Almost done!

For the first time in all my years of teaching, almost all my classes are seniors. And if you don't know, seniors check out of school a bit early. Which means, for me, that I have almost no teaching to do this week. I had almost four hours free yesterday, two today, and the next two days involve no students at all -- eight hours of me-time.

Of course, I'm using it for school stuff. No, don't laugh! I've actually been working my ass off. I caught up on all my grading, created a new web site for my classes, packed everything in my room into boxes, moved about 75% of them to what will be my new room, took pictures of some of the art on campus and turned those into a slide show for a special project I'm doing.

So I'm busy, but in the kind of way where I'm actually getting interesting, useful new stuff done instead of catching up on old stuff. Kind of cool.

This is a weird week: my sweetie is at a work conference and my mom is in Iowa (well, as of tomorrow morning). So my dad is taking care of Z for the next few days while I'm at work, and then she and I have a bunch of mostly free time. I'm sad that everyone's away, but glad my mom's seeing my grandma -- she fell and broke her nose and sprained her ankle, plus she has a few other things going on. It's bad stuff, but a good time for Mom to be there for her.

Our new little kitten, Luther Furbank, is really fun. It's been so long since I had a cat that played! He's fattening up nicely, and he's just adorable. He and Mina have a tenuous relationship. Mostly they stay away from each other, but he's just so interested in her that he can't keep away. Then she hisses. Today I took this photo, because for the first time, they were hanging out next to each other with no trouble.


Then a moment later, he batted her tail and she FREAKED out on him, swiping at him for the first time. But she still wasn't trying to hurt him -- it was more of a "DUDE, GET OUT OF HERE!" motion.

Last summer, Z and I had lunch in the park with Monkeygirl, who suggested that Z and I should have matching outfits. My reaction was along the lines of "gag me with a pitchfork." But then I asked Z whether she'd like us to have matching outfits. She thought it was dreamy, so I bought patterns and fabric, but then I never did it. I busted all the stuff out yesterday and am on my way to making two dresses. It feels hecka Amish or something. Like I should just go ahead and make the dresses with high collars, puff sleeves, and a lace inset or something, then get a family photo taken in front of a fake Autumn leaves backdrop.

I guess that's about it. I hope you're all as happy and healthy as I am!