Not So Magically…

Well that’s a lot more rain than I think we were expecting last night. I always laugh when I hear people say that the rain helps them sleep, those nice, soft, rhythmic sounds. Oh yeah. That shit wakes me up. So do coyotes howling. So does Simba’s pissed-off response to coyotes on his property. Random boofing a full 30 minutes after they left does not keep them away, dude. Trust me. I’m a little rough this morning. Sleep is not my friend. Well, I think we COULD be friends, but only if it hung around and stop staring at its phone when it was with me.

So I was wrong about yesterday…I thought I was only in the 300s on the tracing, but I was in the 400s…and magically, now I am in the 500s.

OK, not so magically. I actually spent time tracing…because I finally finished grading that makeup assignment from hell. Totally revising how I do this next time. A. No one can turn anything back in without filling out something that proves they did further research. B. Give them a sheet to mark for what they fixed. I can’t expect 7th graders to write that in an email. Only 4 of them did it appropriately and they were all girls. Thank you, X chromosomes!

Kitten watched me trace yesterday.

Oh yeah, we planted the lime tree we got from a friend’s house finally. We were waiting for the trees to be trimmed and then for the local utilities to mark, because we hit some weird pipe that apparently does nothing.

Big hole…

Easier to do now, when the dirt is mostly wet…

Seriously rootbound…it was in a pot for about 5 years, we think, based on the label still on the tree. The spider plants aren’t helping with that.

The pot shattered when the boychild tried to pull it out.

Pieces of the random pipe we found in the hole…plus the tree root we thought was a wire…

It was wirelike.

Boychild pulled the spider plants off and put them aside to plant out on the slope or in pots, and then slashed the roots to try to help this tree grow here.

And then she went in the ground…the plan is for two more in this area…a lemon and an avocado.

All this used to be lawn. Not a fan. When the kids were little, it made sense. Not so much any more. Sure it’s possible someone with a family might move in here when I leave/die, but that’ll be a long way out, so I’m doing what I want now.

I have way too many cute pictures of sleeping kittens from yesterday…

Well, those aren’t sleeping. They’re cleaning each other.

There was a lot of sleeping yesterday.

They are adorable. Until they rip a hole in your finger or try to eat your backpack or pull your work bag onto the floor.

We also walked the dogs (and me. I like to walk). Coyote noise near the end…and a couple of loose dogs.

That shit drives me crazy. Not a dog park.

OK, the old lady dog is sad because I didn’t feed her. She doesn’t know she is having a tooth pulled this morning so she can’t have breakfast. So I get sad face. I need to go to school for a meeting and then I’ll be listening to presentations all day. It’s been fun watching the kids try to post the assignment and/or share it with me. It’s good that they care. It’s a group grade, though, and I got one email from a kid saying another kid on her team had wrong info and she was telling me so it wouldn’t affect her grade. Um. No. Go talk to your co-worker. Before you have me. This is fixable y’all. Then I have tutoring after school, plus a run to Home Depot for some food for that poor lime tree. It will be fine…it was a good time to get it in the ground. Then more tracing tonight! Yay. I probably won’t finish, based on the rate I’m going, but it’s all a step forward. Looking forward to the fabric part, and that’s a ways out. UGH. Sleep, you are mean.