Spring Break Recap

Spring Break had a different feel to it this year. Steve kept working, Quarta went to Mexico on a work trip with Cedar Tree, and Emma stayed home with me. We did a few small things around the house, went swimming at the community center once and signed her up for her pass card to swim more for free, but were mostly pretty lazy. I did go to the Quiltfest Northwest, put on by the Clark County Quilters, held at the fairgrounds.

There is a Vancouver Tapestry, which is really long so it isn't displayed that often. I had never seen it before, but it depicts in beautiful wool-on-linen embroidery the history of Clark County.

This was probably my favorite of the quilts displayed, and I could imagine being able to make it myself. One of the themes was blue and white quilts.

This one went wild with Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The work on this was stunning. It reminded me a little of my tree quilt, but the little flying geese circles in the middle border would be incredibly difficult.

 Another one with a strong Kaffe influence.

 There were several city and traffic-themed quilts, which I captured for my civil engineer husband. This one is "roundabout."

 the London metro

 abstract traffic control

and an actual intersection in Portland.

The show was very nicely organized and I enjoyed it a great deal. One of these years I should finish all my unquilted tops.

The three of us who were home went one day to the Oregon Historical Society museum. It depicts the history of the Northwest but mostly Oregon, from a woke intersectional perspective. So you learn about the history of the Northwest from the perspective of all the people who might have felt marginalized by their treatment at the time: early African-American settlers, gays, women, Native Americans, Hispanics, and immigrants. But the Whitman missionaries were, it is strongly implied, probably responsible for their own massacre because of their insensitivity, or something.

I finished the second sock of Grellow Love by Clare Devine. The first counted toward the Lots Of Socks knitalong for World Down Syndrome Day, but the second did not. It is a fun and easy pattern to knit and I will probably use this heel in other socks.

Likewise I finished the second sock of Flower Shock by Anna Friberg.  I discovered that the mystery green yarn is Hazel Knits; the contrasting color bands are all different segments of two colorways of Knit Picks Chroma fingering. They are very pretty socks, although I wonder how practical because of the Chroma, which is not going to be very hard wearing. And it was Anna, known as Yarnesty, who informed me I had won two free patterns from her collection as a prize in the knitalong! So I checked her patterns on Ravelry and chose the Fergus socks and the Bjorko shawl. I look forward to knitting them soon... and maybe going shopping for more yarn! I'm adding to my queue faster than I'm getting projects done, but I've always enjoyed having an extensive queue.

Quarta returned from Mexico with an injured knee which required a doctor visit today and will need an orthopedist check tomorrow. The kneecap briefly dislocated and then popped back in place, which she may just be more prone to because it happened once to her other knee. This time there is more swelling but we don't think any permanent damage. We'll see. Spring is really getting into gear and we have lots of pretty flowers, which I may share next time I blog.

Spring Break Photos

Spring Break, that wonderful American tradition, has been subtly changing in our family over the past few years. This year Daniel is officially independent and living on the other side of the country. Peter is a sophomore at WSU and his break already happened. This past week we saw Quarta off with a group from Cedar Tree, bound to Baja California, Mexico, to build a house for a needy family and paint some local schools. That left Steve, Tertia and me to have a trip up to Seattle, where we took in the Kubota Japanese Garden, and attended a concert of the Baltimore Consort based on the music of Shakespeare. Then we took a leisurely drive to WSU, stopping at Cashmere to tour the Liberty Orchards candy factory and at Dry Falls, where the river currently known as Columbia once poured over perhaps the largest waterfall in the Ice Age world. At WSU they have some grizzly bears who can't live in the wild in an enclosure. We stayed at an Air BnB within walking distance of the campus and we walked all over on Tuesday. Ice cream and cheese purchase at Ferdinand's and eating out at some nice restaurants made it a really fun trip to see parts of Washington (and Moscow Idaho) that I hadn't spent much time in before. We were back by Wednesday evening and Quarta will be home tonight, then it's back to the school grind on Monday for the girls. As for me, I continue to be relieved every time I think about not having to teach school daily. I miss the kids, but not the constant stress that left no margin around the edges of my life. In some of those margins, while riding the miles of highways around the state, I finished two knitting projects. 

Little Blue Flowers

They are called Veronica.  This time of year they come out and look remarkably pretty by the front fence.  It is a ground cover that we bought years back, and has spread nicely each year, and when I find myself sitting at my computer worrying about the state of politics or 7th grade, or the latest nastiness on the internet, I can go outside and kneel down and take a picture of them and it somehow gets a little better.

I kind of wish they would last all summer long, but they don't.  I will have to find other little blue flowers to meet that basic human need in July.  But maybe by July we will have figured out how to fix the smashed-in parts of the fence.

