the first day of school!

today was a great first day! Twelve new souls to love dearly. They tore the room up quite a bit, but they sat well in group, they love to sing, and they loved the balance beam I set up for them! It'll take six weeks or so to get them normalized (a Montessori term meaning, concentrating on work and happy, in a nutshell ... shh...Montessori cannot be nutshelled by its very nature!)

I love them so!!! I wore a very teachery strawberry wrap skirt from a vintage store here, and my hair in a french twist. I did swap red heels for red crocs, and then red crocs for my "inside" shoes ... moccasins from target!

many things turned around for me today, i got a lovely letter and locally-crafted (in CT, my home state!) soap from one of my best friends, things have turned a positive corner for someone i love who i was very worried about, i got $21 from coinstar at the grocery store, i learned i was nearly a victim of a $$ scam and do NOT owe anyone in India $600 (ugh), and i got my salary info for this year. read: :-)

I also talked to my parents, and made a delicious throw-together dinner of sauteed tofu, peppers, onions, and summer squash with soy sauce and tahini, paired with homemade french fries coated in olive oil and sea salt from a leftover local red potato.

thanks to my classroom assistant for a lovely non-vegan frozen blended caffeinated monstrously delicious thing from a local coffeeshop as a treat for the first day! i don't generally condone food treats (you should see my classroom snack regs...you can only imagine lol even though i'm not all evil, i will have organic cheese cutting as a practical life work) ... but this was ... fabulous. it had whipped cream, even!! i probably won't eat another one forever, but man ... thanks!!

here's to 4 more days of learning the rules ... hee hee ... and to lower temps (the
80's are "cool" here) allowing for much more pleasant 2.5-mile walks in the park. where i'm going very soon to enjoy the day's last light!

if you are able, please make a donation to the Central Asia Institute, which surely will make a donation to the victims of recent horrible flooding in Pakistan. it's a great organization, started by Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and one of my personal heroes, to build schools, mainly for girls, in remote village areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I've been wanting to research how to take better blog photos ... and be less lazy about the ones I take. I've just been craving more readers lately, I guess!

In the meantime, I'll keep the sewing machine and knitting needles going, and the book pages turning. So far, I love Crime and Punishment!

Happy week.

k. <3