Corner of Joseph's Blankie of Many Colors

Corner of Joseph's
Originally uploaded by kjourdan

I can only show you this corner of the blanket in case the mom-to-be stops by the blog. I am very happy with how it turned out. The pattern is from Mason-Dixon Knitting and I followed their suggestions on separating warm and cool colors. How could you look at that colorful thing and not smile?

A few reasons why I'm glad I'm not a Victorian woman

After watching both "Becoming Jane" and the recent version of "Pride and Prejudice" I have compiled a list of reasons I am happy that I am not a Victorian woman:
1. My marriage was not a business transaction.
2. My mother did not spend all of her time trying to marry me off.
3. I am educated. Enough said.
4. I do not have to wear a corset.
5. Paper is not scarce (I do so love to write lists)
6. "Class" does not dictate who your friends can be, or what your prospects can be.
7. I could tell J how I felt about him, instead of all kinds of deal-making.

Things I probably wouldn't have minded:
1. Going to balls!
2. Pretty dresses
3. Pretty hats

I also just read the memoir by Jerramy Fine called Someday My Prince Will Come. It was pretty funny.

Lame and Lamer

In this case, I am Lame, and J is Lamer. I am lame because I had a small surgery on Friday and have stitches in my mid-back that limit my movement. J is Lamer because he came down with a knock-down drag-out case of the flu last Tuesday which has now become a sinus infection. What a motley crew we are. And this is school vacation week so we should be having some fun. Alas. Through my exuberant use of disinfecting wipes and airing out the house, I appear to have come out of the germ den unscathed (meaning no flu for me) so send healthy thoughts this way to help keep it that way!

Writing again

I'm lucky enough to attend Teachers As Scholars this year (do follow the link, it's quite an amazing professional development opportunity) and I'm taking a writing seminar (H36 - Creating Truths: Memoir and Personal Narrative). One of the best parts of Teachers As Scholars is that they acknowledge that not all of your professional development needs to be in your narrow area of specialty--they believe in the teacher as a multi-faceted learner.

I used to journal regularly, and while I willingly admit that many times it broke down into a list of the daily minutae a person could drown in, I have missed taking that time to write down my thoughts and reflections. During our seminar yesterday we had three free writing periods and about 95% of that time I was able to just dump my thoughts and words onto a page. The tricky part, of course, is that it's a writing course on memoir and personal narrative, so it includes a lot about real people and events. Here's the title of one of the things I was working on yesterday: "Can a youngest child and an eldest son have a successful marriage? A case study." I know everyone out there has some feelings on birth order and personality...let 'er rip! (of course I know we have a successful marriage, but it's funny to think of us just as our personality types and how they work together)

Here's a not-so-minutae tidbit: my principal and school secretary have both announced that they're retiring at the end of the year. Craziness shall ensue, I'm sure.

Grading machine

Here is what J has looked like for the last two weeks:

That's right, it's end of term and all of the students' papers and tests must be graded before grades are due. The poor guy has been been a grading machine. I do my part, but I can only grade the empirical parts on the exams (matching, etc.) but all the open response stuff he has to do himself.

It does mean that I have been knitting again: