Wow 30 years

First of all thank you Katherine for the lovely card It was most thoughtful

Second of all the show went fine.

Much better than last year. I think I sold 35 rugs, which is quite good. I think I will have to bite the bullet though and set up mastercard and visa capabilities at my booth. I almost lost 3 sales because I don't take plastic. It will mean raising my prices though and that does not sound like fun.

I also sold over a hundred of my wool balls so really need to work hard this summer making more colors. Maddie sold 4 of her fancy needle felted balls too which garnered her $45.00... being the kind and generous mother that I am I just give her the money, but if she starts cutting into my business I will have to take a cut :)

She wore her tie skirts and got many compliments on them. We keep telling her she should make them to sell, but she just says "But I would have to charge like $70.00"
"Well yes you would honey"
She doesn't think anyone would buy them, but I think she might be surprised.

The show was hot with very few clouds and little breeze, but it is always fun to watch people. They always dress funky and wear thier most artistic jewelry. I always get many compliment on my hat. I just encourage them all to make one for themselves.

Today I took my checks to the bank... then Maddie and I went out to do a little shopping... bought a few things at Goodwill of course. Found a great set of castle keys and some battery operated candlesticks.. oh and some school lunch trays all of which will be put into my prop storage for use in some or another play. I also found a cork board for Maddie and a copy of Rock Horror Picture Show for her very own. We also picked up the scanner/copier/printer that we promised her for her graduation gift. She was very excited to get that. I had created that special memory jacket for her too.

Puck stayed home and took a well deserved nap. I thawed out some of the hot beef left over from the party and we had that for supper.

Tomorrow we are going to see Merchant of Venice back in Spring Green. We will have supper with our friend Michael (Maddie's godfather and our best friend) He got Maddie a Season ticket so Puck and I bought two for ourselves. It will be a great last summer with Maddie and Michael seeing all the shows. They are doing Missalliance, Night of the Iguana, All's Well that Ends Well and Timon of Athens

We are having a quiet anniversary :)

Still Cleaning up

A week ago tuesday we took Maddie up to River Falls to get registered. As we were sitting there she casually mentioned that she was now going to go with a Theater major and Art minor. It has always been Biology and Theater so I was surprised, but told her to just go with what she wants. This would be the time to do it.

They sent all the parents out of the room and the students had the day to themselves. I worried a little, but that is just me. Puck and I attended some mini seminars on money and tech stuff and semesters abroad. I thought we were pretty well set for school, but now I can see that we need to double check on whether loans have been processed and all kinds of stuff.

When we finally got back together after about 6 hours Maddie was registered, had her advisor (the chair of the speech communications department and the costumer for the theater) and had made one strong aquaintence who was also a theater major.

She was all excited about thier first show Best little Whorehouse in Texas
I looked at their website and it looks like a fun year with Your a good man Charlie Brown, Good Person of Setzuan, and Equus although I doubt the college will be going for the full nude version.

We spent the rest of the week getting ready for the party. Of course I went overboard, but it turned out nice. I was surprised at how little time I had for visiting. Most of my time was spent making sure people knew where the food was and replenishing things. My health inspector sister was impressed with my hot and cold foods choices (safe to leave them out) Everyone seemed to have a good time and we had a good turnout.

This week has gone over to cleaning up and getting ready for my show this weekend. On Sunday we went to another graduation party for Maddie's best friend. She got engaged at that party. Thank heavens Maddie agrees with me that it is way too young for getting engaged. They seem happy though and are waiting two years till they get married.

Sunday night I started winding warp on the loom. It was a bitch. The spools were extra large and kept tangling around the posts. Very slow process that usually only takes a little over a half hour. On this particualar pattern I wind on every other section then flip the threads and fill in the empty sections. This is a short warp of 30 yards. I usually do double that, but am so far behind this year I really don't know if I have enough weft in any one color to do a full warping.

When I got it all wound on I noticed that the bottom spool was much larger than the rest. Bad feeling!!!!! I counted the threads in the last section and sure enough I was off by one. I had to un do that whole section and rewind it with the lost thread. Checked the second to the last and the same problem.... In fact the whole flipped section was missing one thread... grrrrrrr... That added another 2 hours onto the warping. I gave that up for the night.

Monday Maddie helped me pull the warp threads through the heddles (the little wire holders for each thread) We got that done and it was off. Somehow she and I had not noticed that she pulled threads from the first harness through right next to each other. That throws off the pattern so we had to pull out half the warp and fix that. She then sleyed the reed while I sewed up blue jean rags.

I went to weave the first rug and found two more places where there were errors and pulled that half of the warping out (ok there was some cursing going on) Puck helped me pull those through. Maddie had gone to work and Puck came back from work. Got it done and still were off. Found another error and fixed that. Still were off and Puck suggested I double check my thread count. Sure enough there was a thread that had not been picked up. Of course it was right in the dang center of the warping of 350 threads. We pulled them back out for the third time and fixed that. I sleyed that half of the warping started to weave and found one set of crossed threads. That was a very small fix, but just one more thing! I sewed rags for a little while to center myself and then set to weaving.

