Bron's Blog II

Blech

There was something going around school before I left and, of course, in true vacation style I caught the cold.

I've been sneezing & wheezing all day. My Kindle has kept me good company while I blow my nose and suck on cough drops.

Here's a bit of news that cheered me, though:

Cotton Ease has 4 new colors...one of them is "Sand." Finally - an ecru/natural cotton color!

Must.....order......new......color.......

They have "seaspray", "cherry" and "golden glow" too. I wonder how close the new "cherry" is to the old "cherry red?"

Never Underestimate the Sophistication of the Tooth Fairy

On Monday I decided to save the evidence of my unfortunate dental encounter and put it under my pillow:

 

Show with finger for scale.

And what did I receive in return?

Just a device capable of storing every book I'll ever want to read in the electronic device that looks like an iPod on 'roids:

 

Man, I only wish the Tooth Fairy had picked up the tab.

Dudes - this rocks my world. Books are sometimes free! And good books are cheaper all the time! Think about taking a trip with travel guides, historical tomes, all at the ready to help you get the most from the 100th church you've seen that day. Plus, you can have just plain fun stuff on here too.

I totally luuuuurve it. Now - if I can teach it how to do lesson plans for me, I'll have a true right-hand man!

Sometimes You Just Want To Finish Something!

This bolero might be just the ticket:

 

 

From this pattern, pointed out to me by Sknitty (Jillian - bless her) as something she thought I would like. She was right. Simple, to the point, infinitely completable over one, crazy-ass spring break. Yay! And yay! for using up stash!!

 

I'd definitely recommend it for a bit of speedy, mindless crochet!

Starting Off On The Right Foot

• I caught up on all my blog reading this morning. Yay!

• I checked out what my friends on Ravelry have been queuing and copied shamelessly.

• I worked a bit more on my Sitcom Chic:

• Bought a couple of magazines:

 

In general, I wasn't impressed, but this pattern made me buy Verena:

 

It's queued on Ravelry. :)

I do have a crochet project to begin, but I'll wait to talk about it until after I've actually done something.

Later!

What's New On The Magazine Front?

I feel like I've had my head in a sack for the past month & have no idea what spring knitting & crochet wonders are out on the stands, now. I guess my first order of business is to head to B&N after work on Wed. to peruse some shelves.

My project is essentially done, I just need to get the guts to send it in....probably tomorrow evening, after my other class. But once it's gone, I won't concern myself with my next two, slightly-overwhelming, tasks. I vow to take about 5 to 6 days off, just lazing..and cleaning our really dirty house...and KNITTING!!! or CROCHETING!!!

(Imagine Scarlet, with her fist in her hair, "Tara! Home. I'll go home. And I'll think of some way to get him back. After all... tomorrow is another day."

Yep - tomorrow is another day of crafting!

Looking Cautiously Around

There don't seem to be more shoes dropping, so I think we're out of the woods. Doug's thing is (knocking on said wood vigorously) over and he's emerged unscathed.

One more week until spring break. I'll have my major project handed in by next Friday & I'll be able to enjoy the weekend before I have my tooth pulled and my teeth prepped for a bridge that Monday. Poor Dylan has a root canal and crown scheduled for Tuesday!

I told him we can lay around, watch movies & share pain pills that week. ::wink::

I managed 4 rows of knitting last night while watching Survivor and even then I felt guilty not working on my curriculum project. But as soon as I submit it, I plan to knit up a storm! (Finally!!)

It's raining here - that means it'll be a great day. :)

Trials And Tribulations

I spoke too soon. Things went really well for myself, Dylan and Colin last week, but not so well for Doug. We're still kind of in the middle of stressful situation for him - hopefully it will all work out, and soon! THEN we can be done with the bad luck for awhile.

In the meantime, I finished a bunch of things for my Fundamentals of Reading class (my group presentation - which went really well last Tuesday - my second article summary and 4 classroom observations) and now have nothing to worry about in there except the weekly reading and the portfolio due in mid-April. Yay! So I can concentrate on my gifted class almost exclusively.

In celebration, I did start on a Sitcom Chic...yes....in Bubblegum CE:

 

It's bright, cheerful and the stockinette truly is mindless. I needed something that I didn't have to watch, even a little bit!

We'll see - maybe if I get half a dozen sweaters on the needles, I'll finally decide to finish one!

Spring break is coming in two weeks... I'm counting the hours, believe me!

THIS Will Be A Good Week

I woke up this morning to see that my 18-page paper, the one I sweated & slaved over, had been graded. I had not done a full-on research paper in, quite literally, 25 years.

Out of a possible 25 points, I received 30. My professor said, "Excellent paper in all ways - you received bonus for expanded content in the area of theory, application and references."

Theory - I compared the Autonomous Learner Model to the APS Gifted Strands - all 8 strands, one by one, for 7 pages. Application - I found a study that had been done using the ALM model with ESL learners, a few of whom were gifted, so I included a summary of the study and it's applicability to the model. References - we needed 5, I gave her 10.

Who says overachieving doesn't pay off?

Yep! Only good mojo risin' this week! Yay!

 

Soon, I'll Have Quite A Collection..

...of sweater backs.

I found this one in my knitting box tonight:

 

I remember that I stopped working on the sweater because it was "springish" and we were heading into fall. Well, now we're heading back into spring again!

I still haven't gotten any farther on my other sweater than this back and two fronts combined:

 

And I'm seriously considering starting something totally different because....

My favorite sweater, my Gathered Pullover went through the wash with...wait for it....bleach! I can't claim this sweater gaffe. Hubbie loves bleach a little too much and once in awhile he misjudges the laundry load he's doing.

Needless to say, the sweater is now unwearable and in the trash.

Soooooooo.....I'm considering another one, out of CE or course, or maybe a Sitcom Chic instead.I made one, wonderful sweater from the pattern and sent it away to my great aunt in CA. I think it might be time to find some truly mindless knitting in my future in really hot colors....like hot pink or red. I have enough banana cream also...hmmmmmm...decisions.

I'm coming up on some time, very soon, where I'll be able to take a couple of days off from all this stress and concentrate on some knitting and crocheting. Of course, I scheduled a tooth -pulling/preparation for a 3 tooth bridge during the first part of spring break so I could moan & groan for a week with no worries. But I don't need my jaw to feel well in order to knit & watch trashy movies! ha!

I also have this book to review:

 

This is an advance copy sent to me to read and review and I'm excited about it. It seems very different than most of the fiction knitting genre books I've read. I'm going to make a point to read a bit a day & hopefully have some sort of book review for you in a week or so. After all, I can't write gifted curriculum morning noon and night! There has to be down time, and this book will help me with that. :)

Our family has had a terrible week of freak occurrences and major irritations that really destroyed any semblance of peace around here for several days. I have an abscessed tooth AND I sliced my right middle finger open on the paper cutter at school, Doug fell face first on concrete at work and looks like someone beat the crap out of him, Dylan had a grade mix up & wasn't able to attend the state marketing championships, then he hit a pole during a U-turn and destroyed his tire. His group of friends fell apart and then he found out he'll probably need a root canal to fix a fractured tooth he's had for months. The last occurrence came out of left field today so hopefully with Monday will dawn clear and calm!!! 

No wonder there's been no knitting! But I have managed to observe in 3 classrooms, type up a 5 page summary of a journal article, find more stuff for my presentation that was postponed from last week, started on my big gifted curriculum project - bare bones, but it's there. I've also stuffed envelopes and a large box which I've been wanting to mail for over a MONTH and never got it done.

So, how was your week?