So much work so little time!

I have had a few people email and ask for a new blog post. The truth is, I am CRAZY busy and I have abandoned my blog... for now. Not only I am doing my student teaching during the day but I have night class on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. On nights that I am not in class I am at home with Caiden in the evenings while Jay kicks off some exciting new things for his work. Once C goes to bed I either do homework, planning or search for jobs. There are SO MANY steps you have to take to even get an interview and it is different for every school district. Some have you fill out their own application from their website, some make you go through MOREAP, and others make you go their website AND MOREAP. It seems like another full time job at times....Anyway, no complaints, just lots of work.

I have been feeling so guilty lately about not contributing to the family financially. As I said before I have worked since I was 15 and to NOT get paid is a very funny feeling for me. I don't think I like it much. It would be different if I was a stay at home mom because even though you aren't contributing financially you are doing so many other things for the house and family.

The other night I was so sleepy from he non-stop days I have been having that I went to bed at 8:00. This was on Tuesday. Monday was the longest day of my life. After leaving school (where I am on my feet teaching all day) I decided to go to Hy-Vee and get groceries before picking up Caiden. When I show up at the babysitters she shows me his thumb. It was disgusting. He had gotten some kind of infection on it and it was green, purple and red with a red line leading up to the bend in his arm. I didn't even go home. I drove him straight to urgent care and waited and waited and waited.....with all of the sick kids. When we finally left it was 6:45 and the next stop was the pharmacy. As many of you know, the worst time to visit the pharmacy is on Mondays because they are always backed up. I was told to drop it off and come back in an hour. Great, so just before bedtime I am supposed to pack me son up and head back out the door to wait at in line at the pharmacy. UGH! So we go home and I finally take the food out of my car and fix dinner. Then I give C a bath because the doctor suggested I soak his thumb for 10 minutes in warm water. I don't know about you but I think getting a 2 year old to sit for 10 minutes so he can soak him thumb is impossible and he needed a bath anyway. So I poured the bathwater and bath bubbles in then dumped some of his colored tablets in so he could have a great bath. I stick him in the water then realize I don't have a washcloth so I leave (for 5 seconds) and go to get one. As soon as I leave the room I hear "Uh oh Mommy! I go poopies". Great. Is this the first time this has happened? OH NO! Of course not. Is this the best night for this to happen? Uh sure....So I scoop out the "poopies" and get the bleach. Since I only have one bathtub I have my soaking wet son stand in the middle of the floor in a towel while I bleach the crap out of the tub so I can put him back in and, you know, actually get him clean. **Sigh**After the bath ordeal, I have to get him in his pjs and head back out to the pharmacy to get his medicine. When I roll up and buzz the lady she cheerfully tells me "I'll get that started right now for you!" WWHHAATT? Wasn't I asked to come back in an hour so it would be ready for me? UUUGGGGHHH. Once we got our medicine and got back home it was past time for bed...which means I stayed up late doing homework and job searching stuff.

So this my friends is why I am not blogging so much lately....and going to bed at 8:00.

I'll be back soon!

Landscapes

After having my camera for almost a year now I am STILL learning how to use it. It is the lack of "Me Time" that is keeping me from using it more than I do. It doesn't help that my usual subject moves at the speed of light and it is so hard for me to keep up with him while in manual mode. This spring I found myself practicing on flowers because not only are they beautiful but they don't move! As pretty as they were I decided to find a new intermediate subject to practice on until I get better.

It was while we were driving home from visiting my family (which is a 3 hour drive) that I realized what it was. As I was looking out the window I realized there are so many beautiful landscapes and country scenes along Highway 13. I have been driving that road now for more than 10 years to and from Marshfield and I am always in love with some of the beauty the country side has over the city. I decided since my husband was driving and my son was sleeping I could use this as an opportunity to practice some different settings on my camera.

