Kiriseth

Likes...

2009-03-27T04:26:44Z

Me likes the TV series Dexter. Very, very much :->
Me liked the Watchmen movie. Very, very much :-)
Me loves to cuddle in me cozy bed, with lovely, lovely, snuggly, fleecy sheets.

Meow(s) :->

2009-02-23T01:52:47Z

I adopted a pregnant kitty :-) A very, very pregnant kitty. A "gonna pop any day now" kitty ;-) Her name is Starlight, Star for short.

She's the sweetest, prettiest little calico kitty. It's really neat - she's probably going to have her kittens any time from today to 10 days from now. I can feel the kitten lumps in her tummy, and I can feel the kittens move if I keep my hand on her for a while. Kittens are so fun. We had them when I was a kid, and my morals have kept me from repeating the experience, as their really are too many cats in the world - but she's a rescued kitty, so I get guilt-free kittens :-)

I am so happy to have her - it gives me something to look forward to at home, and someone to cuddle when my sweetie is not around. And in cleaning off the porch for her, I have cleaned off my desk and provided myself a nice work space where she keeps me company.

FYI: If you haven't seen me nor heard from me, it's because I'm totally overwhelmed and stressed and life sucks. So it's great to have her to love.

I feel compelled to note...

2009-02-02T02:34:12Z

That I did *not* sleep through the earthquake. In fact I awakened from a dream involving PB&J and oranges the instant my bed began to shake as though it were a gliding rocker. It was actually a rather pleasant though distressing sensation, and lasted only a few seconds. Nothing fell from anywhere. I've actually never been in an earthquake since I was old enough to remember such things. I've been out of state for all of them up to now.

Still ticking... ;-)

2009-01-01T04:17:41Z

Happy New Year!

Have finally gotten back on lj and caught up a bit. Sorry to be so out of touch. A brief update -

My former school, where I got my Montessori teacher credential, has partnered with a University. They will take all my credit for my coursework as transfer credits, and with 3 more classes they will give me a Master's in Ed. I am very excited. They even qualify for actual FAFSA loans! and it's only about $ 7,000 total. Cheapest, fastest Masters ever. And having that degree will give me a lot more options. I hope not to need them, but you never know in this kind of crummy economic times.

I'm still teaching, at the same place. Still love it, but will be taking the summer off and filling in with tutoring and other random work. Am a bit anxious about that, but can't keep teaching constantly or I will burn out. If you have random work suggestions or offers, please let me know. Need to work about 2/3 time at $25 per hour (or less hours for more of course ;-) From mid-June through end of August. Will eventually get myself together and send out resumes and post adds on CL and such of course.

Also, I bought a car - mine was just about kaput, and I splurged naughtily, and got a new Honda Fit (sport) because it is the best and most perfect car for me ever. In my defense, they only started marketing them here in the US last year, and they were not so awesome that first year, so this year will hold its value better. I am loving it so much. So very, very much. Best car EVER. :-)

Thank goodness

2008-10-18T23:57:10Z

The friend found a home for the cats at the last minute. I drove them to Everett, but needn't put out any extra money. Huzzah!

Please foster 1 kitty by Monday? Anybody in Seattle area?

2008-10-17T01:53:15Z

I think I have found a place for three of my friend's kitties. She herself is going to go live in a shelter for a while. Could anyone possibly put up the last one for a few months? They need to be out of my apartment by Monday, and the lady who offered to take two made it contingent on finding fosterage for the other two. I found a friend to take one, but have one left. I can underwrite food and litter. I need to know write away.

Thanks

Friend needs place to live for her and/or cats by Oct. 15

2008-09-28T16:33:17Z

Our friend has been staying with us, but needs her own place before we move to North Bend. She's been a good roommate. Unfortunately, she has 4 cats and that's making it difficult for her to find a place to move to. She would like to keep the cats in her room with her, rather than letting them range around the house/apartment. They are a bit older, and would be happy in one room. She's going back to school and would most like to find a situation where she could trade some work for some or all of her rent. At our place she's been keeping the kitchen clean, doing some cooking, laundry and other misc. tasks for us. She's held up her end of that with us. Please let me know if you might know of somewhere she could live, or someone who might be willing to foster some or all of her cats. She and the cats have got to have a place or places by the 15th of October.

