WHY?!

Why is it that we are now almost at the end of fourth quarter and my students are still putting incomplete work in the "turn in" box?  This blows my mind. Do they want Zeros? I don't think they do because when I put it back in the "unfinished work" folder, they hop to work on it. It's fourth quarter. The system has not changed once all year (or for the last three years, for that matter.) They are clearly marked, always referred to properly, and in clear view. Grading work becomes an exercise in sorting unfinished and finished work (and not just "finished" by my standards.)

/end rant.

Redeux.

Today, as I was enjoying my third cup of coffee and working on a project that I actually need to work on, I was thinking, "Man, I have brilliant things to share with the world. I should jump start some life into the ole blog." So I quit working on what I actually need to work on, and decided to work on this - something I do not have time to work on.

Keeping a blog, for me, is a way to give back. Yes, give back. I am an avid blog reader. Chances are, if you've ever posted your blog on Facebook, Google +, Twitter, your gchat status, or anything else, I've added it to my Google Reader list. You don't know this because I don't comment often. I'm one of those. It's because I'm extremely nosy. I love to know what's going on, even if I don't actually have any reason to care. This drives Sean insane. Insane.

One of my favorite things about my job is Mondays. Mondays, I said it. What I love about Mondays is asking my students, "So, what did you do this weekend?" I'm not asking because I'm polite, and not (usually) because I am concerned for their safety or happiness. I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious for no reason at all, but my curiosity must be satisfied.

My students usually respond with silence, boring answers, or "I can't tell you because you'll 'send' me." (I work at a very special school where there are several junior jail cells for students when they act out physically or are socially inappropriate in other ways. Obviously fighting, but also swearing, saying disrespectful things, talking about gangs, drugs, etc, all gets you "sent.") I try to convince the kids to tell me anyway and swear on a stack of Bibles or Qur’ans, whichever appeals more to them, that their secret is safe with me. More often then not, I get the boring answer: "I got my nails done." "Nothing." "Slept." - those are their safe answers. Nevertheless, every Monday, I'm there bright eyed, bushy-tailed, and super annoyingly happy that it's Monday asking about their weekend.

It's time to give back. What am I doing this weekend? Nothing. What did I do last night? Slept.

t-shirts!

I made my brother, Isaac, t-shirts for his graduation gift. It sounds a little lame, but money is tight and I knew he'd love it. (He loved it.)

First I exacto'ed out a stencil. That's just poster board cut to fit through my printer. I had to download a font, as I don't own Office, but that wasn't very difficult. 

Thunda Chunda is the name of his production cooperative. He makes videos and skits and stuff and puts them on Youtube and Facebook. Some of them are pretty clever, especially the ones he makes when he's not overwhemed with schoolwork.

Then I taped it up as tight as I could and put newspaper down to protect the carpet. 

This is the trial run shirt.  You can't see them too well in this photo, but there are many smudges. Also I left the stencil on while it dried for several hours. Sort of ruined the stencil. Oops.

I made another stencil and produced this beauty. This is the one that'll fit him and the final product. I sent him both shirts and the stencils. Perhaps he'll want to start tagging his territory. 

sundresses!

In an effort to constructively use some of my fabric over the next few months (but not necessarily buy more...) I've made my niece, Hazel Ora, several sun dresses for the summer. She's 1, so it's pretty easy to produce something her size out of smaller bits of fabric. I typically buy fabric in lengths of 1 yard or less for quilting purposes. I try to only buy larger bits when I have a specific project in mind and know that I will need more of that particular fabric.  

Here are the dresses I have made so far. I made them a couple months ago, so who knows if I'll get around to making any more of them. 

The last two are the same dress, just reversible. 

Sally Mae (my sister) & Hazel at Hazel's birthday party.

i love the backing!

i love the backing!
Originally uploaded by raezlee

the quilt is done. and those aren't basketballs. they're pies.

lil' nephew

The quilt I'm making for Lil' Nephew is going so quickly!
Here's the progress.
(The lighting/color is a little off, but I liked how warm it looks.)

