Vacation time

Today begins our Easter break.  10 days of no students, no grading, no standing all day talking.  I'm promising myself some sewing/quitling time every day.  I will also walk every day and get outside to take care of the garden.

I'm also hoping to get to the doctor to see about changing medications again for my migraines.  The new stuff, Depakote, seems to just make me gain weight.  30 pounds in 6 months :( even with all the walking and eating more vegetables.

I'm also going to stay off the computer as much as possible.  It is such a time suck.

Have a great Good Friday today!  Hoping to check in later with some quilt progress.

Science Fair Success

 Here are the many students from my high school looking at all of the projects.  We had about 800 students come through while the judges were working on Friday.

 This is my son's project.  He wrote a computer program to randomly make sounds or blue squares on the Nintendo DS.  When you heard the sound, you pushed a button and when it shows the blue box, you had to touch the screen.  He wanted to know if you responded faster to what you see or what you hear.  He found out that sight is way faster than sound.  The judges were impressed by the computer program he wrote.  He won 2nd place in the Biological Science division for high school.

Here are two of the judges talking to the 3rd place Biology winners.  They attached a microchip to the brains of cockroaches so they could make them go through a maze faster.  They could control the direction the cockroaches moved.  It was the most popular science project there.  Kids were either impressed or grossed out.  I loved it!

Exciting weekend

My son is wearing the bright green wig in the back of this picture.  His robotics team has been working for the last 13 years to earn the blue banner.  Finally, all of their hard work and dedication paid off.  Not only did they come in first place, but they got the Engineering Award for the most community outreach.  That earned them $5000 which they will need because now they are qualified for the world championships in St. Louis on April 27.

In a few weeks they have another competition in Denver, near where my parents live and the National championships are near where my daughter lives.  I wish I had a zillion dollars so I could take off work and travel with them.  Would love to see my parents and daughter.

Quilts in the hands of kids

 My friend took 20 quilts to Mexico a couple weeks ago and was able to give them to a mother and her kids when they built them a house.  I just love seeing pictures of the kids and their quilts.  I really need to get busy making more quilts.  It is such a great way to relieve stress and the end product is priceless.

Elk's Lodge Scholarship

 My daughter made it to the State Level in the scholarship process and was awarded $1,000.  She also found out today she got accepted into UCLA, probably her first choice of schools.  1K down, 30K to go :)

walking

On our walk today we saw this awesome treehouse.  It is at least 4 stories high!  We walked along a bike trail and many of the houses that backed up to the trail had play houses, but nothing like this one.

I've tried planting a bush like this, but it just died.  These bushes are covered with what looks like very small roses and the bush gets about 20 feet high.  They come in yellow or white.  I just love them.

Orchid Obsession

 I have 5 orchids now and it takes everything I have not to keep getting more.  This first one, my daughters got me Christmas 2011.  It has bloomed 3 times now and every time it gets a bigger bloom spike.  The plant hasn't grown much, but I think I might need to repot it into a little bigger pot.

 This orchid has been blooming for about 4 months.  This is the last bloom on it.

 I got this one right after Mother's Day last year at Sam's Club.  It was marked down to half price and was calling out for a loving home.  It bloomed about 6 months and then put out new blooms on the same old bloom spikes.  It also send out a new spike at the same time.  I can't believe it has been blooming for almost a whole year!

 This one my daughter got for being a judge at last year's science fair.  It put out a second set of blooms on the same spike

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And finally, I got this little cutie at Winco about a month ago.  I'm thinking I need a bigger window sill.  They all face east and get a couple of hours of almost direct sun in the morning.  I water them about once a week or once every two weeks and make sure they dry out completely in between watering.  They are near my kitchen sink so have lots of humidity and seem to love their growing conditions.

Prom time

My daughter went to a free prom dress giveaway today and came home with this gorgeous dress, a purse and jewelry.  A couple weeks ago, she wasn't going to the prom, but once she heard about the giveaway, thinks she might just want to go.  I can't believe she is about to graduate!

Getting Inspiration

 My son brought home his class letter today and one of the things on the list of activities caught my eye.  They are asking for donations for a basket to be auctioned off at a PTA event.  I'm so busy teaching and doing things in my classroom, I haven't even signed up for the PTA this year.  The theme of the basket is School is Cool.

So, I started pulling fabrics that remind me of school.  They are also boy themed which are harder to make for me.  I'm hoping to get a couple of quilts out of these fabrics.  One for my son's class basket and one for the Binky Patrol kids.

Now to make time to quilt!

College admissions update

My daughter got admitted to UC Irvine, put on the wait list for Washington University in St. Louis (where her sister attends grad school) and today found out she got admitted to UC Davis.  Too bad there aren't scholarships with any of these.  We are truely middle class because we make too much money to qualify for government aid, but aren't rich enough to afford to pay for college.  I volunteered to quit my job so we could be poor, but hubby didn't think that was the best idea.  Somehow the government thinks we should be spending about 1/4 of our salary on my daughter's college every year.  That might be feasible if we didn't already spend 1/4 on health care.  Seriously.  And it keeps going up.  And our pay keeps going down.  Something just isn't right in this scenario.

I need some serious quilting therapy this weekend.  If only I could find my mojo.