Thank you :-)

Eesh.

2008-08-26T14:32:22Z

Way, way, way, way, way too much to do. Sorry to those I haven't been talking to / visiting. I'm completely overwhelmed, but expect to extricate myself and resume communicating next week ;-) I'll also be gone for the 3-day weekend.

I Will Conquer!

2008-07-22T01:24:13Z

...eventually ;-)

My sister is my hero right now. She came and used her superlative spatial skills to help arrange our little teacher office/break room. After she left, I even added one small book shelf, and now every square inch of wall space is used to maximum effect, and the room feels large and organized. It was awesome. And to put icing on the cake, one of the board members dropped by today. She loved it, and she also loved the flower pots I got for the classroom - did I tell you about that? They match, 3 sizes of ceramic, some aqua and some darker blue with a brown fleur-de-lys type pattern. And an excellent price at Fred Meyer's 2-get-1-free sale. It's a funny thing to be tickled about, but I really love them. The classroom looks 95% better than when I took possession of it a year ago. Nice new pale, pale blue paint, better shelf arrangement, big fish tank, lots of plants, matching flower pots, cubbies with doors, new landscaping in front (almost done), nice new veggie garden in back.

The garden is so great at school. It's pretty simple this year - tomatoes, potatoes, beans, pumpkins and two sunflowers. But man are those some happy veggies. They have nice deep roots, so I only need to water once a week or so, and there are already lots of little green tomatoes, long runners and flowers on the pumpkins, and flowers on the 3' tall beans. The beans grew almost a foot over the weekend. The kids really got into it last Friday - we went out just to observe the garden, rather than weeding or planting, and they were so amazed. And of course proud of the things they had planted :-)

There's a long ways to go, but I'm slowly beating back the mess at home, and organizing my materials at school, and prepping for next year. This has got to be my last year teaching summer school though. It's just too much. Next year, I'm planning to take tutoring jobs over the summer instead :-)

Trying for one last erg of energy -

2008-06-06T03:21:02Z

and failing to find it. But, if I can't walk, I'm by gosh going to crawl. I just keep telling myself, that if I keep sliding one knee in front of the other, I'll get there eventually.

Unfortunately, I ran utterly out of even my energy reserves a little over a week ago. There was much I could have done these last couple weeks that I did not. The last bite of year-cake was extremely large, and I'm going to end up swallowing it only partially masticated.

Things I have to do:

By 3pm tomorrow:
Thank you letters for all children's and parents gifts from a few weeks ago.
Get the kids practiced enough to pull off their singing that night.
Help a little girl finish a substantial animal report.

By 5:30pm tomorrow:
Write up a mushy sentence about each child to read to parents at end of year ceremony.
Tidy classroom & move furniture around.

By Tuesday at 3pm:
Get a group picture of the kids (can't be done until Monday or Tuesday due to absences) and print up about 14 copies for parent volunteers.

By Wednesday at 3pm:
Re-record a couple of kids poems and burn new CDs for them
Burn CDs of pics for parents? (delegate?)

By Thursday morning:
Buy gift certificates and write nice notes of appreciation to my supporting staff.

By Monday the 16th:
Write up end-of-year reports for kids
Write up wish list for materials for next year for my classroom
Figure out what baskets and other containers might look nice and ask for them

It actually all looks a bit more manageable on here. I made a yummy chicken curry dinner, and ate some vitamins. Now I think I'll have some alcohol and go to bed pretty shortly. Though I may tidy my room a bit first, in hopes of discovering a nice outfit so I don't have to do laundry. And if that fails, I'll do laundry ;-) I really ought to look nice for the parent photo-op tomorrow.

The best thing the internet has brought me...