Peter was home for his spring break 2 weeks ago, then Daniel was home last week, and they are both back at school now.  Quarta is off in Olympia at the Teen Pact legislative camp with her 8th grade class; it is just Tertia and Steve and I at home this week.  I already gave the 3rd quarter final exam to Quarta's class, and have only 7th grade to worry about this week. Then spring break begins for us, but we are not planning a road trip anywhere.  I hope to be caught up on my grading pretty soon.

I haven't been knitting or sewing much, but I'm filling my time with language study and curriculum writing.  It's a little more enjoyable and addictive when you are your own boss, learning what you want when you want, and interacting with people who aren't forced to be in your class and resentful of it. Besides Duolingo, where I have become a regular but unofficial advocate of Latin, there is Memrise, where there are now two courses based on my Latin for Duolingo course.  And recently I discovered Tatoeba.org, a fascinating database of sentences in many languages.  And based on some of those sentences, Clozemaster.com, another site dedicated to "gamifying" language learning.  It feels a little sad to be looking at my final quarter of school teaching, and I'm sure it will be hard to let it go. But so many opportunities exist online, and I have been in the middle-school track for longer than any of my students have been alive... and it's time to move on.

Vinca, Violets, Rosemary, Forget-me-nots, Lithodora, Lobelia, Hydrangea, Lavender, Jonny-Jump-ups... and maybe more that I haven't discovered yet.

Randomday: Catching Up

Spring Break has come and gone, and I haven't blogged much.  Here are some pictures to catch you up.

Peter joined a Cedar Tree work group in Baja, Mexico, building a home for a deserving family and taking time occasionally to entertain the observers.

It's the second time he's been part of this trip, and it's great for him to have such a meaningful life experience.

Meanwhile, Steve, the girls and I went on a 2-day trip to Tacoma.  It was very pretty, as you can see.  We visited Fort Nisqually, which is a lot like a more compact version of our Fort Vancouver, and the Point Defiance Park zoo and aquarium.

Turtles sunning themselves at the fountain in the park.

A peacock obligingly showing off at the zoo.  We don't have pictures of the Museum of Glass, where we sat transfixed for nearly two hours watching the creation of a sculpture, start to finish.

When we returned, Quarta took part in a really cool birthday party for a friend of hers.  The girls dressed up in vintage clothing and had their pictures taken at various venues across town; Costco, 7-11, a diner, a cafe, and various living rooms of friends.  Peter returned from Mexico and we went right back into school this last week.  Maybe not quite as refreshed as we might have wished.

Now as we hurtle toward the end of the school year, Peter has to wrap up his Senior year and keep up with his National Guard duties (he is away at drill this weekend); Daniel is wrapping up his Junior year at college and writing impossibly long and complicated papers and applications for internships; Tertia is busy with school, choir and friends; Quarta is working crew for the Sherlock Holmes play the school is putting on this week.  I'm muddling along as best I can with Latin and the usual classes, and I'm half-heartedly thinking about cleaning the rest of the carpets I started shampooing over break.  The clean sections make the rest look worse.

Since I haven't blogged in so long, I have a backlog of random thoughts and observations that are in danger of being lost to the world forever (not that it would be a huge loss or anything).  I need to get back in the habit with at least a book review soon.

Randomday: What Secundus did on Spring Break

While most of us were relaxing on Spring Break, Secundus went with a group of Cedar Tree students to Mexico and built a house for a deserving family.  He's on the right with crossed arms in this photo of the dedication ceremony.

What a fine group of young people.

Secundus and friends, looking cool. 

As has always been the case, most shots of Secundus are action shots.  He worked hard.  The little toddler we used to call "El Nino" in the sense of "he's a force of nature" is now all grown up.  He tells me the little kids in Mexico said he was "muy, muy guapo."

After the walls went up, he worked with the floor team.  He dug drainage ditches under the house, he made trips to the riverbed for more sand.

They took a hike at sunset on their final day.  A great experience for all of them.  His words to me after we met him at the airport: "We take so much for granted."
This week, of course, it was back to school and other activities, like the Spring Social.  I took him shopping for clothes to suit his style, and chased after him to take this picture (it was an action shot for me, that's why it's blurry, I was breathless after running up the stairs):

He's probably one of the few who can look good in a hot pink tie.
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More random things:

At Bible study last night, Nancy and I were talking about her work with special ed. kids, helping them tap out syllables for long words like "amphibian" and "carbonation."  Tertia overheard us and demonstrated the technique on the kitchen table; six taps for six syllables, but over the background noise we couldn't make out any English words, so we asked her to repeat it twice more before I finally deciphered: "Expecto patronum!"  She's been reading Harry Potter.

