The new school year is unfolding before me. This is the start of my 19th year teaching. I can't believe it. The teachers in my district start today and the students come next Monday. I have a few days of meetings, set-up, more meetings, and prep. Even after all these years and there is still something magical about the first days of school.
The ferns above grow in a gully next the the road a few houses away. The ditch separates the swampy woods from the pavement. After a rain the toads and frogs of those woods croak with such volume that it is alarming. Last month the city or the property owner mowed every thing close to the road to the ground. There were a few varieties of purple and wild flowers, wild orange- red gladiolus (who knew?), and these ferns. Loved the flowers, but I missed the ferns the most. On a scorching day (we've been having 110 heat index with air so saturated with water that toweling off after a shower is just wasted energy) the ferns always look so fresh and cool.
Mingus and Coltrane on the trail of a mysterious scent. It went that-away. Coltrane is the typical little "brother" - always pushing his way into whatever Ming is doing or whatever space Ming occupies.
Everywhere I turn there seem to be giveaways in progress. I can't help but having the Red Hot Chili Peppers's lyrics running through my head each time I go to a blog and see some yummies being offered. Here are some of the current giveaways:
I'm painting today. The living room. Yesterday I prepped and primed. Today I'm starting with the ceiling - the palest blue, then painting the walls Repose Grey. Currently they are a golden yellow and while I do love the color, it goes extremely sallow at certain times of day. So I'm taking my own advice and going for neural. I guess I want a better background for the little art I have.
You can see the yellow peeking out around the window. This swatch has been on the wall for over a year. Time to paint!
Corgi nap
The boys were trying to take a nap on the couch in the office. Mingus's head is on one of my socks that Coltrane snagged from the laundry basket and carried around. The chic floral sheet is protection against the latest corgi molt.
Helen Mirren as QE2 from cleveland.com
I know she gets help with the grooming. My neighbors have suggested the FURminator and I'm going to give it a test drive.
The cell phone rang when I was on my way to the grocery store around 7:30 yesterday evening. I was desperately hungry and looking for something fast to make. I had planned to make pasta with a red lentil sauce, but it takes almost an hour to cook and there was no way I was going to last that long. Hungry and in a hurry, I plugged in my little hands-free earbud. It was a prerecorded message from my boss telling me that I had just one more week of vacation left...a 7:30 AM meeting...check my school e-mail for a detailed attachment. Buzzkill is the expression that comes to mind. Not that I haven't already been to school for a meeting (two of my six person department are brand spanking new teachers this year so we are being proactive in our support) and spent countless hours thinking about what I want to do the first weeks of school (I have a new course load this year - six classes of Spanish 2 - ¡yeah, one prep! But how do I keep it fresh all day).
Color inventory 2: Running hot & cold
In honor of that phone call, my subconscious woke me at school day time: 5 AM. Boy, the little dogs were surprised that they didn't need to whine to get me up this morning. While waiting for the coffee to brew, I walked around the house and took pics for my color & pattern inspiration of the day. Actually, I'm not trying to inspire myself so much as understand how to put together colors. I'm a little all over the place - I like brights, hots, cools, earthtones, just about everything. I look around at many sites and see so many great combos in beads and stringing, but my difficulty results in something like excitement, then frustration, then disappointment when I start rifling through the bead stash. So I'm working on this. Either that or I have discovered and justified a fantastic new procrastination tool. One of my friends calls this method the paralysis of analysis. I am greatly inspired by La Bella Joya's exploration of Margie Deeb's The Beader's Color Palette. But I'm not ready (in my mind) to put the beads together yet. I guess I'm taking a color inventory.
One of the things that got me started thinking about this was a quick glance through my Etsy favorites. I noticed that there were little clusters of colors within all those fab pieces I was hearting. Then I looked at the sacred bead stash. It didn't really match. Just as I have been battling with clothing and making outfits, I need to learn how to use neutrals (and what defines a neutral seems to be situation dependent) to show off splashes of color.
Russian leaf color inspiration
Yesterday I posted this Russian leaf earring. I had in my mind a more reddish brown - this one goes green (sort of baby poop green) and I actually have a much better brown in Delicas, but I was on a kick to see what the pattern would look like with round 11/0 and didn't follow what I knew I should be doing. I wonder what better pairings there might be for color. I'm going to use my color inspiration from a few days ago to get to the bottom of this.
Dog shot of the day. From a FLA corgi party. Not my photo.
I tried out the Russian leaf earrings in the latest Beadwork. I was wearing this bracelet around the house and remembered that I bought a few extra 6mm crystals when I made it.
Medina Bird
I'm not much of a crystal girl, but I do like a little sparkle here and there. I started stitching with delicas left from the Medina Bird, but I used deep purple thread because I wanted to give the pale, pale 4mm bicones a little more color. For some reason I was a little surprised when I came up with peacock feathers. I mean, I saw the pic in the magazine - what did I expect? Little may you know, but I'm a big fan of peacocks. One of the highlights of my day is driving by the farm that has dozens of the birds and seeing them roosting in the trees and on the roof of the house. When the leaves fall from the pecan trees, I get a great view.
Last winter
Peacock Paisley
I think I need to make these without the dangly at the bottom
I tried it with Japanese seed beads and no dangle at the bottom
