In which I rage against pointless bureaucracy

The good news: the massive Latin quotes reorganization project (phase one) is complete, and the quotes have been filed in their appropriate weeks in my lesson plans for ALL THREE LEVELS that I teach.  And that's for the whole year.  And the dates of this school year have been synched into the monster lesson plan template, too.  Which means that, just possibly, I could just tweak the assignments and be able to turn in the entire year's lesson plans at the beginning of the year.  I usually do them a quarter at a time, but let's go for the whole year.  It will be my 12th year at Cedar Tree.  My students will get a quarter at a time syllabus, and the quotes will be on it so they can use it as a study aid.

The bad news... I am completely out of patience with the passive-aggressive bureaucrats who decided that they were going to play mind games with me today, and I'm going to rant for a bit about them, right here.  So, Tertia, the one with Down syndrome, is the only one of my 4 kids in the public school system.  She's going into 6th grade next week: we've had the IEP meetings and the planning meetings with the school, and everything.  I'm about as confident that she will have good help there as it's possible to be with the government schools.  We've been getting automatic calls all summer about how we need to provide proof of vaccination for TDAP and varicella, and I explained to the one actual person who called about how she has her appointment this Friday where she will get the one shot she needs, and the actual person said fine, as long as we get the vaccination record into the office before school starts.  I went to the school office today to pick up her schedule (after another automated call) and took her with me.  To be honest, I was hoping I would be able to see some of her classrooms and get a little orientation tour, just for my own benefit... Tertia has been with her 5th grade class already.  Well, it was a little scary walking in there with all the other kids, who are a lot taller, knowing that Tertia was going to have a lot of big changes thrown at her all at once, and hoping her natural positive attitude would hold.  But when we gave her name to the office lady, she said, "looks like all I have for her is this paper," which was a repeat of the incessant demand for vaccination records we've been getting all summer.  They have not prepared a schedule for her (and her schedule is going to be complicated) because they didn't have the little sheet of paper.  When I asked why, the singularly unhelpful office lady said, "Well, she won't be a student here if she doesn't show proof of vaccinations."  I had explained about the timing for her Dr. appointment.  It was a total "no soup for you!" moment.  The Schedule Nazi.  So, after her appointment I will have to drive back over to the school (not sure I can trust it to a fax) and hand deliver her vaccination record, and hope that by then they will have her schedule and any special information ready for us.  I'm worried they won't even set up her bus schedule until these people get their little slip of paper.

Administrare -- in Latin, it means to manage or attend to things, but it also carries a bit of the idea of a servant's heart.  Tertia and I could both have used a little of that today.  I'm really spoiled at Cedar Tree.  Never take for granted the prayer before important meetings, and the idea that the school exists to serve parents and children.  It's always a bit of a rude awakening NOT to find that in the public schools.

Oh yes, and Quarta has Veggie Tales sing-alongs playing while she's doing dishes.  I can do without Larry the Cucumber singing Kum ba yah in my one good ear today.  Grr.

When Summer Ends

Media vita in morte sumus.  The death of summer, the death of the hope that I will get my longed-for organization accomplished, the death of my very last nerve as I spent the afternoon compiling a massive table of Latin lessons keyed to appropriate quotes and tried to pack it all back into my master template before some random electron cloud might come along and scramble the whole thing.  (It didn't, but I have that kind of relationship with MSWord, so you never know).  Note to my students: I've cut some of the repetitive quotes and you will have to work for your bonus points from now on - they'll be retroactive.  And much less of the silly ones.  I'm keeping "Avis est, aeronavis est, Supervir est," but ditching "Sanctos Subjunctivos, Virvespertilio!" and "Me transmitte sursum Caledonii."  (Most 6th graders don't know who Scotty is even in English.)  When it's all done I will have a much more streamlined master lesson plan, but there is much more of the dread formatting that must happen.  I must steel myself with folk music and knitting.

I have a recurring fantasy this time of year that someone will come along and make all my phone calls, organize my schedule, do my grocery shopping, and plan my carpool for me.  I'm avoiding all of that myself, and re-reading the first three Harry Potter books -- now that's going back to school in style!  Maybe by September 12 I'll be good to go, doing my level best to channel Professor McGonagall.

