So did you think that the "cool kids" didn't take SAT prep classes? Wrong!
Did you also think that at the end of the day, high school students would generally want to go the hell home? Nope! Wrong again!
I'm teaching one of my classes at a local high school, and the room they put me in is proving to be not exactly ideal. See, it's the first room on a corridor off the main corridor, and the last room on the main corridor is the cafeteria. So, if you look out the windows of the room I'm in, you are looking into the windows of the cafeteria. Which is apparently often full of kids who like to make faces at the kids in my class. And what can I do? I don't actually work at the school, I have no authority. I can at least stop them sending text messages to kids in my class, or at least stop them from getting answered. Teenagers, I swear. My kids will never be teenagers - can I do that? Oh, and did I mention this class is from 6 - 8:30pm? Why on earth are these kids still at school?? WTF??
It is, to put it mildly, a distraction during class. Which is fitting, because "distracted" could sum up my current state of mind pretty well. I can't seem to focus on anything lately. I read a book or two to Baby Sister, then I fold half a load of laundry, then I remember an errand I needed to run, then I put her down for a nap, then I do some dishes, then somehow I'm online researching spinning wheels. (Yeah, I've been sucked down that rabbit hole, but more on that another day.) Maybe I need more sleep. Actually, I'm almost positive I don't get enough sleep, but I really hate to give up my after-everybody's-in-bed knitting time. It's a matter of which would make me more crazy - lack of sleep or lack of "me time"?
On Sunday I managed to put aside the scattered feeling for a little while and go to Slater Mill's celebration of National Spinning and Weaving week. Actually, there was spinning, weaving, knitting, quilting, crochet, dyeing, and felting, from what I saw. Fiber heaven!
The only kid that wanted to come with me was Big Brother. (Mom, there's a NASCAR race! It's Talladega!!) He had a lot of fun, though. He helped dye a ginormous roving with some Kool-aid,
he sewed a bean bag with a lovely blanket-stitched edge,
and he made a felted coaster (no pictures of that, for some reason). We also got to see a huge reproduction spinning wheel. This guy made it look easy, but I'm sure it's not.
They're trying to set up a real fiber community at Slater Mill, and I hope there's a lot of interest. It's a pretty place, and it's just such a cool idea to be able to, say, take a spinning class at the first textile mill in the country. A reverse Industrial Revolution, maybe?
By the way, I edited that last post, about the k'nex swift, to include directions, if anybody's interested. :)
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