...actually did NOT purchase the Sebring.

Hubby is concerned about some stuff, so I gave the car back to my lender instead of buying it.  It looks like I will have to learn stick shift, which has NOT gone well in the past.  A plus, though, is that if I do learn it, I will be able to drive one of the coolest, sweetest rides in the city - a near-fully restored VW Super Beetle which has been sitting in my backyard for the past four or so years.

Yes, I am that close to white trash.  A dead car in the backyard.  (Three, actually.  Hubby is a Car Guy.)  All we need is a dead washing machine in the front porch and we are ON, good buddy.

Not this one, but pretty durned close.

... channeled my inner Michael Scott.

... and purchased a used Sebring.

Yes, I know that the brand has a horrible track record.  I also know that I drove the car for two weeks on a loan, and it works well enough for my needs, and after a series of "cool" (according to dear hubby) cars which break down, get crashed into or try to eat my legs as I get in, well enough is good enough.

It's a blessing to have a car to travel farther than I can walk or want to ride my bike or carry on my back or in the bike's basket.  When I need it.  I've been without a car at will for nearly two years now, and it's nice to have one again.

What really decided it for me is that now I have a way to get to the doctor's appointments I need to make without throwing the other household drivers into a tailspin trying to get me there & back.

Oh, and I can go visit my favorite fabric store when I feel like it, too.

Independence is a lovely thing.

It's not this one.

... thought about obssessive consumption.

You see, I really like this new-to-me website called brainpickings, which is as far as I can tell very much involved in tracking down and reviewing incredibly interesting books on all sorts of subjects in all kinds of areas.  A lot of interesting art and graphics books especially.

This last entry is of Kate Bingaman-Burt‘s Obsessive Consumption project - "a wonderfully illustrated visual record of personal consumption running since February 5, 2006." It seems that each time Ms. Bingaman-Burt purchases something she draws a visual representation of it, its price and where she bought it.  The pictures are charming and creepy; sometimes flipping back and forth between the two.

I gots to wonderin' about my own consumption.  I live a pretty modest life, or so I think.  I watch the pennies and don't treat shopping as a competitive sport.  Even so, I still find myself  surrounded by Stuff.  Clutter.  Junk.  Kinetic Cacophony.  Part of this is because of my admittedly less-than-stellar housekeeping talents, but I wonder just how much of this collection of debris in my life is simply because I'm mostly unconscious about it.  I sometimes feel as if I'm swimming in an ocean with a layer of trash separating me from the Sun.  And I need the Sun.  Every once in a while I can get my head through a crack in the debris and enough sunlight gets absorbed to make it to the next crack.  But my mind is never far away from the debris or the next crack.  What would it be like to focus on it?

An impossibly long time ago I took a class on Art History and Criticism at UCLA extension, and the final project was to create a piece of performance art.  We had one week, and I, as a mother of a preschooler and in a troubled marriage thought that in one week I barely had time to sew a button on a shirt, much less put together a piece of performance art.

So that's what I decided to do.  Not to go into the whole insanity of the project (which was pretty danged cool if I must say so myself), but a major part of this project was to keep a running record of EVERY THING I DID.  The date/time/length/action. For a week. I got really good at focusing on what I was doing.

A big part of why I started this blog was to bring focus to my creative life.  I very strongly connect my creative life with my organizational life.  I wonder if everyone who considers themselves creative does this.

... am attempting the impossible.

... which is to complete my grading, complete my astronomy final, rewrite my earth science final, and do a major sweep of the house, especially the kitchen and bathroom.  Oh, and laundry.

Wish me luck.


Oh, it's many hours later and I also baked a pie.

... didn't mind my manners.

So yesterday after school I was having a VERY serious talk with a young lady who seems to have boundary issues with her fellow students.  I had the door open to my classroom - of course - and this young lady's friend  - Young Lady #2 - had been directed to sit outside.  She could listen but she couldn't come in (as this friend has a way of turning a simple conversation into a piece of surrealist performance art, which is probably quite entertaining but not when one is trying to make a serious point to someone else).

I'm in the middle of a sentence when young lady #3 - also a friend of LY #1 & 2 - bursts into the room, announcing "MRS. G'BERG I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!  (Back story - I had sent this young lady up to the office the day before when I realized her immediate M.O. was to argue with me about every little thing when she couldn't do what she wanted when she wanted all the time... and it's the end of the year, and I'm tired.  Very, very tired... The AP asked if I wanted to see her in class on Friday, and I said no thank you, I think we could use a break from each other, so he had taken her a second day.)

