not too old to hunt eggs

Our Easter holiday was low key. I made Raine hunt for the plastic eggs she kept last year, so the Easter Bunny would have something to fill and hide. We didn't do much candy, she doesn't eat it anyway much, so much the better for her, so small toys and stuff, mostly. Not too many, I don't think, and set out a basket with books and peeps, and pistacios, which she has decided to love.

good morning Raine

She sleeps late even on holidays. Especially on holidays, so we had plenty of time to start dinner, then hide eggs.  She went out in pj's and uncombed hair (her favorite) to find them. Hide and seek is the fun part.

More Easter goodies.

The egg dying was fun, and for our Easter dinner, I turned them into devilled eggs. A much better use for them than hide and seek, I think.

Pretty!

Pretty yummy!

Raine and Ezekiel did a great job of dying them, I loved the speckled colors and marblization. Ginger - however - was not impressed...

No eggs for you!

not overly puzzled

I've been itching to work a jigsaw puzzle for a while. I look at them in the store, and think, but those are so expensive! Sigh. I think about getting one at a thrift store, but what about missing pieces? They bug me! Anyway, a finally picked up a box of puzzles with several assorted sizes and a variety of pictures that I liked. A couple weeks ago I finally pulled out the card table and sorted the pieces.

I figured a 500 piece puzzle would take us about a week to put together and I was right. Raine took to it like a fish to water, and helped. This past Friday, I took it apart and bagged it up. "Did you take a picture of it?" Raine asked, hopefully. I had to admit that I had not.

Sadness.

Not to worry, Raine, we can do another one. Pick out the one you want to do. The one with kittens of course! It was only 300 pieces, and she had it finished last night. Then she took a picture.

kittehs

I'm glad that puzzles are back on the activity list! I think we need a different cover for the card table though... those grey and yellow circles make me dizzy! Whew!

just another brick

Today, I learned something from a song. Well, maybe "learned" isn't quite right, but there was definitely an epiphany.

First, the song... "Another Brick in the Wall," by Pink Floyd, from their album The Wall. Here is a link to it on YouTube, if you need a refresher... The song is rather a protest about the institution of education, and several generations of school kids have picked it up as an anthem for those moments - or years - when they hate school, starting with my generation. I remember when this album came out, and it was the voice of a teenaged angst-filled, broken-hearted, almost adult period of time for me. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. It isn't a terrible album, but I don't get it out to listen to as a whole. Mostly because it is full of that broken-hearted, depressed, angst-y emotion that made it a perfect soundtrack for that part of my life, and I'm not there any more and don't want to be.

Still, songs from the album visit me on the radio, or where-ever. Today it was "Another Brick in the Wall." When I hear that song these days, I feel the voices of my students - almost 18 years of them now - singing it to me, protesting their "encarceration" in school, much as my friends and I belted it out, riding around in cars, as we prepared to graduate high school. Today, I realized for the first time, that I was, now, one of those "bricks" in the wall. I could have felt bad, taking it the way Pink Floyd meant, basically that a teacher was just another repressor. Instead, I got this image of someone standing at the wall so long that they basically become a part of the wall. They go from pounding on the wall to holding it up.

Interesting. I understand that the song protests the indoctrination of education, and as an educator, I recognize that - indeed - that is a necessary element of society. If you don't know how to be a part of society, you cannot function within it. The good or ill of the indoctrination has to do with its purpose, not its existance. Beyond that, though, lies the real value - and danger - of education. Without it, how do you think beyond that indoctrination? How do you think beyond what is known? It is like so many things. Once you know the rules, you know how to break them with intelligent purpose and intent. You know when to break those rules to achieve your purpose. You understand that it is not without risk or consequence, and you can decide whether the gain is worth the consequence.

So, Pink Floyd, I hear your anthem, and I see beyond it. Not only do we all need that education, we all need to become, some way or another, another brick in that wall.

holding on

It's a Taurus thing. We don't like to let go. Nope. Not at all. Maybe its a friend who moves away, or that whatchamacallit. You  know, the one you got on your 14th birthday. Heck you don't even remember who gave it to you, or what its really called. It goes RIGHT THERE, on your dresser. And collects dust.

Taurans, you know who you are, and you know it's true.

I'm learning, slowly, the joys of purging. How good it can feel inside to let go of stuff. But sometimes, it can be difficult.

For instance, every time I drive through the neighborhood I grew up in, the neighborhood with the house my parents lived in until my dad remarried after my mom died. Let me just say this (for my mother was a Taurus, too) the house my mother didn't leave until she died. (I hope you can understand my sentiment here... as when we joke around and say I'm not leaving until... well, she didn't - and it fit who she was) The house that my dad let our step-mother take away from us. Well, I get irked. Sometimes more than other times.

Now, of course you are going to say to me, "Of course you do! Who wouldn't?" Well, that whole situation? It's over. It's done with. NOTHING I could ever do will change any of it. I made choices at the time that I stand by, that make me feel like a decent human being. Choices that I can live with, because those were the questions I had to ask myself.

