Quiet morning

It's a nice quiet morning here at home. The dogs are snoozing, the birds are quiet, and the guinea pigs aren't even oinking. It's restful to not have L talking constantly all the time.

This has been a busy, yet (so far) uneventful week. The biggest news is L has bronchitis, yet again. The weirdest part is it sounded really awful to Dr. W, but he is not running a fever, or letting it slow him down in any way. How can one kid be so sick and not even let it phase him?

The end of the semester is coming like a train wreck (really fast, and really messy). Next week I'll have papers to grade, hands to hold, and lots of students showing up for tutoring. I can always tell when the end of the semester is in sight to the students because all of a sudden they ask how many points they have, what are they missing, and beg for more extra credit. Since one of the things I'm trying to convince my students is that biology is everywhere and relates to their lives, I let them turn in biology related articles from the popular press for points. They also get 2 points when they recycle the scantron sheets from other exams (I'm trying to reduce the number of dead trees). But they want more, more, more! If they'd just do all of the assignments and study for their exams, they could easily pass. To quote Hogarth from the movie The Iron Giant, "Anyone can do well if they'd just do the freaking homework!" I suppose that's the lesson they might learn from my class.

On subjects that I can control (i.e not L's health or my students' effort levels), knitting has been both good and bad. Good in that I'm 1/3 done with the second Norwegian sock. Bad in the way that I had to rip MIL's vest because it was just too big. It's also not fun to knit with the yarn right now. It's itchy and it's been bothering my hands. Stockinette is also boring. I might ask her if she'd consider a shell for summer instead. Then she could wear it now and I'll work on the vest later, after I've found a way to make it more fun to knit. Another good thing is that I've started L a pair of socks from leftover yarn. It's nice to use up those little odds and ends.

On to working on my sock. I'd like to get through the decrease round and start the rest of the leg. These are going to be some very warm, very cushiony socks. Too bad we're heading into summer! (Ha! Not really. I could handle have these socks relegated to opening the drawer and admiring them for awhile.)