A little update

Hello all! Here I am at a hotel in Rome. In the past few days we have seen the Colisseum, the Roman Forum, The Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, St. Francis Basilica in Assisi, il Duomo in Florence, Michelangelo's David at the Accademia, the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel, Ponte Vecchio...so many things. We've also taken part in gladiator training, a fresco workshop, cooking school (and a competition that my team won!), and a painting class.

Tomorrow we're heading to Pompeii and Sorrento. These are all places I've been before (and you've probably seen in my previous posts) but, in my opinion, the piece de resistance of the trip will be our last day when we go to the Isle of Capri. I'm so looking forward to that!

It's been a great trip so far. The kids have been awesome! Our tour director is a sweetheart and so much fun. We had a couple of mishaps along the way - one girl got awful blisters and had to be taken to the doctor; one chaperone had his wallet lifted; a hotel room was broken into and some items were stolen. Those events were difficult, but everyone has been so positive and we have enjoyed ourselves so much.

Two more days and then we come home. Do I need to tell you I'm not ready to return to reality?

I will post pictures when I'm back in Canada.

Ciao for now!

Ciao Amici!

I'm off to Italy tomorrow morning, bright and early.

See you in a couple of weeks!

And when I come back I plan to:
* get back to Swooning
* make a dress (I bought the fabric already)
* try to find my Spring and Summer body (it's hidden somewhere under this Winter body)

But first I'll have to dig out from under the pile of marking that came home with me...and doesn't have a hope of getting done between now and 5:00 am tomorrow when I leave for the airport...

Slumpity-slump

Oh, I am in such a slump.

Bernice has been gathering dust, literally and figuratively-speaking. The only action she's seen lately is when I fixed a pair of Mr. P's pants.

 

 Looks like my sewing room could use a good clean-up too.

Poor Swoon has been abandoned for a while. I think I've decided to quilt this myself. And I think I may have convinced myself that there's nothing wrong with stippling/meandering.

I ate this for supper tonight:

 

It was unbelievably good. I kind of forgot we'd bought it a couple of weeks ago and then tonight, with Mr. P away, I went foraging in the freezer and unearthed the good blue box.

It's supposed to be healthy too.

I undid the healthiness by making this for dessert:

 

 

It's a brownie-in-a-mug. I got the recipe off Pinterest. You can find it here. I have been spending a lot (A LOT) of downtime on Pinterest lately. Too much time. I've been pinning a lot (A LOT) of food. It's quite pathetic, really.

Oh, I've been getting the essentials done - marking, laundry, housework, yoga and dance classes (I love my dance classes). But no sewing. Just Pinterest and a few shows watched on my computer. I used to only watch t.v. and movies while I was sewing. Sigh.

I did go out last Saturday night, though. I went to a '60s-themed party. Mr. P and I dressed up as hippies (late '60s? What do I know about that decade? I wasn't even born then.) Mr. P's costume was really funny. Mine was kind of lame, but at least I was comfortable.

 

Excuse the awful, low-lighting cell phone pic.

So, that's the story of my great, big slumpity-slump. No motivation, no energy, no will to do much of anything. It will pass; it always does.

And, anyway, I'm heading to ITALY next week (with 33 students...). That should cure me!

Thanks

...for all your kind words. It really was a difficult week, a heart-wrenching week, but knowing you were all out there thinking good thoughts and sending out prayers to Kat's family helped.

I attended her funeral on Thursday at a Ukrainian Orthodox church. It was nice - there was lots of chanting/singing, which was very soothing. Her mother, step-father and sister were so strong and so grateful for the show of support from friends, family members and the many colleagues from my school who attended. They have such faith that Kat is in a better place, which I'm sure is comforting to them as they try to go on without her.

It may sound kind of negative, but when something like this happens, I start to question the amount of time I spend on seemingly trivial things like - gasp! - sewing, and wonder if I'm wasting my time, if I should perhaps be doing something more significant with my time, if after I'm gone anybody will really care about the "stuff" I've so lovingly created.

But, ultimately...

 

I didn't manage to get any sewing done last week. Between moping around the house and commitments at work and Pinterest, nothing really got done at all. But the weekend before, I sewed up some pinwheel blocks using the leftover triangles from my Swoon flying geese blocks (which I was smart enough to sew together while making the flying geese).

I have 36 of these babies and I've calculated that I'll need another 36 to make a border around Swoon. I'll be digging through scraps and using up some of that extra fabric I bought when I made those silly mistakes way back. Ha! Mistakes? No, it was in my master plan.

It's time to get back to the sewing machine, I think.