I stayed up late last night talking to #1 daughter, who arrived in time for dinner (salmon with cilantro and lime juice, corn, pears, and WW-style Potatoes Lyonnaise). We took the dogs for a walk and sat up discussing Life the Universe, and Everything till too late.

Yesterday I went to the WW meeting before class. The leader is very perky, but also bright and sensible. #1 daughter, who works in management for a rival company, was avid to hear all the details of the program and the meeting, so I repeated it all to her and we looked at all the materials. I am therefore pretty clear on how the thing works.

I then dashed off to class, where we were reasonably successful with the whole Web 2.0 thing. The older lady in the class was feeling somewhat helpless, but she took a seat next to a nice young man. When I came by to check on her, he said, "She's with me." Really, it was heartwarming. We learned the two essential bits of HTML for making your CMS do more or less what you want it to, and all seemed well.

I got back to my computer and had a frankly frustrating day. Pages wouldn't load when I needed them, Firefox kept getting all faint (throwing water in its face is not an option), and the project I was able to complete was lost in one of the fainting spells.

#1 son even completed his FAFSA. He and #1 daughter are heading off for Bonnaroo today. I got full points for my first two assignments in my Photoshop class, too. A nice, normal day, really.

In addition to the whole teaching and writing thing,  I've also managed to fit in a bit of knitting. This is the front of Flying Diagonals, unblocked.

Since it's unblocked lace (or, as they more accurately put it in the book, "lacy knitting"), you can't tell that much about it. It's nice, though, and will be half of the front of a cardigan.

I think I can claim that it's "pink champagne," another 2010 color. I also have some twill in "eucalyptus." I'll just be all over the official 2010 palette, won't I?

I'm going to have my class work on a web 2.0 project today. I like to have them do this, since many of them will probably find that much of the writing they do during their lifetime is done online.

Last term, my class had enough trouble with it that I had them do very little in that way. This term, I have a few computer science students, and the rest seem bright enough to handle it.

I have one student who is a few years younger than I am. I mention this mostly because I thought she was a decade or so older than me. She has quite a cute figure, but she shows a lot of skin and it's very wrinkly. Way more than mine. So I figured she was much older, and was particularly impressed with how she managed to keep a cute figure. She also has five children. She got laid off, just as I did, and she came back to school to become "an independent, successful woman," as she wrote in her first essay. I admire her for that.

It's possible that her wrinkliness is sun damage. If you go around showing that much skin, you're likely to have sun damage all over the place.

I want to see her become a successful, independent woman.

Today I also have a couple of projects for The Computer Guy and another story for the magazine. I'm also going to go to a Weight Watcher's meeting. I tried their online program last year and was completely unsuccessful with it. But many of my friends do WW, and #1 daughter (the one who works for Jenny Craig) recommends it. So I'm going to see how it is.

I don't like going to meetings and I'm not much on groups. However, as I said yesterday, I'm very biddable. I'm good at assignments and deadlines. Perhaps, just as being in the Photoshop class makes me do the studying of Photoshop that I could have done on my own at any time and didn't, and being in the Wardrobe Contest makes me get my sewing done, being in Weight Watchers will help me counteract the health effects of being at a computer all day long. And half the night sometimes.

The other thing I mean to do is to walk the dogs at the end of the workday every day. I intended to begin doing this on the first. I haven't done it yet. I think this is because my workday hasn't ended.

CD is leaving tomorrow morning, moving back West. Before she left, she upped the ante on our SWAPs a bit. Sewing Pattern Review is having a Wardrobe Contest this summer, in which participants must make 10 garments between 6/1 and 8/31. There must be 4 tops, 4 bottoms, 1 jacket or equivalent, and 1 more item of your choice. Everything must work together.

Obviously, I'm not entering this as a contest. However, I think the structure of it might make me finish up my garments. I'm very obedient, and I never miss deadlines.

So I'm making a 2-piece dress from this pretty floral sheer from the hand-me-down stash. It's crinkly as well as sheer, so it will be a bear to cut, but I am bold. I show it with the lining I'm using with it.

I'm also showing it with the linen top I made, so you can see what a good match the top is for the muted blue flowers.

And below I'll show the skirt (unhemmed, but otherwise complete) with the jacket and blouse. 

It's very pretty, isn't it? I think I have just barely enough of the blue linen from the jacket to make a pencil skirt, so those will be the two skirts.

I'll make two pairs of pants as well, one beige and one khaki because that's what I have on hand.

I have one top made. The other two summer tops I've made are disqualified because I made them in May, and because they are both prints and therefore won't work with the floral skirt.

That's okay, I'll just wear them to work.

I think this will be a really pretty SWAP.

The thing about making  a SWAP in this kind of structured way is that all the other contestants will give their SWAPs names.

"Flirty at Thirty" is one. "Summer of Coral" is another. "Summer of Style" is a third, so I think all "Summer of..." options are now off the table. There's one called "Pretty and Pink" and an "Ahoy, Matey!"

I don't feel that I'm very good at naming things, especially with cute names. Cuteness in general is not my forte.

You can suggest a name for me if you have that talent. Or I could go in another direction entirely and call it "Etude in Ampour Blue and Tuscany."

Because, as it happens, another rule for this contest is that there must be a clear fashion statement. And fortunately one of the options is the use of Pantone's 2010 colors.     And, fortunately again, I happen to be using Pantone's 2010 colors. Namely, Ampour Blue (I should look that up -- "Ampour" sounds wrong, doesn't it?) and Tuscany. The print also contains that aqua shade, also a 2010 color. I am just so clearly fashion statement making. 

Xanga still is not doing photos, so I can't show you all the stuff I've been making.

I did have a productive weekend, though. I'll show you later.

