long time coming....

So I haven't blogged in like 6 weeks, because this is truly the most horrendous time of the year for me. But I have survived the end of the year art show, finals, grades and I now look forward to a fun summer of teaching classes for teachers, and taking a few classes myself (papermaking, printmaking, glass fusing/slumping, jewelry design.) All cool stuff. The best, coolest part of the summer is that I am now finally able to tell everyone that I am having a baby!!! SQUEEEEEEE!!!! Yes, I know that I cannot truly believe it, even though I have photo proof! I will post some pics of the last ultrasound on my flickr account and post one here as well. It is all going very well, and in a few weeks we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl. I know that there are a few people out there who think that's wrong, but I am a slight control freak, plus it seems like it makes everything so much easier. My husband and I have discussed names already and we're prepping the "baby's" room to paint and get new carpeting! It's going rather fast. I'm almost finished my fourth month. And (don't shoot me for saying this) I've been very lucky in not having any morning sickness or any other major problems. I'm hoping that bodes well for the rest of the time. Anyway more later on everything!

Entirely too busy...

I am almost comatose, although I have had more stressful weeks, I am definitely done. A very exciting week nonetheless. One of the students in my department WON the Congressional Art show. Her artwork, a charcoal drawing entitled "Waiting for Dinner," will represent the 2nd Congressional district of New York. It will hang for one year in the halls of the US Capitol in Washington DC. She also received tickets to fly with her parents to Washington DC for a special artists reception and lunch with Congress. (The tickets were compliments of Southwest Airlines) Very exciting time for our school. For myself, I was finally able to find a used Ashford spinning wheel on e-bay. It arrived Tuesday, and I put it together. I just haven't had the time to sit and spin. Maybe Sunday. I'll post some pictures over the weekend showing off my new (used) wheel.

Llamas baby!

Wow, it seems like every time I sat down and tried to add a new post, something else came up. Anyway...it's Thursday evening, and I am wiped out. This has been a ridiculously busy week and it is not showing any signs of letting up. As part of my job, I take care of getting student artwork to various shows that come up during the year. As I mentioned in my earlier post, 2 students from my school won some major awards at one of the bigger high school art shows on Long Island, and the reception this past Sunday was wonderful (hot and crowded, but great!) Now this week brings 3 more art happenings, a local gallery hosts a show for surrounding high schools, that had to be delivered on Tuesday. Today we actually had work picked up for us...we had participated in a joint project with a local park called the Common Ground, which is short is a reflective garden dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11. This project involved the ceramics teacher whose classes made nature-inspired mosaic stepping stones (24 of them from scratch! not with pre-made tiles), the painting teacher whose classes created famous art scenes (like Starry Night and Christina's World) on industrial garbage cans, and the technology teacher whose woodworking classes created bird and butterfly houses. So all of these items were picked up from the high school today to be installed in the park. Lastly tomorrow I have to deliver 15 artworks to the American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport, for the Second District Congressional Art Show, hosted by our local Congressman Steve Israel. And of course this weekend brings with it the opening receptions for both of these shows. I will need a vacation very soon.

So last Sunday I went to a llama shearing at my LYS. Tabbethia (in the blue behind the llama) taught my spinning class earlier in the year. She owns a farm where she raises and shows (among other animals) llamas. She brought two of her award winners to shear behind the store.
That's WMF McLellan (Mac).

And this is:

MHF Double Take!

Now I grew up in Brooklyn, and the closest I've ever been to a llama was probably in a zoo, but...

here I am with Tabb and Mac! He's so soft and really friendly (and sort of smelly), but it was so cool to see her shear them. I will post all the pics soon on Flickr. I guess that's it for now...I will try to post some more over the weekend. It's supposed to rain so we'll see.