Tuesday's treasures

L. received a loom and a bag of loops, from her Girls Craft Club, a couple of weeks ago. She really took to it, once I got her started. She has made potholders for her dad (he got the first one of course), me (for mother’s day), Larry (M’s right-hand man at work), and my mom. She thought they would make great coffee cup coasters for M. & L., and she’s right. She’s ready to make more, so we are trying to track down the right sized loops for the loom. No luck at Michael’s—the ones they had were way too thick. We will try Hobby Lobby later this week. If I have to, I can order them from the Internet, but I really prefer not to. The ones I have found online have little-to-no description, so it’s tough to tell if they are the right size or will work well for her loom.

She's been prolific with her art lately. Today she made me a beautiful book about fairies, and a an artistically altered seashell (probably from her San Diego collection?). The cat is on the convex side and the beach scene and signatures are on the concave side.

L. helped me this weekend with some repotting of houseplants (those the cats haven’t yet killed). We also put shale ships on top of the soil. In addition to shredding the plants themselves, the cats like to play in the soil, leaving large messes. If the pot is big enough, Baxter likes to pee in the plants, which is what killed my beautiful big braided ficus, and a huge philodendron plant—both of which I have had for over 12 years! I have tried covering the soil with aluminum foil, but they just ripped that right out of their way. I’m eager to see if this works. I love my houseplants and like to have them in every room. I’m not yet ready to cede this battle and give up on having live plants.

Tica played with her ball last night, for the first time! She’s finally relaxing enough to play and learning how her toys work. She’s also growling less at the other cats. She will still growl if they get too close, but she used to growl anytime she could even see them, and she’s stopped that. It’s a small improvement, but it’s pretty significant considering the short time we’ve had her.

While I will greatly miss my students and my class, I will not miss the long, long Tuesdays of working all day in Madison , going straight to class after, and arriving home for the first time at around 7:30 pm . This is my first free Tuesday, now that classes are done, so I’m excited at the prospect of only being away from home for 10 hours today (8 work hrs plus the commute) and having more time with L. & my other babies. I have to go in for an hour or so tomorrow night during my final exam time, in case students have questions or problems with the take-home exam I gave them. L. is planning to go in with me, as she’s never been able to come to a class. She’s really excited about seeing my classroom and writing on the white board. I will start grading finals Weds. night, when they are due, and hope to be done with grading, so I can have final grades entered this weekend.

Here's a shot of L & H playing outside this weekend. The car is his, and this is the first time I've seen it out. It's usually put up in the garage, he said. I will not go off (right now) on what I think of these cars and the message they send children. He was excited to bring it out, they played in it for a couple of hours and had a blast. And then, the crash. They had a steering accident, ended up in the grass and may or may not have hit a tree (their descriptions were a bit unclear, conflicting, and puzzling in some areas). In trying to get it 'unstuck' they may have done something to "blow up the gears" or it may have happened merely as a coincidence. The children fought, much yelling ensued, and the car returned to the garage. Children being what they are, the next day they were playing together, 'the incident' forgotten, and H's dad had fixed the car.

On a different but related note, M. took this picture and pointed out to me that the logo on the front is 'Compuware'. I used to work for them, years and years ago. What a small world.