... have I been for almost four months? Well, life took me by the hand, sat me down and said, "Get organized." So I did. Chaos of work and real life was making me a crazy person, so I worked on changing a few things.
Regarding work, after making some big changes to our school, our principal resigned to return to a high school classroom. Interesting, huh? Then, because he and the IB program left (short version of a long story), the woman who got my job left. With some help from a few supporters at my school and at the administrative level, I got my job back! I know! How exciting! So, instead of being in a first grade classroom, I'll continue to work with kindergarten through second grade during mornings, and I'll be coaching (yes, you're reading it correctly) other teachers in the afternoons. I'm not certain I'm mature enough to handle the afternoon part of my job, but other people think I am (golly, they've been fooled), so I'll do my best. We have a new principal who seems to be level-headed and has a plan, so we'll see what happens next. I'm hesitantly optimistic about school, which is such a change for me!
During our summer vacation, I've been spending loads of time with this little cutie.
Hasn't he become a tub? Mother's milk has made Keagan a very big boy. He'll be four months old tomorrow and he's weighing in at over 14 pounds. All he wants to do is eat. That's his job until crawling begins ... if he can lift himself. Right now he's working on sitting up by himself. Other than feeling like a milk truck, Nikki is doing well. Her husband, Grady, has taken a better-paying job so she can stay home with Keags. I can't get enough of his smiles and giggles.
On the therapeutic activities front, I finally finished stitching Sarah Esh, so here's her not-so-great picture. How sad that my photography skills haven't improved during my absence. Oh well. She's not framed yet, but she's ready to join other A&E samplers when I get something else stitched. Right now, thanks to a bloggy friend (you know who you are and I love you even though I've neglected you), I'm working on The Yellow House Sampler by Sheepish Designs.
A skill I have acquired while absent is sock knitting. I know! I knit socks! Looky here ...
Shocking, isn't it? Or should I say socking? That's my first pair of socks, and I'm at work on a second pair. In fact, the first sock is finished and I've started the second. I'll show you a picture in another post. This summer I've learned that knitting is much easier to manage than stitching is while traveling. Well, for me it is. So there's been more knitting than stitching going on. I've also completed a felted bag for a friend in Maine and a felted bowl. Wanna see?
As you can see, I haven't lost my obsession for felting. Hey, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars. Sorry to say, I'm just as slow at knitting as I am at stitching!
So much has happened since I've spent more than a few moments in blogland. Poor Merlin, my old man cat, had to be put down a day after my last post. All of you pet lovers know how that is. Dad's been doing ok, by the way. He struggles, like we all do, but he's working at finding his way through the world without Mom. During some of my chaos removal, I left the man I hung around with behind. That was hard, but it brought along an opportunity to meet a cool, calm, collected and extremely kind man. My mom always used to tell me that thing about one door closing and another one opening. I really hadn't believed it until now. So we'll see. It's nice to have someone to spend time with besides family. And he puts up with my hideous golf game!
I hope that those of you who've read here before will start to read here again. I'll be catching up with what you've been doing and I hope to comment here and there. I've missed you all more than you know. The Sisterhood of the Rose is alive and about to move on. I'll explain where we are with that in my next post. With any luck, four months won't pass before you hear from me again.
Whatever you do, make some fun!
