Spring Fever: Updates

I'm still digging on the terrace.  I get about 1/6 of the way in 30-45 minutes once a week, at most.  It's been raining too much to get it done faster and the nice days have inevitably been during the week when I'm at work, and the dirt needs a day to dry out after a good rain before I can dig in it without needing the rubber boots.  Hooray for clay that holds moisture!  Sigh.  I'm fast approaching the time where I truly need some help from a machine and Dad still hasn't tried to get the hoist working on the tractor, so every day I dig I get a little more frustrated with the whole thing.  We got up well into the 80s today, so soon it'll be too hot to work outside during the day.  I'm getting rather impatient with that project.

I've done a couple more batches of yogurt since the last post on it.  I've reduced the amount of dry milk I use to 1/4 cup per 4 cups of skim milk and it's closer to what I want.  I've also noticed that using the previous batch to culture ends up with a tangier flavor than I like after 3-4 batches.  I ordered some probiotic starter this week so we'll see how I like that after a batch or two.  I'm enjoying yogurt for breakfast with some homemade granola, sweetened slightly with some applesauce.  It sticks with me all morning, better than a bowl of cereal does.  On that note, I've lost a solid 7 pounds since April (maybe up to 9... not sure my first weigh-in was entirely accurate), so it's nice to see a little progress, but as each of my projects gets a bit more demanding my exercising gets pushed farther down the priority list.  I may not stay with Weight Watchers after my promo period ends, for now it's just more stress to plan the meals as rigidly as I need to to make any real progress so there's no point in paying for it if I can't go full-out.  My health is important, but I'm healthy now, if just a bit heavy.  I can handle a little more time like this if I have to, then when I can truly devote the time I need to meal planning and exercising enough I'll get back on the bandwagon.  There's just too much going on right now to make it the #1 priority.

My 4-day work weeks are going well. :)  Last week, my first week of that schedule, was a little bizarre.  My brain skipped Wednesday entirely or something, since normally (for a solid 8 months with few variations) when I worked 2 days in a row it was Thursday-Friday, so I spent all day last Thursday trying to remind myself that it was in fact Thursday, not Friday.  This week has gone better, but tonight I'll probably skip packing my lunch and just go to bed early.  The dishwasher is still running anyway, I'm too tired to wait up for it just to pack a salad.

I'm debating how to get more students and where to hold the lessons.  Going to houses isn't ideal, at this point mostly because of the distractions but also because of the impracticality of me wasting time between each lesson driving all over town lugging all my instruments around if I get more students.  However, it's also not a great idea to expect everyone to come out to my house.  It's out in the country, on a nasty muddy road with all the rain we've had, I don't have insurance on the house yet or a solid set of front steps or walkway, and there's still a major unfinished renovation project right inside the front door with tools and such... My 6-year-old student would probably impale herself on the tools there, if her parents could get her (and probably her sister too) packed up and out to my house for a 30-minute lesson in my small-ish living room.  As such, I really just need a little studio space centrally located in town so I could do several lessons in a row without having to drive all over creation.  Such a place is probably out of my budget for the one day a week I'd use it, so I'm not sure what to do there.  I need to get my instrument chops back up a little more and get a viola lesson to be sure my technique is good enough to teach beginners.  I did find out today that there's a real violin teacher in town, so that takes some of the pressure off of me, but she's booked.  Maybe I can do the super beginners then pass them off to her?  Need to talk to her.  Long to-do list for that one, huh?

Saturday is another show at The White Elephant so I've been beading a bunch this week.  I'll get more pictures up as I go, but at the moment my cell phone isn't working so I can't email them to myself to get a post up tonight.  Sounds like bedtime, yes?  Yes.

Fresh from the desk: Changes in motion

Just a quick update.  I decided to let go of my extra day job up in Rapid City.  It always ended up wasting the whole day for not enough profit, so I told them last Monday that it would be my last day there.  They were a little bummed but they understood my situation and the agent was actually going to ask me soon if it was still worth it.  It was an iffy experimental job really, they needed some work done and I needed a little money but it was just not quite practical.

Good thing I told them when I was there, actually, so I got a chance to really say goodbye.  The next day, my boss at my main job and I sat down to chat about my progress with various areas of my job, sort of a mini-evaluation but I wasn't really nervous about it.  As it turns out, he can give me a $.25 raise and one more day per week, so now I'm up to 4 days!  We'll keep it up while business is decent for sure, though if the economy doesn't pick up by the time winter hits we may need to go back down to 3 days.  That's alright, it's definitely great news!

Lessons with my violin student have been going okay.  She's only 6, and she's a touch on the hyper side, and not being a mother or babysitter or ever having any siblings, I don't know what to do with a wired 6-year-old!  I have a few ideas to use at the next lesson, some rhythm games and such, so maybe I'll be better prepared when her mind takes off in a different direction.  I'm still thinking I should put an ad out for more lessons, get a few on one day a week.  I need to get a few things planned out first before I launch into that, and I want to take a viola lesson from my cello teacher just to be sure my technique is on the right track.

Crocheting is going well!  My first project is a blanket.  It's a surprise present for a friend (sssshhhhh! lol) so I'll hold off on pictures until it's done.  It's a ridiculously easy pattern that's coming together fairly quickly.  Oddly enough, it seems to be the perfect thing to do after supper when my cat insists on sitting on my lap (and I mean insists... he'd climb onto my dinner plate if it was in the way) but I can't handle just sitting there not working on something.  He doesn't mess with the yarn, we just turn on a movie and chill for a bit.  

I had a few custom jewelry orders to work on over the past week or two, and the most challenging was definitely a pair of earrings to match a necklace owned by the woman who was my babysitter when I was 2 or 3.  I barely remember from that... but since I've been home, I've seen her and her husband around town a lot so we keep in touch a little now.  This picture didn't turn out the greatest... the lighting was a little odd that day, but the necklace had a few red lampwork beads and several square and round faceted red beads, each flanked by a small hematite, spaced out on 3 strands.  I suspect the red beads may have been plastic... they weren't heavy enough to be glass.  What she wanted was a pair of drop post earrings like these that I had on display in bright red and amber, but with round darker red beads to match the necklace.  It was tough to find them, but I did after much shopping, and it was easy to put them together.  I forgot to take the necklace with me when I went shopping (oops... good thing I studied the color when she handed it to me!) so I didn't really notice the little hematite beads until I got everything home and started working on it.  Luckily, i always keep some hematite beads on hand since they're so versatile, even if they were a little larger than the ones on the necklace.  She loved them!  She has some graduation parties to attend this weekend and next for some grandchildren, so she was glad to have a matching set to wear to them all.  Success!

I've been away from home way too much the last few weeks so having a 3-day weekend with minimal plans is sooooo nice for me right now.  Speaking of that, I need to plan some meals.  Enjoy your weekend!