Recycled Purple Bolster Pillow

With a little experimenting I've discovered / decided on a few things about this pillow:

• 1 flat old pillow won't be enough to create a firm pillow. It'll be too squishy if I don't roll it tightly enough, and too small if I do.
• a second eggcrate pillow, tightly rolled and sewn, will become a fairly hard core for the bolster.
• the first pillow will be wrapped around it, longways, and sewn closed. This way I'll have a firm pillow with a soft covering.
• I may not create a circular end piece for the bolster - I might just pull it together and tie, candywrapper style, so that I can take the cover off and wash it if necessary.
• I need to remember to take pictures of the process so that I'll remember how to do it again later on if I want.

Cool recycling crafts....

I'm still a sucker for turning trash into useful stuff, though I'm no longer keeping the "materials" around the house. LOL

Replayground

I was seeing some interesing uses for stuff like magazine and calendar pages turned into notepaper and envelopes. I also saw some spiral-bound journals made from old album covers, but I can't do that to my old albums!! I'd have to just hit some yard sales and see if I could find old damaged records, just to make sure that I wasn't destroying something that had actual value to it. There were also some floppy disc notepads - they were pretty cool! http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5825608 They had two holes drilled at the top, all the way through the pad, and zip ties were used to hold the whole thing together.
www.etsy.com
I realized that I could do something like that to make a notepad cover with my scrap papers. :) The wraparound thing was okay, but not very practical. I know it won't stay on the notepad, though the lamination turned it into something pretty spectacular.

They also use old books, gameboards, VHS cases... Anything made out of cardboard can apparently be turned into a cover for a notepad. Even the cardboard packaging from different food items. LOLhttp://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5797257

I'd love to be able to do glassworking or glasscutting - those bottles into glassware are so neat. :)

All of this got me to thinking back about the first recycled paper book I got - The Envelope Mill. I started looking around and came across really cool printing templates on www.thepapermill.com, but unfortunately, very few of their files use software that I actually have. I think I need to create my own templates to go with this book - It seems like the original templates that came with the book must be made out of plastic like stencil blanks... which I have here. :) I also saw a picture for a cd envelope, but no usable instructions. It had round flaps on the back. That CAN'T be hard to make. I also need to make a template for business card/ gift tag envelopes.

BTW - I have TONS of old and colorful floppy disks... hahaha Plenty of stuff to make notepads and pencil cups from, among other things.

It just hit me how I can keep my purple velvet skirt! (And this makes me very happy... i LOVE that skirt, but there is a big hole in the hip area where the tiers are coming apart - between the seams, it's unraveling. :( I thought it would be nice to cover a small pillow or two with it... but I don't know if Wal-Mart still carries pillow forms, and they are never firm enough anyway.

Then I realized - while I was cleaning my closet (still a work in progress), I found a couple of old bed pillows that are pathetically flat. I can either fold one in half and cover it to make a small rectangle, or I can roll it and make one of the ever-elusive bolster pillows! Nice dark purple to go on my plain beige jacquard comforter. :D Now I just have to wash and dry it, then roll it up and secure it. Should I sew it or just safety pin it? Eh... probably sew it. Less likely for a pin to pop undone and stab me, and I doubt I'll repurpose this particular pillow in the future anyway. I've already planned to give it a second life with this usage. I guess I should throw in the other couple of pillows currently filling my dressy shams and give them a washing too. I might decide to make some more matching pillows when I buy myself some new bed pillows. Mine are a couple of years old and flattening out on me. I'm conscious of it when I go to bed at night.

He said hi but didn't realize it was me

I went to the coffee shop yesterday with my nephew and while I was showing him the new version of Pinnacle Studio 10 that I got, the guy walked up and commented that he'd been using it for many years, and that he likes the program. He stayed and chatted for a few minutes.

I really don't think he would have talked to me if I'd been alone or if he'd realized it was me before he spoke.

He's a lost cause.

So tired....

This is one of those mornings when I feel like I can barely move, I'm so tired.

Last night when I got back home from our weekend at the lake, I got on Warcraft and saw that he wasn't there. No big deal, since it was about 8:30, and he's usually not playing that early.

By about 10, though, he got online on his main alliance toon and never said anything to me. I said hi to him, and he never answered. He was on for a very long time, never being AFK, and wouldn't even respond when I spoke to him.

Add that to the fact that he didn't want to stop by and see me on the way home Friday, and it makes me think that he had someone else he was stopping by to see instead. He doesn't email me, and he barely responds to my emails, which I'm sending less and less often because of the little bit of attention he pays me.

