life marches on in petty chores

Stuff I have done on my days off:

1. Returned a library book and paid a small fine.

2. Attempted to get a haircut, but the guy I like is out of town on vacation and won't be back until next Friday. Which I have off from work, so hopefully next week will be the magic moment. (I am so sick of my hair and it's long enough to donate, so it is time to whack it all off again.)

3. Washed laundry, including my comforter and winter coat, which I then put in storage until October or so.

4. Dug my summer blanket out from storage and put it on my bed.

5. Opened one window for the summer. (The nature of my windows and screens means that I prefer not to put them in and take them out very often; that's too much of a nuisance.)

6. Cleaned the bathroom.

7. Vacuumed my apartment. (I never get around to this, because I vacuum the smoke shop every day I'm at work, which kills my ability to look a vacuum cleaner in the face once I get home.)

8. Bought a new umbrella, since my old one was more or less broken.

9. Bought groceries.

10. Read the ICSD budget proposal and profiles of the five Board of Education candidates, in preparation for the school district elections on Tuesday.

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In writing news, I've been working on "Friends and Neighbors," which has now reached the emotional climax of the story and ought to wind down without too much more trouble. It's currently at 5,300 words. I think I can end it around 6,000. *crosses fingers* (I make no promises about dates, though.)

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And now I should be heading to bed so I will be rested when teaching Moral Tales in the morning -- I am covering for a co-teacher who is unexpectedly out of town. The lesson is about the sun and seasons, as last week's was about air, the one before that about water, and the one before that about trees. Lots of nature themes lately.

Next week is the last class of the year. We have no assigned lesson plan, so I intend to bring in some snacks and essentially let the kids have a party. I'm thinking apples and honey (or maybe celery and peanut butter), since we have one kid with a gluten allergy, and then some cookies or granola bars so I'll have something to eat as well.

Moral Tales, penultimate week

Part of today's lesson plan was to go outside and do a "scavenger hunt" based on sunlight and shadows. Since today has been nothing but rain and solid overcast, that was pretty much out of the question.

We let the opening drag on a bit longer than usual -- did Joys & Sorrows and Gems of Goodness instead of just the latter -- and then decamped to the Arch Room, which has no windows and can therefore be dropped into proper darkness. There we used flashlights and apples to demonstrate how the earth's rotation creates night and day, and how the tilt of the earth's axis and the resulting angles at which sunlight strikes the earth create seasons. I made the mistake of saying, at the start of the lesson, that the earth had three motions but we were only going to talk about two, and then, in order to kill time, got dragged into attempting to explain the precession of the equinoxes to a group of eight-year-old kids, though it's been years since I did anything astronomy-related and I was always more into chemistry anyway. *hands* Whatever, it ate a few minutes and I wasn't horribly inaccurate, so we will call it a win.

Then we went back to the classroom where we wrote things that the sun does/provides on strips of yellow paper, which the kids then tacked to the display wall around a yellow circle representing the sun. Finally, to kill more time, I got dragged into retelling a quick and dirty version of Daedalus and Icarus, because I am much better at extemporising stories than Joanna, who was my co-teacher today.

And now I am going to take a quick half-hour nap before heading off to work.