2008-06-01T03:31:10Z

...is the ability to keep contact with friends and colleagues over time. I was not able to do this before the advent of sites such as LiveJournal and now, LinkedIn. I take unholy glee in having 24 contacts on LinkedIn already. For me, that is amazing. I have lost touch with everyone I knew from college and before. Everyone. I have been poking about, trying to retrieve people, but thus far have not made it back past my return to WA after college.

It's never been a case of my not caring about people. Rather, I tend not to interact with those not in physical proximity with me. I remember them, and if we ever find ourselves in physical proximity again I would be most pleased to pick our friendship right back up. I felt really sad about it when I lost touch with friends, but I was just not up to the level of social activity previously required to maintain touch with large numbers of distant friends. I don't know why I am this way, and I felt bad about it for a long time. Nowadays though, I've come to be more accepting of myself. And I celebrate the tools that are allowing me to maintain contact with the people I care about.

Here's to LinkedIn, FaceBook, LiveJournal and all the other internally capitalized social networking apps. They have immeasurably enriched my life. Cheers!

Ummm.. yeah.

2008-05-20T05:50:45Z

So, like I told my boss the other day when she asked if I minded doing something extra that would take extra work time. I told her I pretty much wrote this year off already. First year of teaching = horribulous amounts of work. I swear I eat, sleep and breathe school this year. 3 weeks and 2 days to go! Sometimes I feel so great about myself - an awesome job, great boss, good pay (for this field) starting next fall, and I'm doing a great job. Sometimes though, it's like life is a whirlwind of experience, but nothing more.

mmmmm... strawberries :-)

2008-04-20T00:36:07Z

Am much a second round of delicious home-made strawberry lemonade - at least half strawberries, just a little lemony taste, and this time with Bacardi coconut rum :-) I love our new blender. It's a Hamilton Beach one, and I opted for the more powerful version, and its got "wave action" ;-) these insets in the glass, that do appear to actually help it mix, as it does not have the same problems I've had with other blenders mixing the bottom half inch and nothing else. Yay! :-)

Hates them

2008-04-17T04:44:40Z

I hates the effing stupid pop-up linky preview window thingies. Hates them. Nasty things. If I wanted to see the link page, CLICK upon it I woulds! Need not turn my friends page into a mine field. Hates it I do. Cannot find an "off stupid thing" setting. Evil whatsits don't even have an immediately perceptible, single-click close button. Hates them. HATES THEM. Quite possibly hates them enough to quit using lj. Tinkered with my lj they did, again and again, and now this. Made exclusionary business decisions. Inflicted adds upon the free peoples. Beginning to seriously tick me off they are.

"C"

2008-04-09T03:39:08Z

I have decided that people who's names also begin with the letter "C" are my sisters and brothers in the letter, and those beginning with the letter K are my phonetic cousins. I feel very neighborly toward those beginning with B and D. Also, since C is the third letter of the alphabet, and X is the third letter of the alphabet backwards, people beginning with X are my mirror-twins.

Me Character

2008-03-23T19:22:53Z

For my latest amusement, I have attempted to write up myself as a character - commentary is welcome ;-)

Class/level: Horticulturist 1/Accountant 1/Teacher 4

Str 8 -1
Dex 12 +1
Con 12 +1
Int 18 +4
Wis 16 +3
Cha 13 +1

Feats:

Empathic Nature = +3 to all charisma-based skill checks

Empathic Nature II = +5... except perform

Green Thumb = +4 to plant-related skills

Comprehend Accounting

Wrangle Children

Trusted Profession = +4 to attitude checks when the other party is aware of the profession

Skills:

Skill/Ranks/Bonuses/Total

Balance/3/1/4
Bluff/4/6/10
Concentration/8/1/9
Craft(cooking)/3/4/7
Craft(sewing)/3/4/7
Craft(painting)/2/4/7
Craft(misc. small items)/5/4/9
Craft(home repair & maintenance)/6/4/10
Diplomacy/8/6/14
Gather Information/3/5/8
Handle Animal/3/5/8
Handle Children/8/10/18
Heal/6/3/9
Intimidate/2/5/7
Knowledge(local)/4/4/8
Knowledge(children with learning differences)/4/4/8
Knowledge(languages)/3/4/7
Knowledge(history)/3/4/7
Knowledge(nature)/6/4/10
Perform(public speaking)/5/3/8
Profession(clerical)/5/3/8
Typing/2/1/3
Speak Language(French, Chinese)/4/4/8
Spot/4/3/7
Survival/3/3/6
Swim/2/-1/1