Maybe I'll just do what Paul says and be the "mysterious" one. Or rather, just not be all that available for him anymore. It seems like the only time he emails me is to tell me he wants to come over, which is starting to make me feel really cheap.

"Rhoda Penmark" update

By the time we had our break this morning, another kid told me she'd been taking the crayons from my box behind her (sitting in the wrong seat, or she wouldn't have been able to reach them) breaking them, and throwing them across the room at him and other people.

Evidence? Crushed crayons all over the floor around her desk. I've seen her with crayons.

I threw the little brat out of my class. I told her she's not allowed to be with the other kids during her test. I'm not going to let her back into my class at all today. She can just sit out there by herself and be invisible, for all I care.

.... and another thing.

My sister called and talked to me last night about our trip to the lake this weekend. She said her husband said for me NOT to bring my computer.

Oh, and I'm going to do what HE says for whatever stupid reason HE has? He's just trying to push me around, and you know what, I'm not only going to bring my damn computer, I'm going to see if I can get an internet connection there.

This still pisses me off because it's not of his damn business what I do in my spare time, even if he is around. He's not my husband, and it's looking like he won't be hers by this time next year.

At least she took up for me on that issue and told him that was a stupid thing to say. I'd like to see him try telling his kids they can't have their ipods or video games because he wants to have a "family" weekend.

My idea of a fun family weekend doesn't consist of cleaning the lake house and watching him ride off with his buddy for the day, while we sit on the porch with nothing to do.

I have to wonder...

What is WRONG with this group of kids? We're giving state tests this week, and the ones in my classes are horrible. In homeroom, I've got 3 different kids who are apparently vying to see how much trouble they can cause during the test.

One who keeps tapping his foot, pencil, eraser... anything he can do to see if he can annoy the people sitting around him.

Another is sitting in the wrong seats and then whining that she's cold. Well, I can't turn off the air because when I came in here this morning, it was damn hot, and that's the way the room will be if I turn it off. She's one of these that won't dress for the weather anyway, and then expects the rest of the world to bend around her comfort whims.

Sorry, but I'm not going to spend the day sweating because she's too stupid to bring a jacket. They all know that the climate control systems in this building are unreliable anyway.

She's also trying to talk across the room to the other troublemaker, both of whom are playing around. That one is doing her damnedest to drag down anybody else she possibly can. If SHE doesn't pass the 8th grade, I can tell you that she'll be put in that special class in another building, and won't be allowed to come to school in this one. She reminds me of that Penmark kid in "The Bad Seed", only nobody is fooled by her at all. She's obviously rotten, despite the noble efforts by her family to shape her into a good person.

Every damn time I have to tell them to knock it off, it disturbs someone else who is trying to concentrate. It doesn't matter if I whisper in their ear... the other kids notice I'm over there talking to that person, and they want to see the other kid's reaction....

Not that I think it'll matter much anyway. This group has always had bad test scores, and now it'll be my turn to be blamed for a continuation of that, and I bet they'll even blame me for the subjects I've never taught these kids. They can't even identify the subject of a sentence, or tell you if their own name is a noun. I've tried to teach them, even though this is something they were first taught in about 1st grade, and every year, their teachers teach it to them again. So why aren't they retaining any of it?

Without making a serious judgment about these kids, I can honestly say that they are the worst-behaved kids I've ever seen come through a school. They rank ahead of the kids I had my first year; the year I was too dumb to realize that even though I was doing my best, and killing myself with 5 hours of sleep a night, that the administrators were never going to help me handle them. I might as well have not even existed... Administrators are supposed to check on new teachers and see if there is anything they can suggest when there is a problem - not throw them to the wolves and then tell the wolves to go ahead and try to tear the teacher apart.

I keep thinking that it would be nice if I could do a JK Rowling and write a fairly popular book for kids that would make me enough money I could quit teaching. I think that I could handle publishing deadlines a lot better than I could having everyone beat me down and then expect me to thank them for it.

It's only taken me 15 years to realize that the job has changed to the point that I don't really want to do it anymore. The administrators at this school haven't exactly stepped up to the plate to do their jobs... what am I supposed to do when the principal for the school says, "I'm not a disciplinarian" ? Well, excuse me, but when you accepted the job, wasn't that an essential part of the job description??? In our teacher training classes, they told us that WAS the principal's job!! Not to coddle a handful of kids that ruin our classes and excuse them by saying, "Well, they have a bad home situation."

