WINDY!

It is so windy today that the plants in my bay window are shivering!

This is my first time trying to add a video so I hope it works.

In other news, I am trying to catch a cold. I am tired, sneezy, have a scratchy throat. I don't really feel too bad, mostly tired. 

I am still trying to organize my sewing space. 

I have decided my stash will be easier to use sorted by color. This unit is looking pretty good. I only have three slots left though and the fabrics that are left will need more space than that. 

Every time I think I have each color sorted I remember there is more in another part of the house. 

I really want all the fabric in one room.

On this shelf I will put all the solids together, all the larger yardage together, and what ever else does not fit in the shoe cubbie unit.

It may not look like it but it IS getting better!

Busy Day

It is FFA Week and the animal fair was today. So Kindergarten took a little trip to see all the animals.

Day old chicks in a tub.

An incubator with eggs. 

One hatched while we were there!

This is a bearded dragon. I heard someone say it is the biggest one they have seen. 

This is a snake. I don't know what kind, but the young man handling it says it does not bite and it's name is Shadow.

I think this is a tortoise, but I am not sure.

Also, I am not quite sure how bearded dragons, snakes and tortoises fit into the farm animal theme, but the young students did enjoy seeing them. Some were even brave enough to touch the snake.

A Holstein cow, goats and a pony,

pigs and rabbits

and, of course, a tractor.

A fun day!

And at the end of the day 

a beautiful sky.

Wrangling Calves

We got a call just after 5 this morning from the neighbor to the south. They were on their way to open their diner and saw two calves in the ditch about a mile from our house. They thought they might be our calves. Husband explained the situation, then left to go see if they calves were still there. He then drove to the neighbor to the west who had lost his calves yesterday. His cell phone was ruined yesterday when he flipped into the ditch so we weren't able to call him. He is very sore today, but not seriously injured.

Husband did his own chores then checked back in with the neighbor to see if they needed help. Neighbor had called The Wild Cattle Catching Company. Seriously, that is their business name. They are located several hours away, but they were bringing their horses and dogs to wrangle those stray calves.

Meanwhile, we could see Neighbor's wife and hired man out driving around the section once in a while. About 2 hours later we looked out the window and saw those calves making their way through the field across the road from our house to the west.

Closer...

and closer...

...and closer. 

Husband went out with the tractor to drive them into our barn lane.

Those silly calves went right up the lane, past the barn and into the field east of our house.

More driving around and finally they headed back to our place. Husband had turned his bull out thinking that might encourage the calves to come to our place. 

They were able to catch one and put it in the back of the hired man's pickup. There is a camper cover so it couldn't jump out.

The other wanted to be close to it, but not close enough to get caught. Husband was able to drive it up through the field with the tractor back to our place. It took a team effort. Notice the tractor, two vehicles and at least one person on the road. I tried to help when they got up closer to the house, but I slipped and fell going through the ditch. I landed on my backside so no injuries! Ha. Husband said I could go back in the house at that point.

The last calf was caught right as the Wild Cattle Catching cowboys showed up, about 12:30. I was hoping to see them in action, but they were too late!

Between happenings at school yesterday and the run-away calves the last 24 hours have been an adventure!

Oh, and, our water heater has decided it needs to be replaced so we were waiting on the plumber during the calve wrangling. Turns out the some of the pipes need to be replaced. He needed to get more parts so he left the new water heater and will be back tomorrow to install it.

What A Day!

Yesterday was a good day.

I got my car loaded Sunday afternoon and headed out for the 2 hour drive to my son's house Monday morning. Got it all unloaded, went for lunch, bought curtains, got a remote control curtain rod hung over the picture window that faces south, changed some light bulbs, cuddled the dog, and had a good visit. 

We have a winter weather advisory for later tonight through noon tomorrow. We had yesterday off for President's Day, and there was a super snow moon last night. All those factors affect children's behavior.

I expected it to be a little crazy today, and it was, but then there was an unexpected event around noon.

