Vacation!?

Hmm, so today was supposed to be my last day of work--or so I thought until around 4:30 this afternoon, as our meeting was wrapping up, and we were all chastised for assuming that since our work was done and our meetings were over, we didn't have to come in. Apparently there was an expectation that we be in the school building doing nothing for the next 2 days! And when we asked how we were supposed to know this, since the school calendar printed in the agenda said today was the last day of staff reflection, and then didn't say anything else about our duties, and since we were told all we needed to do was make sure our report cards were OK--the answer was "we've always worked until the Friday!" I raised my hand instantly to point out that many of us were new, including 3 teachers who started part way through the year...never mind that as teachers, we all should know that for people to meet our expectations they must be clearly communicated....I was largely dismissed, although in the end there were mumbled concessions made that if our work really was done....but we still all HAVE to go to the staff party tomorrow afternoon!

So I'm not sure if I'm on vacation or not. And I've spent way too much of my evening analyzing our staff meetings from this week and trying to figure out what specifically needs to change for me to be happy at this school. I did come up with a few concrete ideas and spent some time crafting a careful letter to our administration. I feel like there is a lot of potential for this school to be good, but right now we're not doing enough to realize that potential. I don't want to be negative all the time and tear down all the positive things going on in the school--but I also want to make sure we're building on a solid foundation. I also hate the way negative energy builds up in me when I focus on the problems like this, so I hope that by identifying some possible solutions I will be able to move on.

To that end....I did get some knitting done while sitting around in some of the less useful meetings this week (some were better than I expected, including the little committee I joined that's working to design a new math curriculum/program for our school--that's actually really exciting work that I'm quite passionate about!). I finished Falling Leaves sock #1, and started #2. I did decide to do #2 toe-up to see if I can get it to match #1. And here's the proof that #2 starts at the toe:


And the spinning....I'm really enjoying this now, it definitely is calming, and I'm starting to really understand what I'm doing. I've decided I'm going to try to participate in Diane's Sunday Spin-a-longs. Although I am a total newbie, Diane's explanations are always wonderful, so I figure it can't hurt to try. My spindle came too late for me to try the first one by her deadline, but I tried it last night. The task was to ply a thick single and a thing single together. Well, this seemed simple--but I'm having a great deal of difficulty spinning a thick single that holds any twist at all. I think this may be because my spindle is too light to produce a very thick yarn--I need a heavier spindle (or a spinning wheel!) to do that. I can produce lovely thin-to-medium singles that seem to ply fairly well, but thick isn't happening. I also took a stab at Andean plying (SSAL #2), but I definitely want to practice more.

So here are my SSAL creations thus far:


And after being plied (and having the twist "set"--a great stress relieving process that involves bashing the wet yarn about, apparently!) and put into skeins, here is my first yarn:

I hope to do some dyeing tomorrow, when I have a bit more spun up. I'll keep you posted!