You know, I had a bad home situation myself. I had a series of horrible childhood situations. And I went to school and did what I was told to do, without trying to take over the classroom and ruin everyone else's learning experience. Is he trying to say that these kids are innately bad, and nothing can be done to change that? I'm beginning to think so.

:(

All afternoon I've had this one thought running round through my head. Is it so much for me to want to be loved?

I've thought before, if I were given the choice between love and being absolutely poor, I'd definitely choose love. But it seems to me that I don't get to choose. There's no love, and I couldn't exactly call myself comfortable. I'm able to pay my bills.

There's just nothing happy that I can submerge myself in that will take my mind off the loneliness I feel day in and day out. Just something that will make me forget about the outside world, and be my own little world that I can go into and maybe never leave.

If I can just find something I'm good at. Something that I can focus my attention on for the rest of my life. It would be nice if I could think of something that would make me some money, though. I figure that if I can't even have love and be poor, maybe I can find a way to make lots of money and be lonely. Surely I can do that, since it is dependent upon my efforts, and finding someone to love me really has nothing to do with anything I might try.

I figure that if God really wants there to be someone in my life, he'll show up someday. I know that even if it does happen, I probably will be too old to have the babies I so desperately wanted. Someday, some thoughtless person will say that I shouldn't have waited so long to start trying, and I'm going to hurt them for saying it.

I've been trying since I was a kid... the journey's been long, but there's never been a beautiful destination awaiting me at the end of the road. I only wish I knew what I had ever done to make my entire life so empty and miserable. Surely I can't have offended God the moment I took my first breath?

United 93 & 9/11

I'm not sure if this is a movie I really want to keep watching. It reminds me of all the pain of that day a little too sharply. But as the saying goes, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

It goes without saying that we were too trusting before.

I know that this is going to be my generation's equivalent of "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" I remember exactly what happened that morning. I was walking down the hall toward our office because it was our planning period, and one of the coaches (who subsequently was shipped out with his Guard unit for about 2 years) stopped me in the hall and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

I actually asked him if he was kidding because it seemed so unreal, and I still feel awful about even saying that.

By the time were were back to our office for lunch, the second plane was about to hit and the towers were about to fall. We saw that live, unfortunately. I remember wondering why the second tower just had a massive explosion - surely what happened in the first tower (a bomb?) couldn't have affected the second tower.

But both towers came down anyway, and over and over that day, we all saw the footage repeatedly. Not a television in the building was off, and we were watching it on CNN's website in the computer labs, even though there were constant interruptions from the site because (I suppose) of frequent site updates.

As bad as it was when the first two planes hit, panic set in by the time the third one crashed into the Pentagon. When United 93 went down in Pennsylvania, the only thing I felt was a little bit of hope that it was ending. I cried for the rest of the day until I went to bed, and it was so hard to sleep.

The next day I had class, which was a 45 minute drive each way. By the time I came back, people were going crazy at gas stations. Ridiculously long lines, despite the fact that many stations had raised their gas prices to as much as $4. Scared people were buying the gas anyway. It didn't take long to realize that this opportunism was happening nationally, and suddenly... police started arriving and forcing those stations to put their prices BACK where they were or they'd face charges.

I don't think that the criminals who did all this are somewhere being rewarded in their twisted version of Heaven. From what I understand, true Islam doesn't condone murdering innocent people for the glory of Allah. I doubt that there is a special twisted god for them who will reward them. I think, if anything, Allah is punishing them for this.

It upsets me the most watching the re-enactment of Jeremy Glick's phone call to his wife. The one time I met him, he was a really nice man.

Who appreciates the end credits?

Once again, watching V for Vendetta, I noticed something new. Enjoying my fried eggs though I was, I happened to pay close attention to the ending credits and I realized that the "tear off" effect revealed the actors and characters they played. Then I noticed that as they got to the major crew members - such as costume design and music, they had appropriate pictures beside their names. They looked like they were taken straight from the graphic novel. :) I liked the effect.

After seeing the hilarious ending scenes stashed in the credits for Wild Hogs, I suppose I now have an appreciation for whoever does those ending credits. On some movies, somebody puts more time into them than just a scrolling list of names. Heck, I could do that. In fact, I have. LOL

I'm waiting on my upgrade for Pinnacle Studio to arrive (notice emailed this morning that it was backordered, naturally). I hope I feel like making movies again soon.

Funny note: It comes with a green screen tshirt. That's just faaaaaabulous. Who is gonna be small enough to stand in front of that? A Barbie? LOL

I'm still smiling over the small movies that Tyler made on my camera a few years ago. Pretty inspired for someone his age. I wonder what he could do if he set his mind to it and had a little bit of adult help?