It was between 3:45 and 5:00 that I took these so the lighting is all natural and so so beautiful. I did use my Picasa 3 to enhance them just a bit (mostly just to sharpen, convert to b/w and add a little fill light) but the rest is straight from the camera. I took about 50 but here are a few that I liked. It was a little difficult getting the right angle while driving 70 miles an hour down the highway but I think I did alright!

Wanna see some of my work?

This is my Fruit Series from Sculpure Class. I started with a real pear and used it to create this plaster mold. The pictures below were taken while I was making my last pear (the purple one). The assignment was to make a total of 5. One had to have a pattern repeat, one had to have something subtracted from it and one had to have something added to it. The other two were our choices. They are made to hang on the wall so I drilled a hole in the back of each of them and inserted a 16 gauge wire as a hook.

Well, that's it today. I will for sure get more on here later, maybe next week. I have my giant elephant, wood piece, weavings, and fabric piece as well as some other stuff.

Are You Creative?

Of course you are! I have to admit I stole this idea from yet another blog I read. Am I ever going to come up with my own stuff??

Anyway, I found this and thought it looked like fun so I tried it. It turns out I am an "Eyes Wide Open" kind of person. After reading the description I realized it fits me to a T. Crazy!


If you do this leave a comment on what you turned out! I would love to know.


http://youniverse.com/statement/module/ArtModule/Creative_youniverse

Sunday Chicken

I found this recipe and I thought I would share it with everyone. It is from one of those 3 Ingredient Recipe Books. I will find myself looking through the cabinets only to see a mixture of odds and ends and no idea what to do with them. I have a million cookbooks as well as an online account with www.Kraftfoods.com but I still find that it is hard to break my old habits of making my "staple" meals. This book has helped because there are no recipes that have more than 3 ingredients which means no sudden, not to mention inconvenient trip to the grocery store.

So, here it is!

4 chicken breast (halves)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
shredded cheddar cheese

Cook the chicken breasts at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Take them out and add the soup then the cheese and cook again for another 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

As a side note my husband had this dish as a leftover first and he wasn't impressed but once he had it fresh from the oven he loved it.

Music Part II

Did anyone notice my last post was titled "Music" however it was never mentioned? Yeah, I am going to blame that on the fact that the TV was blaring "Go Diego Go" and my son was banging his feet on his highchair as fast and as loud as he possibly could while yelling "Mommy, Diego!, Mommy it's Diego!, Go Diego Go!, Baby Jaguar, it's Baby Jaguar Mommy!" Yes, that is his favorite show and we watch it religiously every night while eating dinner. But seriously, more about "Music" because I almost lost track... again.

Along with my recycling I am also trying to create a library of music that I can have in my classroom. I know that when I am working on a project I like to listen to music because it helps me not concentrate on what I am doing but why I am doing it. There is so much more freedom involved when you stop thinking about things. So, I am asking that if anyone has any suggestions on music I could add to my library please email me and let me know. It could be any kind; words, no words, fast, slow as long as it is appropriate to have in school.

Music

As I mentioned before in my last post I am getting ready to become an art teacher. I have already started collecting all kinds of things that I might find handy to have in my classroom. I have an ENTIRE carload of things that I have been stashing from work like discontinued catalogs, rug samples, old tile samples, etc. I have no idea how I will use some of these things but they all looked too useful to just toss in the trash! I have also been saving things at home like yogurt containers (with lids), foam trays (like the kind you get in the deli, no meat though), jars, etc. If anyone has anything they would like to share/save for me please let me know. Since I don't know where I will be teaching yet I have no idea what kind of budget I will be working with but I think it is good to recycle when you can anyway, right?

Thank you all for your emails and well wishes from my last post. I had no idea how many people check this little blog of mine?! Everyone has been so supportive of this little project even if I don't post that often. Maybe that can be a resolution of mine this year. Is it too late to make those? I have lots of posts to catch up with like my son turning 2, my grandpa's scarfs and my art projects from last semester.