I finished the super-secret-project. It was a regular Christmas miracle and can now be unveiled. It's a quilt for my brother and his wife. It's their (late) wedding gift. Technically it's not a quilt because I tied it instead of quiting it together. But I don't have a long arm machine and I really doubt my machine and I could've quilted this successfully. 

(please excuse my apartment.)

And today I finished a quilt for my friends new baby.





The brown is flannel (so soft!) pieced very carefully from an almost-too-small remnant. Easily the most challenging part of this quilt (besides actually finishing it.) The green is one of my favorite small print fabrics of all time.

crayon rolls!

I made stuff for some of the kids I like for Solstice. 

The Mountain Goats!

Last year, after hearing that the lead singer and guitarist for the Mountain Goats had cancer and that as a result they were going to end their touring habit and settle down, I pretty much gave up all hope of ever seeing them live. Somehow, that didn't didn't last for them, and they're touring again. Perhaps the cancer is in remission, or it was all lies to begin with. I have no idea. Nevertheless, last night Sean and I saw The Mountain Goats at the Wonder Ballroom here in Portland. We have this thing where we'll buy tickets a week or two in advance and then on the actual night of the show (mostly if it's a week-night) we say to each other "sooo... how bad do you wanna go?"... Implying that we'd rather sleep/play video games/read/watch a movie/do nothing than actually take the effort to go and "stay out late" (like 11 or 12 pm. we're so old and lazy.) So, although both of us sort of wanted to, neither of us caved last night. Thank goodness. The show was great. The singer (maybe others too -- I have no idea) grew up in Portland, so it was a "very special evening with the Mountain Goats." They played several songs which they introduced saying "please please don't tell your friends that we played this tonight. Lie and tell them we played something else that we always play because we'll never play this anywhere else." They still didn't cover "The Sign", but I didn't have much hope that they would. When they played "No Children" it was exactly like every other communal time listening to that song - a huge loud sing-along where you are as drunk as you want to be regardless of how much (if any) alcohol you've imbibed. John, the singer, didn't even use the microphone for 90% of the song. So good. So wonderful. John also continually said "I am SO GLAD I'm here. This is SO good!" and informed everyone that his 6th grade teacher who encouraged him so much to be who he is today etc etc. was there. That's a good crowd and a good vibe. I liked it. It was the kind of show you could go to and have a good time at even if you didn't know jack squat about any of their music. 

I bet it was skin cancer or something. That doesn't really count anyway. ;)

Attempt

Sean and I have started exploring Ghost Towns in the Pacific Northwest (um, or just Oregon.) It's a fantasic activity. I think Ghost Towns are fascinating. I really want to take a few extra days and drive into California and see some old gold and oil digging towns. Some of them still have some people living in them, which I think is wack and awesome at the same time. I mean... Living in a Ghost Town? What do you do? Can you get the internet there? (Or, is the Internet everywhere?) A couple weeks ago we went to two towns. One called Antelope and the other Shaniko. They were both out in sort of central/eastern/northern? Oregon. It was a long drive. We did a loop and ended up in Government Camp (it's at the base of Mt. Hood) where we stopped for "dinner" in some gross pub.

Last week Daddy visited Sean and I for a while. We had a great time. I didn't take many pictures of that time, but Sean has several... Including some good shots of Dad smoking a hooka! hehehe

Anyhow... Here are some snap shots.

This is Mount Saint Helens from the side of the road. It looks all wack because I'm seeing it from a totally different side than I normally do.

This is a wind farm. It was really much prettier in real life.

GHOST PICNIC!



When Daddy visited me, we went downtown one day. We sat in the square and watched a guy do Ice Sculptures.

When Daddy was here he got to play a lot of music with his friend Sam. One morning they played at a Cafe in Northeast Portland. (Sam is on the left, Dad is on the right.)