my friend Sandy

My teaching assistant friend is a quilter.  She has been bringing me a few quilt tops to quilt up for her.  In exchange, she has been purchasing some new quilt designs for my robotic machine.  This morning. I'm stitching out a Christmas quilt for her mom with a snowflake design on it.  I just love that the machine can stitch away while I'm doing other things.  I also love that the stitching issues are fixes, at least for now.  Who knows what the next 5 minutes will bring :)

I'm also glad that I have a three day weekend!  I have two doctor appointments and my son has his driving test tomorrow so I have the day off.  It is also grading weekend, which means super busy, but that's ok, because I get a day away from the people who are driving me insane.  My co-workers have learned how to push my buttons by stealing my stuff, not setting up or cleaning up after the labs we do and generally just doing everything that is annoying.  Yesterday one of the teachers who took something of mine, lost it and then accused me of losing it, came in my room, yelled at me from across the room in front of my class and accused me of taking HER stuff.  In front of my students!  I was actually very calm and repeated three times that I didn't take her things.  What I wanted to say was that I don't take things without asking, unlike her.  And I don't lie, unlike her.  But, I was calm. 

I'm counting the days until she retires.  They haven't been able to fire her.  The good part about a teacher union is they can't fire you because you are old and expensive.  The bad part is they can't fire you because you are a bad teacher.  This is the same teacher who left chemicals in the sink that when they mix with water, explode.  You can probably guess, I didn't see them in the sink, turned on the water, and EXPLOSION!  If I was a foot shorter, I would have no face.  She denied leaving the chemical in the sink eventhough she was the only one using the chemical that year.  Nothing happened to her.  She also spilled chemicals all over another of my experiments and ruined it, right before I needed it.  I went to the vice principal on that one because I had proof that she was the one who did it and nothing happened to her.  The VP just told me to do a different lesson plan that day and make up a new experiment for the next day.  I cried.  She has yelled at me in front of my class before, nothing has happened to her when I told the principal.  To say that I'm frustrated is an understatement.  They just really can't do anything when it is her word against mine and they won't pt cameras in the building for proof.  They can't or won't take the word of 30 students as evidence either.  So, I grin, bear it and have migraines and pray that she retires sooner rather than later.

Then, I come home and quilt.