a few other parents, I started a guild for the youth ballet company to act as fundraising support, volunteer support, etc. That is doing well. I'm the only one of the original Board members that is still working with it, but there is a whole new group onboard now and we are fast approaching our second annual afternoon of dance fundraiser called Dessertissements. The girls are getting older of course. E is at the main campus with me now and learning how to drive...16 is coming fast. A is finishing up her last year of middle school, and O is half-way through her first year of middle school. W is still working hard on sports stuff. AP is going well and my scores were awesome last year (my first year teaching it). Life is plugging right along.

What's this say about Civil Liberties?

I'm all in favor of order in our schools, but I really think this school system over-reacted and really lost a teachable moment about toleration of differing political opinions. That ability to compromise and reach consensus, as well as tolerate and respect those who differ from us is an essential citizenship skill that our schools should inculcate. This system blew it in my opinion.

This year is chugging right along...

I've been way too busy to post lately and really I still am. I just added a cool widget with a place to compare candidates though, so I thought I'd mention it. Now to figure out how to add it to my Microsoft Sharepoint website from a Mac....haven't found a browser that will let me update my website at school yet...heavy sigh.

Birthdays and cheers and work, oh my!

Rah, rah, ree!  Amelia cheered at her first game on Thursday night.  It was an exhibition game at Spain Park's stadium against Berry.  The Bucs won....yeah!  She did great and had such a great time doing it.  This is a photo of her in their stunt.  She is "flying" since she is small.  That is definitely her element too.  We all showed up to support her, including Papa and Aunt Sarah with Luke and Eli.

Amelia is now 12 years old.  She had a great birthday on Friday.  I gave her one of her presents on Thursday night since it was a Vera tote in her favorite pattern.  She has been borrowing one of mine to use as a backpack for school and so she was excited to have her own for school.

Her BIG present was an iPod Touch.  She is absolutely over the moon about it.  It is a really cool iPod.  I was tempted to keep it and give her my classic.  She has wifi on it so this is the closest thing to having a laptop.  Honestly, she wouldn't use an laptop for much schoolwork, so this suits her computer needs.  She can check and send email, play games and do some research.  She can also download pictures into it and keep a calendar.  Again, it was quite tempting to keep the thing for myself!  She got money from both sets of grandparents and it is burning a hole in her wallet.  Aunt Sarah and her crew got her the VB mini-hipster so she has reorganized her purse into that.  It's very cute.  Her sisters got her an iTunes card and she has already downloaded some new music.  I was quite proud of her since she consulted with her sisters on the downloads and even downloaded a couple of Eleanor's suggestions which means they are sharing the music.

Back in the routine

Well, I've been home for several days now and am just finding a moment to catch my breath and post again.  Saturday night I slept well and long after our trip.  Amelia had her first communion at church on Sunday and that was very special to share that sacrament with her for the first time.  Sunday afternoon, Will had to go to Charlotte for a training session and I went to Apple and bought a Mighty Mouse for my new laptop.  The girls and I then went to Target to buy a back to school outfit for each of them and to pick up a few general supplies that I knew they would need while it was tax free.

Monday was back to work and time to get serious about planning my courses and getting my act together.  I talked through some of my ideas about structure with some of my colleagues and finally gathered what I hope is a completely coherent plan for the AP Govt. yesterday....I know, I'm such a procrastinator!  In this instance, not really.  I just needed to sit down and think through some of what I wanted to accomplish.

Today was the first day of school.  Amelia was NOT happy about what time we have to leave for school this year.  They moved the start time at the high school back about 10 minutes, which means of course that I need to be there 10 minutes earlier.  In order to make the rounds through all 3 schools that I go to before mine, we have to leave by 6:40AM.  Yikes!  We managed it this morning, even with Will taking first day of school pictures before we left.  Hopefully we will continue to manage it!

My classes went well, except for a copying snafu on my part for AP.  Oh well, I've made my first mistake.  I think I regrouped fairly well.  We'll see how things work out tomorrow.  The girls had a good first day.  We finished carpools around 4:05 this afternoon and headed to Walmart for school supplies for Eleanor.  It's much harder to juggle 7 different lists than I imagined it was.....I have more sympathy for my student's parents now.  In my defense though, my supply list has been posted since May!  I don't know if any of my students consulted it or not, but it has been posted...

It's already 7PM here and so I'm going to get down to some organizational business for tomorrow.  I hope to get to bed early tomorrow.  I'm so glad we start with a 2-day work week....