Happy 83rd birthday today to Grandma!  Your cake is cooling as I type this.

National Latin Exam scores are in!  Steve is going to help me fix the bulky excel file and teach me how to use it to crunch the numbers.  I think it would take less time to figure out averages manually, but he tells me this will be easier.  Hoping to make a big deal about it next Friday at Grandparents' Day.

Daniel received a great grade on his English paper and raves from the professor: "Excellent defense of a significant thesis."  I'll stop before I embarrass him too much.  He's going into production week of Seussical for Children's Theater.  He's a Who.

My former co-worker, David Kuo, has passed away after a long battle with brain cancer.  He accomplished a lot in his short life; check out his obituary in the NY Times.  Although I disagreed with him in his critiques of the Bush administration's treatment of evangelicals (comparing it to the blatant ridicule of evangelicals led by President Obama himself and prevalent everywhere now, the Bush administration seems like an idyllic golden age), he was a gentlemanly fighter.  My heart goes out to his wife and four children.

Even more sobering is the media blackout of the trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell.  Utterly barbaric the crimes he committed; and beyond comprehension is the refusal of our news media to cover his trial.  I'll have more to say on this next week, but if you haven't seen the coverage, these links might give you some food for thought.  Kirsten Powers  Mollie Hemingway  Late to the party and trying to cover herself  At least World Magazine has been on this from the beginning.

Finished Argyles!

For some reason I think of the Wicked Witch of the East when I look at this picture.  But I love these socks!  My first argyles, and they will probably not be my last.  They were finished over Spring Break during the car trip and used approximately 400 yards of yarn (Knit Picks).

Argyles are knit flat, which goes against just about every modern sensibility.  They have a seam up the inside of each sock -- the sock on the right has the seam facing the camera, but I was able to make it pretty inconspicuous.  I sewed in the ends after completing the colorwork, joined for knitting in the round, and finished the toes up that way after seaming the sides.  Now my biggest worry is that they will shrink during washing.  Other than the general fiddly-ness of the intarsia, these were not difficult socks to knit.  I enjoy colorwork in most forms, and of course they're preppy, which is more or less my style.

Today was the first day back at school after Spring Break.  Sigh.  It was nice while it lasted.  Now it's back to wrassling with contrary 7th graders and hours of extra unpaid and unacknowledged work.  Grades are due Wednesday and I still have one student who hasn't turned in the final exam yet.  Tomorrow is Tertia's first appointment with the orthodontist.  I think we have to have ready our bank statement for them to set up automatic payment withdrawal before they will treat her.

Stash Report

Fabric:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards

Fabric used year to date: 22 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 17 yards
Net used for 2013: 5 yards

Knitting yarn:

Yarn used this week: 400 yards for argyle socks
Yarn used year to date: 5900 yards.
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 910 yards
Net used for 2013: 4990 yards

Randomday: Spring Break Recap

We left a week ago Thursday, and our plum tree looked like this...

... and our daffodils looked like this...

... and Smudge looked like this.  Poor kitty, he had to stay outside and fight the raccoons for his food while we were gone.  We drove until fairly late Thursday, Tertia had a bit of stomach upset at the hotel in the middle of the night, but recovered well to drive all day Friday.  Saturday we met up with the Grove City Touring Choir at their concert at the 7th Day Adventist church in Costa Mesa, CA.  Here are some shots of the beach we visited first:

Daniel was with us for the trip down; Secundus went to Mexico with a service group from the school over Spring Break.

There were dolphins!  A whole bunch of them.  Quarta freaked a bit when Daniel happened to mention the word "shark."  I  had never seen dolphins in the wild before.

It was a nice bit of beach, just enough to get barely wet feet before going to the Touring Choir concert.  Which was awesome, as Touring Choir always is.  We drove on to Scottsdale, arriving late Saturday.

No shark-infested waters in Scottsdale!

Lots of visiting with family in Arizona.  In addition to my dad and Grandma Deb, there's Grandma Deb's parents, and now my aunt Carol and uncle Chuck, and Steve's sister Kristine and her family.  The only sad thing was having to drop Daniel off at the airport Sunday evening for his red-eye flight back to Pennsylvania.

Cousins!

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, probably.  I did finish almost all of my grading, but still will have make-up work to grade in a hurry come Monday.

Aunt Carol gave us lots of cool stuff which will be featured in a future post.

We left Wednesday morning and drove to Anaheim; California Adventure Wednesday evening; Disneyland all day Thursday and then a late-night drive to get out of the LA metro area; driving all day Friday to Medford; and arriving today to do laundry, feed the pets, do Latin and Greek homework (maybe), and pick up Secundus at the airport late tonight (we hope).  It's been a bit of a weird taste of empty-nesting, with both boys gone.