Helloooo again...

It has definitely been a while.  Second year of teaching has far surpassed first year of teaching in stress overload.  I really set the bar high for myself this year, and I've been teaching a new class, so it has been kicking my butt for 10 months.  Nevertheless, I am seeing that light at the end of this tunnel, and baby it looks good!

Anyway, due to my workload, many of my "projects" since August have been creating materials for my classroom that are, frankly, not something I should really be doing for this salary.  The time, thought, etc., that has gone into them just was a bit overboard.  For that reason, I am officially going to try to go the route of textbook development/design, which will still involve me teaching for a few more years.  I'm going to start with some graphic design classes this summer (it has been quite a while since my last one), and perhaps some type of editing.  I have the education background, and I've been essentially developing my own curriculum--in some cases for lack of organization of the existing curriculum, in others because the textbook materials are not based on current research.  So there!  I'm extremely excited about getting back in some art classes!  Considering a ceramics class too :)

I have, of course, found some time for projects along the way this year.  Jeff and I moved in December to a much more awesome abode, which left a bit more space for a few new pieces of furniture.  I rarely buy new furniture, so here is the stereo/record cabinet we bought:

We got it for dirt cheap at a thrift store.  Someone had removed the old stereo--though we're not sure if they wanted the stereo itself and not the cabinet or wanted to put a different stereo inside it.  It was strange.  Anyway, we were very happy with the situation because we had a vintage stereo/turntable/speakers that had no home.  It was a surprisingly difficult project (they really used to make furniture well!), but it turned out amazingly well:

We are quite pleased with it!

And also, we found ourselves in need of a hutch of some sort to store all the dishes/barware we got for wedding gifts (2 years ago, yikes), so we found a delightful piece with an undesirable paint job at a different thrift store just days later.  We had to sand it:

Added some much-needed wood glue:

Then a few coats of semi-gloss black, and here she is (not a great quality photo, unfortunately):

That's all for now.  I hope to update more often now that school is about to end for a little while.