Another Unfinished Project

This afternoon I took a Hawaiian Appliqué class. The top left bread fruit is the one that has been appliquéd. Notice the lack of rounded edges and flow to the leaves. All in all, it was a successful class. I have another quilt pattern of pineapples here at home that requires being able to appliqué, so now I know how and will hopefully be able to do a better job on that one. I also got a really cool sea turtle pattern included with my class today that I might get to someday.

I've continued to work on learning new things this past week. On Monday, I learned how to use a sewing machine. I started putting the binding around another quilt that I started at Christmas. I'm pretty excited about it, but need to wait to go back to the quilt shop for open sewing so that I can finish it since I don't have a sewing machine here at home. I've also decided to take up yoga for the summer. This class always looks deceivingly easy when you walk past at the gym. This past week the final pose was a "crow" which is basically doing a tripod with your head up. This is not easy. The best part was when a few of my classmates over -estimated their abilities and totally fell over, sprawling themselves on the gym floor.

Sewing and going to the gym... that pretty much describes how I've spent the last week. I'm supposed to be working on my Master's project, but this other stuff just seems more fun. Hopefully I'll be more motivated to think about the project this week... just 5 weeks off freedom left! Oh... and I have kept up my desire to try something new every week. Two weeks ago I made two cheese fondues. One worked really well -- a cheddar combined with hard apple cider -- the other I'll probably not try again. Then this past week I made shrimp scampi...also very good.

Week 1 of Summer Vacation

This Monday officially began my first week of summer vacation. Granted, we've been out of school since early June, but I've been doing ridiculous amounts of schooling since then. This is the first week where I'm not required to be at a school (either SJCS or SCU) during the day. This seems like it would be a great thing, and for the most part I suppose it is. The amount of time I have to myself accounts for the randomness of this post. Let's be honest, if a student turned this in as an essay, I'd hand it back and tell them to re-do it.

In the last two days I've discovered I don't have what it takes to be a writer. I'm supposed to be working on my Master's curriculum project, and I am generally excited about my topic -- teaching the Constitution to middle school students. However, I'm not very good at living the solitary life. After only leaving my house to go to the gym today, I'm not sure that I'm quite as sane as I was at 7:30 this morning when I woke up. Fortunately a co-worker is letting me teach her children to swim and this gives me some human contact during the day. I guess this gets back to why I like teaching so much -- it allows me to be the star of my own show.

I knew this summer was going to be interesting because I wasn't working. I cannot remember the last time I wasn't employed. I like being employed. As a proactive solution to potential boredom I decided that I wanted to try and make something new at least once a week. Last week, I made strawberry jam. Yum. I'm not sure what I'll make this week, but I'm hoping by making this public I'll have a better chance of actually doing it.

Another first for the week happened just an hour or so ago. Dave and I watched our first animated episode of Dilbert. I never used to understand Dilbert until I married Dave. Now I find it hilarious. An interesting thing that I learned from this episode is how much taller Dilbert is than his co-workers. I'll let you make the connection.

Finally, I've included a picture of the Mary Poppins umbrella I picked up at our Broadway musical. My mom asked for a picture, so this is for her. :) It's just like Mary's with the little parrot on the end. I'm hoping when I use it to direct traffic in January and February (since it will likely be raining) in the school parking lot that people will make the connection.

CA Girl

I love traveling. I really do. I think it's so great how people are people regardless of where they live. People always talk about how great New York City is. Personally, I don't see it. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of wonderful things to do there and it has some wonderful history, but I just don't see the love affair that so many people seem to have with the city. Apparently, I'm just a West Coast kind of girl. Both Dave and I were trying to figure out why people think it's so much better than San Francisco. I've decided there are lots of reasons for living in SF over NYC. For example SF doesn't really have humidity, it's only an hour from wine country, it's not as crowded, you can do many of the same things (art museums and such) and it doesn't snow in SF. Oh, and there are no cable cars in NYC... one of my favorite things to do in SF.

Having said that, I really did enjoy the city. First of all there's Broadway. If and when I go back, I will see more Broadway musicals. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we saw Mary Poppins. I think this is probably my 2nd favorite musical, second only to Sound of Music. First of all, it's Disney, so everything was done to the hilt. The costumes were amazing. The theater itself was incredibly ornate as well. I also just love the character of Mary Poppins. Just in case you aren't aware, the Broadway play has a slightly different story line then the beloved Disney movie. Both the musical and the movie are based on a series of books and the musical works in some different portions of the books. There are some different songs and some wonderful lines about how Mary can't teach children who don't want to learn, how she doesn't need to explain her actions and of course how she is "practically perfect, in every way." It's a great show with a wonderful story line, fabulous music and some fun Disney "magic" worked in.

Additionally, I enjoyed going to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on the fourth of July. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time and so it was great to go and actually get some mental (and physical) pictures of what these places look like. I was really excited to find some of the political cartoons that we study in school displayed on Ellis Island. Not only did they appear in color, giving me a different perspective on them, it was also good to know that the material I pick for my students to spend time studying is in fact viewed as important by this museum.

Below are a few pictures from our trip. More will be sure to follow on our other website www.davesphotos.org for those who are interested. I'll warn you though, most are pictures of things and not people as Dave took somewhere close to 400 pictures on our trip. You have to love digital photography. :)


Us and the Liberty Lady. :)

Dave, Liz and me in Times Square.

Waiting for the Fire Works to start.

The Mary Poppins theater.

New York

We are currently on day 3 of our New York City trip. It's been quite something. Last night we went down to the East River to watch what was supposed to be one of the greatest fireworks shows ever. Apparently these people who claim that it's going to be best have never been to Disneyland, because it didn't even come close. However, the people around us were clearly impressed. This one woman kept exclaiming "oh.... beautiful..." in her most awe inspired voice. It made me giggle.
Today we visited the East Side Tenement Museum. All the lines that I've read from Jacob Riis in school were echoing in my head as we walked through the tenement. I totally understand the dark stairway he talks about and how the smell of the saloon would wander upstairs in a new way.
Tonight we're off to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. I'm so excited about this. Hopefully it will live up to my expectations. :)