I Want Only to Haunt You

And the countdown to Halloween is on and the race to get costumes ready is on as well.

The Peanut had decided at the beginning of the summer that she wanted to be a knight dragon. I spent a number of hours considering how I'd pull that one off. And then this morning she declared her new choice; a Phoenix. The scrambling for that get up is on. At the very least I have a few ideas for this one. Once I've pulled it together I'll try to post it. If it looks a 10th of how I'm picturing it she'll look fabulous.

The Bean declared she would be yellow and then green when I asked her. While I could pull those two choices off with minimal effort I just can't take the easy road so I'm taking advantage of her lack of desire to demand an exact costume and she'll be going as the sneezy panda Chu. I found a hat and shirt to fit the bill and I'm just on the hook for goggles and panda ears to have her done. With the Bean I don't have to worry about getting a great look. Her sparkling eyes, infectious smile and corkscrew curls will make up for any shortcomings I have in getting her costume completed.

This past month has been a whirlwind with me getting started teaching, getting the Peanut settled into school, getting the Bean settled in without her sister around every day and then reworking everything  with the Peanut. Last spring she was accepted into the Challenge Program in her school district; which means that she goes to a special class once a week at a different school.  On top of that we have both girls enrolled in classes in the center I'm teaching at. With all the comings and goings I'm barely able to keep up with the laundry and dishes.

I now have full and near full capacity classes in two of my programs and I have some very talented and engaged students. I'm learning what types of lessons work best, how to deal with different personalities and challenges and on top of it I'm trying to do a dry run of each class each week so that I can make any changes to fit within the time I've got for each class. My weeks are flying by.

With all of that I found this lovely sound today and thought it would be a nice soundtrack to get into the Halloween spirit. Are you getting costumes ready?

And Just Like That; It's Over.

What a loaded title,right?


Of course I could have been talking about how fast Summer seemed to fly by which it did:

We went camping, swimming, and to the park among other things. Most everything on our bucket list was crossed off and a few things were added in that were completely awesome; me being offered a job for instance. 

What's that you say? Yes I was offered a job at the beginning of the summer break right after the Peanut's birthday party. I am currently part of the teaching faculty at Burnaby's Artspace for Children. I teach toddlers and their parents, Preschoolers and school aged children art on Saturday mornings. It is so much fun and so nerve wracking too. Fortunately I have two tester kids to practice my classes on and tweak them accordingly. So far we've painted circles and op-art, drawn a still life and made an autumn leaf collage. You can see some pictures of me in action;  and some of the other amazing classes available at Artspace if you click on this link here
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Also added in was a great night out for me and a friend where I got to go and hear one of my favourite authors read. While I would have liked to get a personalized autograph on my book I made due with a pre-signed copy I might have been waiting until 1AM had we stuck around. And then we were off on our camping trip and then back in time to scramble for the beginning of school. Which leads me to September. September just flew by.

It could have been that the first week is full of the unknown, new teacher, new class and nothing is settled until the second week. It could have been that I began teaching the second weekend and getting each lesson planned and organized takes up a lot of time. It could be that juggling our schedules has just swallowed up a lot of time and it could be that each week something new has started or finished or popped up and when that happens time seems to fly. In any case September is nearly over and I feel like I have whiplash.

How was your summer? What did you do? It's been so long, let's catch up.