Last night I went to Willy D's piano bar with the ladies of the choirlet.

Actually, first I went to rehearse this morning's duet with Elkhorn and CD. Then we went to Mellow Mushroom pizza. We had a lot of people at a long table, so general conversation was largely impossible. We had good pizza, though, and nice conversation at our end of the table.

We moved on to the piano bar. It was way too loud, they were serving drinks with names like "Lion's Piss" and "Bar Slut," and the set kicked off with a song based on unprintable knock-knock jokes. The pianists instructed the group to shout out obscenities in chorus. They lured drunken people up and humiliated them, or helped them to humiliate themselves, and they were pretty bossy overall.

On the other hand, the pianists were quite good. We had a table right by one of the pianos, and one of the rotating pianists played so fast on "The Devil Went Down to Goergia" that his hands were a blur. They even sang well. And it was nice to see lots of people happily singing along together. I enjoyed singing along.

One of the women of the choirlet told me that later on "It gets vulgar." I'm not the ideal audience member.

In fact, there's something about the phenomenon that interests me. See, I'm a person for whom hanging around a couple of pianos singing is always going to be an example of fun. But I know that many people don't have this on their list of fun activities. So is it the swearing that makes it fun for all the folks who crowded in there last night? The possibility of public humiliation? The drunkenness? Do those aspects add a frisson of danger that singing in church or school just doesn't offer?

Following that, we went down to a coffee bar. It was quiet there, so we had all the conversations we couldn't have while we were at the incredibly loud piano bar.

Honestly, it was fun to begin with, but went on too long for me.

CD is moving back to the Northwest. We'll miss her. We have a new pastor coming in, too, so we don't know what the future of the choirlet may be.

This morning, we're singing "Beautiful One" by Tim Hughes, Elkhorn and I, and CD is playing the piano one last time. There's also a farewell reception for the pastor. So there'll be an overall sense of transition and goodbyes.

  We're through the first week of summer school. My class is going well. We've discussed the writing process, worked on getting from a topic to a thesis, practiced brainstorming and then organizing our thoughts before we start, and had our little talks on plagiarism, vocabulary, and spelling.

I got caught up from spending last weekend at the conference and taking Memorial Day off. I did this by working way too much. However, I have otherwise been fairly good with my attempts at normal life. I've spent 30 minutes with Wii Fit every day, I made it to choir practice , and I sewed this little bag.

I actually had a lot of trouble with it. Not with the basic construction, which was straightforward, but with getting the zipper in.

I just flat couldn't figure out the directions. #2 daughter, who has that kind of brain, also couldn't figure them out.  

Eventually, I just had to guess. The picture at right shows how I ended up doing it.

That's before I did the topstitching, so it's slouchier than in its finished state.

It's still pretty slouchy, though. I made this from a nice little piece of paisley printed faux suede in the fabric hand me downs box. It's soft and pretty, but may not really have enough structural integrity to be completely practical. Maybe I should open the lining and slip in some buckram or something.

The lining fabric was also in the hand me downs box. You just wouldn't believe how much fabric there was in there, actually, all in browns and blues. I think I can make two or three SWAPs from that amount of fabric.

So today, having practiced zippers and topstitching on the purse, I believe I will return to my nice blue linen jacket and do its topstitching, and possibly go on ahead and do the matching skirt with its zipper. I also have a pair of beige linen pants sewn up except for the zipper and waistband.

I have completed three tops for the SWAP and have several more items in various stages of completion. I must do things like housework and grocery shopping today, but I plan to do some sewing as well.

Tonight I'm going out with the ladies of the choirlet for CD's farewell party, My husband's gone to a tournament and I don't expect any guests. So it's a good day for sewing.

Lately, I get up in the morning and check to see whether the online magazine I write for has a new issue out. If not, I hurry to write them some more for the June issue. Once June is up, I'll slow down and do someone else's work.

So far, though, I've sent them a couple of new articles every day. I sort of feel like I'm just writing this magazine and when they get enough words from me they'll publish it.

So today I'm going to write an article on whether golf is an elitist game. What do you think?

So I'm taking a class in Photoshop this term. My dad gave me his copy of CS3, the assignments are in CS4, and students who don't already own the software will be buying CS5. So far this is not an issue, but we're only in the first week.

So far, we are making fairly ugly things. I took Web Design with this instructor last year, and we made ugly things most of the way through the class. Sigh. However, I have already learned an extremely useful thing -- how to use layers. I have always been mystified by that. I'm not a visually-oriented person, and I have noticed the layers panel on the screen but just found it confusing. I think, however, that much of my feeling of, "Oh, come on, I know Photoshop is supposed to do this -- why won't you do this for me?" is because I hadn't grasped the layers.

One thing in particular impressed me enormously: in order to put things in front of other things, you have to stack up the layer bars in the order you want.

I would never have gotten that. You should have seen me getting all amazed. I think my mouth fell open and I had wide eyes and was clicking back and forth being astounded that I'd never noticed that.

Good thing it's an online class.

The class I'm teaching this summer is going well so far. It pays me about half of what I need to earn during the time I'm teaching it, and it takes up about half my work day, so this ought to work out well. It's in my favorite building, too. So far, I've taught in four different buildings for this school, but I like this one the best.

And I have a bunch of plain old writing assignments, so I'm enjoying myself.

I haven't written about my adventures over the weekend or the girls' visits or my current needlework projects or anything, but no doubt I will at some point...

Xanga is misbehaving today, so I'll just offer you a couple of photos.

Monday was a day off.

We had a lunch of salad with grilled chicken and fresh berry pie with whipped cream.

Then we went to do the Gowalla tour of the local university.

I'll come back and tell you more when xanga is in a better mood.