gardening in 2014

One entire wall of my classroom is composed of windows. It happens to be the south-facing wall. My coworker and I took full advantage of that fact this spring and started seeds on the window sills.

I took my seedlings home for spring break, thinking that they needed to get into the ground. Also, I wouldn't be around school to water them. It seemed like a good plan. But life got in the way and I wasn't able to plant them for awhile.

Today I finally finished putting everything into the ground. My tomato starts went into pots so that I can drag them around this summer to take full advantage of the sunlight.

Last year I did strict square-foot gardening. This year I am experimenting. One bed still follows square-foot gardening rules, to a point. The other bed doesn't have the guides in place and is a bit of a hodge-podge.

Last year I planted a pumpkin plant that sprawled all over the side yard. All of the pumpkins rotted before they were big enough to harvest. I saw a photo online that involved using tomato cages with squash plants. I'll give it a try this year.

this year has been hard

I try not to post sad things here. I try to keep this space positive. Not because I want to hide the sad, but because when I look back here I want to be uplifted and inspired.

But this year has been hard.

I started a new job in a new school district.

I taught two grade levels instead of one.

I taught a new-to-me grade level.

I lost a former student to suicide.

My uncle got into a terrible auto accident, and will not recover.

My husband lost his job.

I lost a former student to a drive-by shooting.

I lost a former student to apparent suicide.

I have to completely pack up my room to move to a temporary building.

My classroom is a mess (didn't move in properly + packing up for the move = chaos).
I'm a mess (some days, thankfully not all).

Strangely I am very optimistic about next year, even as I can barely drag myself to work lately.

There are 18 more days. I can do this.

photo credit: West Seattle Blog

my Monday

This Monday threatened to swallow me whole, but I managed to make it through and find some sunshine at the end of my day.

On the drive home:

In my long-neglected garden:

 

finished snowflake art

Back in January I wrote about an art project that Joe and I were working on. We decided to make snowflakes out of scrapbooking paper based off these Game of Thrones house designs.

We started by printing the design big enough to work on a 12" x 12" piece of paper. We then traced the design eight times on the back of the paper to make a complete snowflake. Afterwards we used an xacto knife and my self-healing sewing mat to cut them out.

It's taken awhile to get the finished snowflakes displayed, but they are finally on the wall where we can enjoy them.