I really didn’t miss school.  Year 1 (of 4) finished in August of last year, and we were off for the last few months.  It didn’t really feel like a break what with all the surgeries and stuff we were going through, but at least at night my time was my own.  Year 2 started January 3rd and it’s been nuts for the past week.  I put together a little study guide for Yannick and myself, detailing the minimum we need to do each night so we don’t fall behind.  If you finish and want to start the next day’s stuff, great.  But you need to at least do the current day’s work to be on track.  Well unfortunately this week I thought that one section was only a repeat of some work from last year, so I lumped the whole 30+ page chapter into 1 night, planning on only reviewing last year’s notes.  I didn’t realize that we’d only covered parts of it last year and all the rest of it was new.  That chapter has taken almost all week to go through, what with all the formulas and terms and such.  UGH.

I took part of Thursday night as a break from studying and got a much-needed haircut.  My hair was long enough to make a (tiny) 1″ ponytail, but it was enough for me.  Plus my color was long overdue.  I was feeling brave and offered my stylist a chance to go wild, changing my color and cut as she saw fit.  I seem to go through these moods every few years!

So here is my new color and cut.  The cut looks similar from the front but only ‘cus it’s tucked behind my ears.  It’s a true bob, with the back shorter and angled, and the fronts actually very angled towards my chin.  And the color-well, clearly that’s changed!  I don’t know how well it comes through the monitor but it’s a warm brown with reddish tones to it.  It’s still new, and still taking some getting used to, but I think I like it!  I keep feeling like I’m wearing a wig, though, and can’t stop staring when I pass by a mirror LOL

My kids didn’t even notice.  When I asked Jakob what color my hair was, he said “yellow, like me”.  Only when pressed did he change it to “brown”.

Speaking of the boys, I taught them to sew this weekend.  Jakob had expressed interest in my needles when I was seaming something, and when I found we had some time to kill after lunch but before nap on Saturday, I decided “why not?”.

I took some cardboard out of recycling and cut it into shapes; a circle for Jakob and a rectangle for Henri.  Then I went around the shapes with a hole punch.  I first started with a house for Henri and a car shape for Jakob but I couldn’t get those shapes evenly fitted into my 3-hole-punch so I just cut them into regular geometric shapes.  I then took 2 of my gold, bent-tipped Chibi needles and threaded them with red worsted-weight yarn.  I placed it doubled with a big knot on the end and that was all it took to get started.

First we started by going over-and-under, then I showed Jakob how he could make a different look by going “over” every single time.  He did a great job at it, really concentrating on doing his stitches and pulling the yarn taut each time.  Henri just had fun pushing the needle through whichever hole was closest until the yarn was too caught up to let him go any further.  It was a lot of fun to teach them and watch them at it, and a really inexpensive (free from stash and garbage LOL) way to pass the time.  Once we were done it was nap time, which meant more study time for me.

Our first exam is tomorrow night, and next month’s session looks a little slower-paced, so hopefully I will have time this week to type up the KP pattern so I can mail it out on Monday.  I’ve wanted to do that for 2 weeks now and just wasn’t able to.