Fortunately I had several balls of rags already prepared. I have woven 8 rugs this week and now need to get them knotted and priced. We also need to load up the van for the show in between the rain and work for Maddie and Puck. It is supposed to be clear and hot for the show though.

That is the news from my life... still need to put the crock pots and giant coffee pot back in the basement from the party. I have bunco tonight at 7 which I really should skip, but dang it I could use a break

Last day of school

Quiet in the Lab today, feeling fairly miserable. Our library Media Specialist has decided to move to a new school ... to elementary for goodness sakes. I and many others feel he is making a mistake, but what are you going to do? It is his mistake to make. He will be going to the same school that his wife now teaches at and it means a little more money.

He will be greatly missed and now we all wonder who will come in to replace the irreplaceable. I doubt they will find anyone as techology oriented, but maybe that will be ok too.

I have just about packed up my room, but cannot move anything into the new room because the old resident is still pretty well entrenched. He is retiring though so has to get it all out pretty dang soon. I will be in there for at least 6 hours of the day, but still don't know what I will be doing for the other two hours of the day.

I really hate being in limbo ... I am playing Jazz to help my brain not break down. My sister was let go from her job which she has had for 27 years. She is cognatively disabled and at one time it was a little debateable whether she would be able to live on her own and support herself. After my mom died my aunt got her into a school for learning disabled young adults and through them she got this job as a nursing assitant.

She had major back surgery and was out for a while and is getting older and we think they were trying to find ways to push her out. She made a couple errors in judgement and was told that they were going to let her go. Then they told her that she would be better off if she resigned rather than being fired so rather than call anyone for advice she resigned. Now she will have to wait for unemployement. I am so angry. My sister and brother are up in the area and are looking into finding her a lawyer or at least an advocate. It is so frustrating to have people take advantage of my disabled sister.

oh well I am too bummed now to write anymore

Skanky Maddie

Maddie is out on her first 18 year old outing with the girls. They went "clubbing" in Madison to a gay bar that allows 18 year olds. I talked her out of a bare midriff and into spanky pants (that is what they call them)to counter the short short skirt, but I think she is headed for a mild girls gone wild evening. I am comforted by the fact that one of the girls has been there before and that there are four of them going. Best get some experience before she has to deal with it all by herself.

Maddie over door to fieldhouse

Although she didn't paint this segment she did touch up the face to look more like herself and painted her arms... She painted the hurdler and swimmers and a little more of that section of the wall

Fieldhouse art story below

Graduation and Chagrin

best friends

first of all the chagrin. Thursday was the last choir concert of the year.. it was also the last concert of both Maddie and the Choir director who is retiring this year. She asked many alumni to come back and sing one last concert and there was a full house. Our theater holds just shy of 600 people and it was full. Maddie had a small solo which she forgot the words to (Ah well) but other than that it was a very nice program. Afterwards she came running out with her friend and shoved something purple at me. It was my lost bunch of violets. Her friend had seen it sticking out of one of the pipes backstage and asked her "What's This?" Maddie said "Oh my God, my mom has been looking for that forever. She thought someone had stolen it." What a weird coincidence that Maddie's friend found it at last time they will be backstage ever again. I just love coincidences like that

Friday was graduation... I ironed Maddie's gown and sent her off to school for the last time. I wore my little pin that has her baby picture on it and it felt just like we were back sending her off to kindergarten. It was not an easy morning for me. The first person I talked to about it I broke into tears... It got better as the day wore on and by the evening I was just fine.

Puck had to bartend, but found someone to replace him so he could come home early. We got dressed up and I curled her hair. Of course it started raining so we decided to drive the two blocks up to the school. There was a sort of reception for parents. The kids got busy putting on caps and gowns and visited with each other and the parents just wandered aimlessly around, greeted each other occasionally and commented on how fast the years had gone by.

Some lady came in and unlocked a gate and the crowd of parents started moving toward it. Of course we joined the mob and followed like lemmings to the fieldhouse where the ceremonies were being held. I think only the infirm were supposed to go at that time, but we all just followed.

Puck got us some good seats while I went to take some pictures of the Fieldhouse mural. When Maddie was a freshman they had just started a huge mural on the wall of the new fieldhouse representing extracurricular activites and were looking for volunteers to paint it after school. There was a small sketch of a hurdler on the wall and an outline of the track when she started and for two years she worked on it pretty much all alone. Her art teacher took her picture and put her up over the door painting the empire state building, something she had done for Guys and Dolls to represent stage crew and drama. At one time she was painting herself painting something else.

I had wanted to get pictures, but procrastinated. This was my last shot sort of. We got through the graduation just fine and ended up sitting on the right side of the room (actually the left). Puck ran over to get her picture coming off the dias... I didn't go because a professional was taking pictures and I thought they would get a better one than I could take.

She sang for a last time with the choir and played her last song with the band. They gave her a cheer when she went up to get her diploma which made her happy. The speeches were short and the crowd was big... We went off to Culvers for a celebratory ice cream and then home to bed with our little graduate