even with a nice class of 5th graders my mind is already moving in the direction of summer. i miss my morning treks to this park. miss watching the regulars walking around the path in the morning. seeing the roses bloom. 11 months ago the cherry and plum trees were covered in crepe papery blossoms. i sat on benches after my walk and read books. overheard conversations. surveyed the park from my perch. stared at the flowers, examined the trees, watched people playing tennis, sat in the sunshine. collected things to sketch. i’m so glad i spent so much time there last year. it was on my you-should-do-this-more-often list for 20 years, but it wasn’t until just last year that i finally got around to it.
the weekend draws to a close. i have a modest goal for the week. finish 2 more pages in my visual journal and finish reading the book i started in early january.
thanks for the feedback on the size of my type. it always looks fine/normal to me, but some of you are finding it extremely small with not much space between the lines. from where i sit – in chrome & safari it’s reading fine. continue to let me know if it’s behaving badly. i’ll keep tinkering with it.
Okay. Totally off the topic. I have to thank you, thank you, thank you so much for the reference to Corita Kent a coupla posts back. Just received Learning By Heart in the mail today and I am absolutely freaking out. It’s a workbook!! It’s a treasure! My insides are exploding with delight! Again, I thank you as I had never heard of her before now.
Also, yours is not a job, it’s a calling. All those young minds that will benefit from your year away and your sense of wonder. Who amongst us does not look back and wish we had Miss Moss as our 5th grade teacher; well, we gotcha now and we are just trying to keep up. I noticed a change in your “voice” when you landed in this classroom and I sense that you are clearly smitten. I imagine this will be a year in which you will be rewarded in equal measure to what you so generously give to your students. Thrilled that you share the experience with us.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but I had a dream last night that you invited all of your blog readers to stop by your place to work in our various journals. Anytime over the weekend, except on Sunday you said. (Which just leaves Saturday, I know).
Beautiful post, as always.
I do love your patterns, colors, paintings, travels, conversations, and your humor! May they never cease. It would also be very much appreciated if the size of your font is increased a bit! Thanks again.
Beautiful sketches and paintings! Your pictures have a calming effect on me. 🙂 Have you ever thought of going on a cargo cruise? I have been looking into it lately. Seems so relaxing and would be great to have all that time to paint and read.
Looks fine in Firefox, and yes I’d like more stories about the adventures of your little chicks. I’m hoping that today’s cortisone shot in the knee will make walking a little easier, though it is damnably cold outside round here.
Your sketches and watercolors are growing by leaps and bounds! So glad your classroom of kiddos is good. We all miss hearing of your daily, wonderful adventures when you were on sabatical. Wish you’d win the lotto and live only to entertain us (hahahaha) and not have to go to a regular job. Hope it’s a wonderful week for you!
lovin’ the sketches and slow Sunday feel they have to them, when the hours are all yours to bend and mold to your own liking, I love it when it takes very little effort to mess with time, when no one or nothin’ disturbs my own personal, inner clockwork…enjoy the fleeting hours, you might already be tucked in and halfway gone into your sweet dreams…so I’ll tip toe out the back door catch the next cloud headin’ north.. ;)Have a good week with the kidlets.
Modest goals are a lovely thing. I think of Emily Dickenson and what she considered her “modest poems”. Truly brilliant.
Your art is getting more and more impressive! Makes me think of putting watercolors and gouache on my “list of things to learn how to do when I retire”…. which is only 15 weeks away now! In fact I am already planning my first trip!
I look forward to see where your next travels take you… were’t you and Carol going to go to the Netherlands this Spring too?
Essentially, I have become convinced that you are total gouache and watercolor genius, you have found your artistic voice yet again, and it is a crime against art and humanity that you have to go to a straight job. Nonetheless, I’m so, SO very glad that you are enjoying your class, and they are lucky pups to have you. First day of sunny, 72 degrees and moderate humidity here in what seems like weeks. Or, what you in California call ‘normal weather.’ 😉