I was inspired to do this by my continueing dissatisfaction with the less than spectacular abilities of my current D&D gaming, 3.5 ed character. It finally occurred to me, that perhaps I was dissatisfied with her abilities because they were less than my own. And this is where your input is important - have I appropriately rated my own abilities? ;-) LOL

Crafty! :-)

2008-02-17T02:16:10Z

View Poll: When are you most crafty?

I had friends over to game for the second time last night, and it was so nice. I shall enact a crafty gathering forthwith! It'd be just great to pick a time when some of you are actually available ;-) so I gave my best shot at poll creation...

I'm thinking of a once or twice a month get together - you know, one of those "1st & 3rd Saturday of each month" sort of things. It'd be at my place to start, but I'd have no problem rotating locations if y'all so desired. Kiddies would be entirely welcome. You are also welcome to invite friends I don't know yet that you think would enjoy the company of other open-minded souls.

I don't have to tell her anything...

2008-02-15T15:01:46Z

...because she never came to work this week. Had an excuse, delivered as a message on the work phone, rather than to me or our admin (with an excuse for doing that too) Just didn't show up Wednesday, and finally admitted yesterday that she was quitting. Utter flake-out. She's never said a single word about being less than happy. Can't fix what I don't know about. <sigh>

Thank you all for your advice and helpful comments.

Anybody know anyone who's looking for work in a classroom like mine? At this point, we're pretty flexible, if we can get someone relieable. Fortunately, we have this coming week of no school to try to find someone.

Oh, and I'm gonna set up that crafty thing soon :-)

Must... socialize...

2008-02-10T01:37:34Z

(skip to last paragraph for question about crafting together)

Icky tired sicky me and sweetie.
Today is a bit better - still tired, still sneezing all over everything though. And the fun for the morning was taking my sweetie to urgent care - turns out he has bronchitis and possibly the beginnings of pneumonia. Yuck. Although on the plus side, at least those aren't things he can share with me :) Anyhow, he's got drugs, and we're back for a boring day of rest. My sister "excused" us from helping her move - a.k.a. "don't bring your cooties anywhere near me" and he went to sleep. Which leaves me. I tidied a bit, and took out the trash and recycling and did a load of dishes and laundry.. and now I'm really kaput. I really, really, really, really want to be over at the school moving things and organizing things, but I don't have the energy left :-( I'm going over there tomorrow though, first thing. Anything that gets in my way, I'm gonna squish.
See, the sheer amount of stuff in the closets and cupboards of the classroom has made it impossible for me to organize them to my satisfaction, or to save any space to hide my in-progress projects. It's been awfully frustrating. I'm a big mess at home, though I've been fighting back over the years, and have almost become organized. But at work there was always a more manageable quantity of stuff, and so my work space was anal-retentively organized and tidy. Always. It makes it easy for me to be productive and peaceful. So I've been going nuts at not being able to organize my work space this year. Last Wednesday, I found out that I could put stuff up in the attic, and I am over the moon with excitement. It was really hard to endure the waiting to do it actually - I am a big fan of instant gratification ;-) but I didn't have the time Thursday, or the energy Friday to put anything up in the attic. My sweetie was going to help me tomorrow, but I think it's going to be a solo act now - hauling boxes up stairs is contra-indicated when recovering from bronchitis ;-) Oh well. Got to do it though - not only because I want to, but because the board has decided it would be a good idea to have their meeting in my classroom this Wednesday. Eep.