As soon as I saw her in my door I announced - and I admit, quite firmly - "Young lady #3, I am having a conversation with YL #1.  You may speak with me when I am finished with her.  Go outside and wait."  She stopped in her tracks and announced I was RUDE.  "SO RUDE TO TALK TO ME LIKE THAT."  I then told her she could leave and wait until Monday to speak with me.

I finished with LY #1, walked her out the door, took LY #2 on for being an inconsiderate self-proclaimed idiot, told LY#3 that since she already thought I was rude I would continue to be rude, and then shut the door in the middle of LY#3's re-declaration of how rude I was.  And took a deep breath.

Oh lord.  One. More. Week.

...am going all domestic on youse.

It's the third day of a four-day weekend.  Which is great, except that Friday was a furlough day, which means we teachers don't get paid, and we've lost a week's worth of pay - as well as a week's worth of teaching time - so far this year.

What I have control over, that being said, is how I spend my time off.  Friday I rode the bus with my gorgeous daughter and her gorgeous girlfriend to a local mall ON THE BUS.  Which in Los Angeles is a rather big deal.  I don't have a car this summer, so this was sort of a test run for me, and for casual errands, joy rides and such it's quite doable.

Saturday I made an ass of myself by driving Hubby - while breaking down into an emotional, sleep-deprived wreck - to work in Burbank, which is three-freeways away from us, at 7:30 in the morning, attending a bat mitzvah of a young lady who we've known and loved since she was 5, and then after we (meaning daughter and me) got home, essentially collapsing for the rest of the day.  I roused myself about 4:45 to get out the door with the car and grocery shop a little.  Missed Costco by ten minutes (and its pharmacy by two hours) but got through a small shopping at Sprouts, so we have some produce for meals this week.

Sunday I slept for 10+ hours and feel nearly like myself again, if only myself still didn't have the aching ankle from my bike crash earlier this month.  But even so, it's much better, thanks.

So domestically I'm -
1.  Cleaning the fridge out, and oh boy does it need it.
2.  Making a zucchini, mushroom & onion quiche.  Why do we have do much squash?!???
3.  Tackling the cobwebs that seem to have sprung out overnight in early every ceiling corner of the house.
4.  Taking inventory of the freezer, in part to pull out some meat from the husband to grill.  Grilling is what Hubby does for relaxation.  Personally, I prefer sleep, but who am I to keep a good man from his grill?

proved gravity always works...

... even when you don't want it to.

And it's a bitch.

Two Tuesdays ago I crashed landed my bike when I tried to make a left turn a little too suddenly.  I bruised & or strained most of my left-side joints, and left my foot/ankle a most amazing visual cacaphony of colors.  I'm still living on ibuprofen and in ace bandages.  It's amazing how much stamina low-grade yet constant discomfort sucks out of a person.

That being said, I have no one to blame but myself.  Isaac Newton wasn't making up stories, he was simply telling the truth.

My bike and I proved this guy's Law's of Motion - all of them - and threw in friction for good measure last Tuesday. Science has no mercy.

.

 I did get a chance to hand-sew the trim I mentioned in a previous post onto my teal patterned skirt and love the way it came out.  I also cut out another skirt from the same pattern, this one in a blue/black thin brocade.  Hopefully I'll have a chance to sew it up this weekend, and maybe even get (yet another) trim basted to the hem.  This trim is machine-sewable, at least.

I also started to crochet myself a scarf for next fall, in purples and greens.  I like the pattern the variegated yarn took.  As soon as I test/compare for length I'll fringe it. 

As for art in the classroom, we just came through two weeks of block schedule and state testing.  At the beginning of this week I announced to my three astronomy classes that THEY were teaching the rest of the chapter on the Sun.  Groups pulled topics out of a (Fabric Planet!) sack, got directions and I let 'em at it.  The lessons are due on Monday, and should take the rest of the week to get through.  They need to have a "means of contents presentation" (PowerPoint, lecture or transparencies),  "means of reinforcement" (work sheet, game, cross word or word search),  and "means of assessment" (quiz).  I can hardly wait for what they show up with!  Some of my students are incredibly creative.