Sick... yet again

Thursday morning I woke up with a scratchy throat.
Friday I woke up feeling like I couldn't move, and I never felt any better as the day went on.
By Friday night, I was achy, feverish, and had chills. :( By the time I went to bed, I was becoming delirious, and I was shivering.
This morning, Saturday, I woke up worse-feeling than I had been last night. My head's and nose are stopped up, I have a headache, and I've got all that icky crud in my nose and throat.

I'm sure it's just allergies, but I'm so aggravated that I'm sick again. It always hits hardest on the weekend, and then I can't ever get it together enough to accomplish something. I mean, I got up at noon, it's only 2:22, and all I can think about is going to lie down. And all I've done so far today is work on my computer and try again to watch Cold Mountain. I just can't get into it. Even when I saw the scene with Cillian Murphy in it last night, I didn't pay enough attention to it to see what happened to him.

Desk set, continued

I decided to create a notepad for myself, that has my name on it already. I put it together like I would a scrapbook page, with a whited-out middle (mask) and my name at the top. Then I was going to send the page to the printer, and put 4 per page, but considering that I designed it on my PC laptop and I can't print from it (the tech guy refuses to allow me to connect my much-superior laptop to the school network), I emailed it as a picture to the iMac and pulled it into Word. Then I printed 4 per page as a master copy.

Because white paper is just plain boring and I have plenty of colored copy paper just languishing, I ran off the pages on an assortment of bright and neon papers that I liked. Then I stacked the pages in a repeating order and quartered them, clamped one edge tightly and painted the top binding with my homemade notepad glue.

Since I made a couple of pads for the teacher who was leaving, I decided to create a matching cover to wrap around the pads. I took matching paper (from the pencils) and ran it through my Xyron to laminate it, and then folded it around the pads, punched a couple of holes, and tied together with twists of matching embroidery floss. I have to say that the paper looked GREAT once it was laminated - it looked really professional.

I can't say that she was really particularly thrilled with my gift; her reception of it was pretty lukewarm. Oh well. Maybe someday she'll appreciate the effort that went into it.

Gradebook Setup

And while I'm thinking about it......

pages 1-3 : Enrichment classes. 1 page per class - since the roster always gets additions and deletions, if I write their names in the actual gradebook, I'll need an entire page for each class (If we rotate enrichment classes through the team, that is.) This will work just fine if we are a 3-member teaching team, but with 4 - it has to be done with separate pages clipped in.
pages 4-7 : Homeroom class. 1 page per quarter.
pages 8-11 : 1st block class, attendance pages. 1 page per quarter.
pages 12-15 : 1st block class, grade pages. 1 page per quarter.
pages 16-19 : 2nd block class, attendance pages. 1 page per quarter.
pages 20-23 : 2nd block class, grade pages. 1 page per quarter.
pages 24-27 : 3rd block class, attendance pages. 1 page per quarter.
pages 28-31 : 3rd block class, grade pages. 1 page per quarter.
page 32 : advisory class attendance. 1 page for the year.

Considering that each page has space for 5 days x 10 weeks, this allows for most grading periods that start or end on a day other than Monday / Friday.

Keeping Up

We have 7 more weeks of school, and this year I'm going to do my darnedest to stay on top of things so that I'm not under excessively ridiculous pressure at the end. They always manage to pile extra work on us, usually that relegates us to the role of secretary for something someone else wants to submit as some kind of report.

With this in mind, I have a reminder note on my desk of things to keep tallied throughout this last grading period:

• Field Day no-gos (because it was a royal pain trying to get the info together close to the date last year, and we have 22 now who have taken themselves off the list due to behavior)
• AR Goals (because every day this year that I've recorded their grades on this, it has taken me a whole day to get the information together, and I get the feeling that at the end of this year, I'm going to be doing good just to get out of here on time the last day)
• AR grades for reading nonfiction books (because THAT report is a royal pain to run, read, and tabulate, and it's better to keep a running grade so that I can nag students into completing their work)
• Daily Grades (so that I don't have a last minute, late-night grade entering session, and because some of those students need me to keep leaning on them the whole grading period or they'll slack off)
• In Danger of Failing list (because kids need to believe the reality, and the correlation between not doing homework or passing tests, and failing the 8th grade. I don't want ANY of them trying to claim that nobody told them they were failing - as if they weren't privy to their own grades the whole time. Not like it's some kind of state secret that we keep from them.)

Any why am I writing this here? It seems like a safe bet that this time next year, this entry will still exist, and at least I won't have to locate a paper with the information on it. :)