Plums, puzzles, and patchwork

We have a lovely plum tree in the back yard, a bit overgrown, prone to broken branches and with at least one squirrel's nest up high.  This year was kind of a slow year for it; we'll most likely eat all the plums fresh.  There have been years where I made plum jam, plum chutney, dried plums for school lunches, made plum leather for school lunches, froze them by the quart load and gave them away to the neighbors.  I have to put the plums in my plum-glazed bowl (from college Ceramics class) every year.  This year I actually took a picture and blogged about it.

Nostalgic for Ohio?  I was after helping Quarta put together this 500 piece puzzle my mom gave us over a decade ago.  I should get a puzzle like this for all the states we've lived or vacationed in.

Farmer's Wife Quilt block 27: Darting Birds.  I needed more red in the quilt, and this definitely is more red.  Now I'll need to put even more red in.  That's not a bad thing.  I started this block by making a grid of eight 1 7/8" squares for the HSTs.  There are 4 additional brown check 1 7/8" squares that I cut diagonally into triangles, and four brown 1 1/2" squares, and 4 red 1 1/2" squares for the heads, and two 2 7/8" red squares cut diagonally for the birds' bodies.  I really like how this block turned out.

I've been busy but not in a bloggy way the last few days.  I need to photograph what I've done so I'll feel more productive: organizing the basement, back-to-school shopping, estate sale shopping (!) and cleaning house (ugh!)  Secundus is running cross-country for the local public HS this fall, and practices have started for that.  Personally, I'm hoping my lesson plans will format themselves with a minimum of input from me, and dreading the moment when I actually have to start digging in.

Corn on the cob

For the first time ever in our years in the Pacific Northwest, we had corn on the cob for dinner the other day.  Now, I know these ears are on the small side, but as a Midwest girl who had given up on ever successfully growing corn out here, I assure you they tasted delicious.  It makes it all the more remarkable when you consider the three raccoons, the blackbirds, and the squirrels that hang out in our yard.  And the generally cool and overcast weather we've had this summer.  Some may say that buying corn plants in 6-packs at the garden center is for wimps, but out here, you do what ya gotta do.  Three cheers for the all-American treat!

WIP Wednesday #8

With Family Camp and painting going on this week, I didn't get much sewing done.  This is the Farmer's Wife Quilt block 25: Cups and Saucers.  I'm glad it was a simple 9-patch and easy to analyze.

Here's block 26: Cut Glass Dish.  Another 9-patch grid.  I had fun choosing "sparkly" fabrics for this one.  I think it really does give the look of cut glass.

I'm working on block 2 of the STARS quilt-along.  I'm planning on doing 4 of each block and winding up with a twin-size quilt.  I haven't repeated a print yet, and it's all from my stash. 

No real progress on the Japanese Lanterns machine quilting.  I have 3 other quilt tops waiting for quilting, too.

My current knitting project: Stashbuster Spirals socks for Primigenitus.  I'm loving how the different bits and bobs of leftover sock yarn combine.  There are three primary yarns: a slow-changing variegated yarn from my Leyburns, the blue variegated one leftover from Steve's most recent pair, and the self-striping yarn leftovers from socks I made for myself on our UK bus tour back in 2005.  Should be finished soon, and I'll start another pair because I have lots more leftovers to use up.  The next pair will probably be in shades of green.

I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced so you can check out what lots of other crafty bloggers are up to.

Family Camp

We've been going to the 1st OPC Family Camp for more than 10 years now.  This is the first time to my knowledge that an egret has shown up.  And posed for photos, no less!

The older young folks spent much of their free time perfecting the Virginia Reel...

... and the waltz.  There was also Ultimate Frisbee.

And of course, the Bananathon.  Very hard to capture in just one photo.

The younger young folks would say it was over too quickly.

Saturday morning at 7:30, sleeping in after the Talent Show.

Secundus slept under the stars... until 7:35, which I think must be hard to do.

... and the leather jacket goes on even before the shoes.
Many thanks to Ben Hopp, OPC missionary in Haiti, for sharing about the work of the Gospel in such a beautiful and challenging place.

The Housewife's Lament

So we got back from Family Camp yesterday and are still recovering from sunburn, bugbites and exhaustion.  My rendition of the old folksong "The Housewife's Lament" was greeted with gratifying applause at the Talent Show.  In case you weren't there and want to check it out here's a youtube version that's similar to what I was aiming for (but I couldn't resist hamming it up a bit more than they did).  The song deserves to be better-known. 

Maybe pictures tomorrow.