The music teacher is in our building on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. When she arrived today her car unexpectedly, and with great force, revved out of control as she was pulling into her parking spot. The car jumped the sidewalk and struck a 100 foot steel tower at the corner of the building. She said braking did not help. Turning the vehicle off was the only thing that stopped the revving. She was not hurt. Her car has suffered some damage, as did the tower. The tower did not fall, but is not stable. If she had arrived 10 minutes later we would have had student outside at recess. If she had parked one or two spots over her car probably would have ended up on the play area. One or two spots the other way it would have gone into the kitchen/cafeteria. School for our building has been cancelled for tomorrow so the tower can be safely taken down and cut up into smaller pieces to be hauled away. First I was told not to report to work, then I was told to report to a different building and they would 'find something for me to do', then I was told I could choose to report or not. I think I will stay home. Busing tomorrow will be a headache. A message went out to parents that their students will be picked up and dropped off at a different location, not the school. But, some parents will not get the message, or find it confusing and go to the school anyway. I am wondering if it would be better for the winter weather we are expecting to be enough to cancel school for the entire district.

When I arrived home, my husband met me in the driveway. The neighbor and his hired man were hauling some small calves in a small trailer using a 4-wheeler, or something similar. It overturned into the dredge ditch by our house with them under it. They both lost their cell phones in the water but were able to get out of the ditch. I imagine they both might need some medical attention. They walked, soaking wet, the half mile or so to our house to get help from my husband. He called the neighbor's wife at her work place and is out now helping do whatever he can to round up those calves. They have run into a field which is snowy and muddy. It is almost 6:00 pm and almost dark. I hope this all turns out ok.

I am ready for this day to be over.

It Is Getting Better...

...sort of.

My big ironing board is mostly covered with piles of fabric. This spot gets worse, then better, then worse, then better as I pull out fabric, sort it, fold it, and put it in the new spot.

I have been boxing up my son's things and clearing them out of the room. I am hoping that there is room for all of it in my car. 

Besides the 6 boxes in this room there is a 40 gallon fish aquarium with stand and a few more boxes in the garage. Oh, and an end table. Still a lot of work to do in there, but it is getting better!

On a recent shopping trip with my quilt friends I found this cute Pete the Cat fabric. I don't know what I will do with it yet, but I love Pete the Cat! I got some other fabrics too, but I will wait to show them until the fabrics I ordered to go with them arrive.

And... do you Konmari? I had heard about Marie Kondo a while back, but when the series popped up on NetFlix I decided to watch. I know the people on the show did this a room at time and not all at once like it seems, but I am unable to do that. I did find some of her advice helpful and will do a drawer or shelf at a time. 

Here is my T-shirt drawer. I also have done my kitchen towel drawer. Baby steps. Hopefully this summer I will get more done. 

And, this crazy geranium just keeps going and going and going...

Is It Just Me?

Just a bit of a rant. 
Is it just me, or am I just old and cranky?

This group of kindergarten students is a CHALLENGE, to say the least. I have not seen a class with behaviors this extreme before. 

They don't listen, follow directions, follow the rules or even seem to care that they are in trouble. Most cannot tie their shoes and don't care that they can't. They walk around with their shoelaces trailing and then get mad when another student accidentally (or intentionally) steps on them causing them to fall down. 

They cut in front of each other in line but get mad when someone cuts in front of them. 

They hit, kick, spit, push, yank on arms, pull hair, say bad words because they just want to.

They dance around, sing, spin in circles, get out of line for whatever reason and couldn't care less if there is a consequence. 

Today at recess a student hit another in the back. When asked why he told me because a different student had pushed him on the bus that morning. Four hours earlier and a different student, not the one he hit. This kid is in trouble all the time, multiple times a day. Usually his response when asked why he did something is "I don't know" or "I wanted to". Two other boys were hitting themselves, not each other, in their privates. I couldn't get them to explain to me why they were doing that. I asked the only male teacher in our building to talk to them. They were doing it just because. 

The last couple of days the other aide and myself have been doing  literacy testing with tablets with every student. Several of them have chosen the incorrect answer, intentionally. Intentionally. And, said they knew the answer the were choosing was wrong, but they wanted to pick the wrong one. They will get retested, but I don't know if the results will be any different. 

Several have said they are tired, they are quitting the test. There are only 28 questions. It takes about 10-12 minutes to take the test. They just stopped answering. 

I am so tired. And frustrated. So is everyone else, so I don't think it is just me being old and cranky.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of students have shown growth. But, the other ones, the ones that don't care, I am very concerned about them. I don't think it is a maturity issue with most of them. They just don't care if what they are doing is not socially acceptable. They are not phased by red dojos (red is unacceptable behavior, green is acceptable behavior. The parents are able to track this info also), time-outs, consequences, being sent to the principal's office. They are seen regularly by the school counselor. 

And, they are sneaky. They keep an eye out for me and the other aide to see if we are watching them. Yes, we are! As soon as they realize we have seen them they stop or try to hide. So I know they know what they are doing is wrong. So frustrating. 