See, now this is part of the problem with me and socializing - my idea of a good time is to go organize things at school, or to make some fun crafts/sewing/painting project. The activities I most enjoy tend to be done at home or the classroom, and while they could be ported to someone else's home, they are mostly unsuited to public spaces. Leaving unsatisfied the desire of most of my friends (one which is foreign to me I might add ;-) to go "out".

Next up on the fun projects list? Cut out little felt sea creatures and create a seascape background for them to be stuck on for the kids to learn about the intertidal zone later this year.
Fun factor: solo - 8 (scale of 1-10); if completed while talking with a friend - 10

I just had the coolest idea - what if I could get a group of people, teacher friends or just friends, to get together and do crafts for class? Maybe bi-weekly, or monthly? My house is tidy enough to use... anyone interested?

Would any of you do that with me?

Going to run screaming from the room one of these days

2008-01-30T01:31:11Z

How do you teach someone to grow eyes in the back of their head? Especially if they've already been a mother? 'cause I sure am at a loss.

My assistants can't overview, One is too soft, the other is inexperienced, and neither has much in the way of eyes in the back of their head.

I think I'm going to scream. I know I'm hurting her feelings, but sometimes when I see things going down, I feel like it's one of those movies where it's so stupid and awful you just can't bear to watch.

Today, I see her across the room, and she's talking to one kid, and there is a little girl behind her, with her arms sort of draped on her shoulders. The only reason the little girl can do that is because she is (utterly innapropriately, standing on a chair.

If I alone can keep order, and I alone can teach, it doesn't work. At all. Because I am only one, and cannot perform both functions simultaneously. Cloning efforts have failed, and I think I am going to cry from sheer frustration.

Corn Snake! :-)

2008-01-20T04:12:08Z

We have a new class pet at last. An albino corn snake of unkown sex named Ruby. S/he's 3-4 feet long I think, and has been thouroghly handled for her 10 years of life. She's quite fun - crawls around and such, flicks her tongue at the kids. Eats pre-killed defrosted mice, which makes me really happy.

I'm going to set her up in a larger tank that we already have, which should make him happy :-) Right now he's in a small tank - 10 or 15 gallons I think, which appears slightly less than half as long as her, which is not enough really.

So now we have tropical fish, a snake and walking sticks.... idealists would desire to have a representative of each of the five main animal groups, but mammals and birds are an awful lot of work :-)

Victory over the living room!

2008-01-08T03:40:16Z

It is glorious indeed - we bought a couple more book shelves, and I spent at least 8 hours cleaning and organizing our living room (including shelf assembly) and with Aleric's help, our living room is habitable! For the first time since we moved in... next stop, the kitchen and the bedroom - then the craft room of DOOM! (For which shelving was also purchased) It's so pretty and calm here - the blue rug is in the living rooom, and the free couches (in reasonbly good shape) have some blue flowers, and my two blue and now two "oak" book shelves, and an oak desk, and a fish tank - it's so lovely. The floor is clear, the couches are clean.

Beware, beware, her flahing fish, her floating hair,
... 'cause she might even invite people over in a couple more weeks!!!!

Seriously, as soon as the place is clean, I'm having people over. And I'm also going to eat better, and exercise more - not necessarily all at the same time ;-) lol

De la Poesie

2007-12-28T05:49:30Z

Firm, bare feet on cool stone tiles.. a long, simple brown skirt brushing my legs. I feel like a priestess of some nameless goddess of the earth as I walk through the house. The texture and smooth chill of the tiles meets each foot as I set it down, first the barest caress, then the spreading solidity of a connection to the pure, potent heart of our world.

Done,

2007-12-18T06:01:53Z

I fixed the poems good enough. To bed I say!

Audio fixing help?

2007-12-17T15:31:43Z

Anyone wang to help me take the white noise out of the background of recordings of little kids reading poems? I've got shareware (Audacity) that's supposed to do it, but it's just not doing a good job. One of us, me or the software, is not equal to the task... I've tried and tried. I need it ready for tomorrow. I'd be happy to part with some of my holiday cash, and I can e-mail you the files if you want. Or maybe even come over.