But driving through there, I get irked. Sometimes more than others, and tonight was one of those more nights. Oh I could NOT drive through there, but it is the quickest way to Raine's friend's house, so I drive it at least once a week, more than that, mostly. I would really like to put those feelings to rest. I would really like to be a better person than that. I would like to think I was a better person than that. But I'm a Taurus. I hold on to stuff.

So, every time I drive past, I get that visceral reaction. I'm still working on letting it go.

spring break

Spring break is all done but the clapping this year. The fat lady will sing soon (in the shower, so no peeking  - and if you do it serves you right) and then to bed and up to work tomorrow.

It has been a pleasant week, full of movie watching, an encouraging visit to my elderly relatives in Alamogordo, and some craftiness. Even Raine has had a good time, when I know she was afraid the whole week would be spent cleaning her room. Sure she did some of that, and not all it needed, but progress was made! She also got to take a day trip to Ruidoso, and another to Western Playland. She got to sleep over at a friend's house, and even play with some young chickens. Ron took vacation, and spent it the way he prefers, spending time with his family, and playing computer games. Well, and watching movies with me, lol.

He ordered some Sherlock Holmes videos, a collection of the movies that we didn't already own. We got to watch those. Jeremy Brett is very good as Sherlock. Oh sure, I the Benedict Cumberbatch is good, but it just isn't the same. Anyway, we also watched a movie called Odd Thomas. Yes, based on the book of the same title by Dean Koontz. I haven't read the books - it is a series - but went to Coas the next day and found the first 3. I had not heard of the movie, even though I'd heard of the books. I really liked it. There was the welcome flavor of Pushing Daisies and a fast pace that I enjoyed. Quite entertaining. Enough so that I will now read the books that I ran out to find the next day.

I've been working on some steampunk-y crafts. I have a shawl that I'm crocheting, and will share when it is more finished. I've also been inspired to dress a bunny, steampunk style. Here she is, so far:

bunny in a corset

I'll be sharing more if this as more of the look is put together. So far, I'm pretty happy with her. I'm particularly happy with how the corset came out. Want a close up?

Love the fasteners!

I'll be posting more about the bunny on my Creatlivity blog. Probably tomorrow. She is nowhere near finished, but the clothes pretty much are. Now for the embellishments! They should be fun! fun! fun!

And now back to our previously scheduled semester...

whew!

So much for my plans to post here more often. I have been stretched this semester, teaching, planning for and grading for 3 different classes. It is keeping me busy, I'll tell you that much. I don't have a lot of creative thought left over after work. This coming week is spring break, however, and I hope to get a lot of the planning taken care of for the rest of the semester, and some of the prep work, too... or at least the prep of the prep, if you know what I mean...

Other things have been going on as well. A couple of elderly cousins have needed some time this past month, and I have been blessed to be able to help them out some. I grew up with these cousins (my dad's first cousin and her husband) around and beloved. Still it takes time, and energy.

I see you!!! 

We did take the time to go to Tucson, so we could enjoy Wild Wild West Con 3 at Old Tucson. It was fun again this year. We missed Abney Park, as one of the bands, but Professor Elemental was back, as was Steam Powered Giraffe. There were other bands and entertainment as well. The children's activities were stepped up this year, and Raine and Ana created some awesome cardboard robots, and some fun bug-eye goggles.

Very creative and fun cardboard robots

We also did some make and take activities for adults... except that Raine seemed to make out like a bandit on the pouch making. It required a new belt as well.

ta da! we made it!

So there were the months of February, and March (so far) around here.

Time for another TV program review

Thank goodness for Netflix. How would I dig this stuff up otherwise?

This time I'm going to talk about Emergency! Yes, from that series about firefighter/paramedics from the 70's. This was a show I loved through my teenage years, when Randy Mantooth graced the covers of all the teen girl magazines. Yes, I saw them. No, I didn't buy them. I thought DeSoto was much more interesting. So, I've watched a few episodes from the first season, when there were a lot of scenes between Nurse Dixie and Dr Kelly Brackett. And people going into the emergency room and getting immediate attention, even for minor - or silly - ailments.

I get amused at the show, because it was supposed to be gritty and realistic at the time. Our definitions of those have certainly changed. At least as far as television is concerned. It is fun to see the cars, and the fashions again. I grew up with those. The roads not seeming so busy, not even the freeways in the backgrounds. Nostalgia on a couple of different levels, I guess.

It is interesting to watch with a little more informed eye, though. These guys take their helmets off ALL THE TIME. I can catch the stock footage now. It is weird that there isn't a seat belt to be found. Still, in some ways, the show holds up as entertainment. Sometimes the blood/injury/doctor themes really bother Raine on TV. I love the crime drama shows, but haven't kept up with many. Raine can watch Emergency!, though, for a rescue show, there really isn't much blood or obvious injury. In fact, I told her how I wasn't that much older than she is now when it started, and I how really liked the show back then. Someday, I told her, she can share a show she loves now with her kids (and they will think she's just as dorky as she thinks I am... and that will be OK, too. Singing along with the theme song probably didn't help me much.).

So catch an episode of Emergency! or two for some light, nostalgic entertainment.