I know they are young, and I have seen this type of behavior before, but it has never lasted this far into the year. I am looking forward to June.

Hiding

Hiding in this photo...

..if you enlarge it and look at the upper left corner you will see what I have circled. It has been in the house since I brought these plants in this fall. I don't know how it has stayed alive.

It Gets Worse Before

it gets better. That's the way the saying goes, right? 

I hope it is true!

In my efforts to keep organizing my sewing/guest room I find that I am not happy with what I have done so far. A big part of that is because I am still trying to work around the boxes and other things that belong to my son. I am making a trip to take some things to him soon so that should help. 

I really feel that I can't get too much more done until that stuff is gone. I can't move around, or I have to move things to get to other things.

Then there is this...

I had sorted my fabric stash by yardage, as can be seen on the shelf in the photo above.

I think I would really like it better sorted by color. And, also by type - juvenile, sports themed, solids, etc. So I started on that today. It's a mess right now, but it will be worse before it is better, right? When I quit for the day the ironing board was completely covered. 

I found some nice totes at Aldi today. 

They were $4.99 for 2 large ones or 3 small ones. And, I love the color! I started filling them up and soon wished I would have purchased more. 

The large one, left, if full of sports themed fabrics. 

The small one, right, if full of fat quarters that will get sorted. 

At this point, I had sorted all the reds, pinks, purples and started on the blues when I remembered that I have quite a bit of fabric upstairs. Rats. I really want all my fabrics in one room. For me, out of sight is out of mind. 

As I have been working on this room I am trying to figure out what I still need and where to put things. Since I had to move things around to fit the big ironing board in I have ended up with this crazy corner where the table and cabinet meet.

I don't want to push the table all the way back into that corner because I will loose valuable working table space. But, so far, I haven't come up with a solution to make that area more functional. Right now I have just thrown some packages of batting and fiberfill back there since those are items I won't be needing to use for a while.

I am also finding that I need to do something with the iron cord. I am worried I will iron over it. I stuck a Command Hook up on the wall and draped the cord over it. That helps some, but I am not completely satisfied with it. 

I also discovered I want a small cutting mat and ruler, rotary cutter and scissors near the ironing board so I could trim corners and threads as I ironed. 

I found this wall file folder organizer that will keep those things up off the ironing board but still within easy reach. This one has a small cork board also so I pinned my pincushion to it. This area is still a work in progress, just like every other area in this room.

And, one more lovely sight...

...my geranium is getting a third blossom stem.

(Do you see what is hiding in that picture?)

Edit: I always proof read and try to get pictures and typed lines arranged nicely, but sometimes I miss an error. And, things never look the same when I view my posts in my browser. I edit, and edit, and edit again, but they never come out the way I want. Some typed lines are smaller than the rest of the post, there are more spaces that I put in, etc. After three edits I decided it was good enough.

Today

Yesterday felt like a Monday. Last week we had no school on Monday due to poor road conditions and low visibility, school on Tuesday, no school on Wednesday and Thursday due to extreme cold, school yesterday. It seemed like everyone, staff and students, were a little out of sorts. It felt like a Monday, but boy, were we glad it was a Friday! The day seemed to go on forever. And, I will just say again, why is a doorway a good place to have a conversation? Even better, why is a doorway to the outside a good place for a conversation? Standing in the open doorway near where I have students sitting. WHY??!! That, among other things, baffle me. I can see why the kids behave the way they do when the example set by the adults is not that great. 


But, today I have happy thoughts.


I am still 
amazed and so happy to see blooms continuing on these geraniums.

Notice there are blooms open and a new set of buds that will be opening soon.

I have a new project today. Son's GF has asked me to make a baby quilt for her sister who is expecting in March. She requested gray and yellow and stars. I knew I didn't have much time and did a quick on-line search and found this.

She loves it and says it will go perfectly with the Pack n Play the sister is getting - gray with a star mobile.

I am using this panel for the middle. Glad I ordered it when I did. I just looked and it is temporarily out of stock!



I am using the light yellow dot that is part of the collection as a thin border around the panel, then the stripe as another border.



The gray with stars on the left is flannel and will be the backing and possibly the binding. It is out of temporarily out of stock too! 

I also got this book panel. It is a cute story.

All these fabrics are two different collections from Timeless Treasures - Moon & Stars and Little Star Bunnies - and go well together. Love when that happens. Better get started!