Busy times

I spent most of yesterday making and repairing jewelry for the bakery/gift shop that sells my things each summer. I'm done seeing green and blue millefiori beads for a few hours, I hope! Before I deliver the sizable collection of items, I'll put together a few anklets because that's what sells well only in the warm months when people like to wear them.

This week will be, for me, the busiest of the summer:

=> Saturday and Sunday - open my shop and also begin packing for the upcoming trip
=> Monday - the jewelry making class at the state Institute of Art, and hanging out with the friend who's also taking the class for lunch and a little shopping
=> Tuesday - the funeral for my brother in law and spending much of the day with family
=> Wednesday (before dawn) - flying to Denver
=> visiting two young friends and their families, attending a rehearsal dinner and wedding, sightseeing in the Estes/Boulder/Denver vicinity
=> Sunday - flying back home again, arriving sometime in the middle of the day
=> Monday - the final jewelry making class

Now that it's August, I also need to begin some of the summer work for my job. I make myself stay away from school as much as humanly possible for the month of July to give my brain a rest from it with the offset that in August I will catch up, and that plan usually works pretty well. I have to confer with a student teacher for first semester, get together with a colleague who has taught the new class I'll have this year, put in 20 documented hours of work toward a new approach (without workbooks) to vocabulary enhancement, and look for a different young adult or other suitable novel to replace one that I'll no longer be teaching. Those endeavors will help me move my mind toward the upcoming year..... and they'll keep me from spending an inordinate amount of time shopping online for new school clothes.

Sometimes I browse online looking at the current "gotta reads" and trends in clothing, jewelry, footwear, hairstyles - all that vitally important stuff - and once in a while I give in to the temptation to possess one or two of them. After all, I'm saving time and gas by ordering online and paying minimal or no shipping fees! However, I'm still spending the money and acquiring more stuff than I need. I should get rid of about half of the items hanging in my closet or at least retire some things that I'll likely never wear again so the garments I do wear and any few new ones (I usually pick up a couple of new things in September, when the back-to-school rush is over and the sales begin) have places to hang.

Applause to:

my friends Brick and Mieja on their 5th wedding anniversary yesterday;

my friend Jamie, the guy in San Francisco, my Mac guru and long-distance tutor who introduced me to the delightful world of the RSS and helped me set up Google Reader;

Sis2 for continuing to drive up two hours one-way to see my mother every other weekend to help her with her bill paying and minor attempts at organizing that disaster of a lovely but overfilled apartment.

Also the letter N and the number 7.