Tangled Threads....

Any crafter knows that sometimes, when you are working with any kind of threads that you occasionally hit a major snarl in things where something gets knotted and you just have to stop everything and pick out the knot before you can carry on.

I’M STUCK IN A PILE OF KNOTS!!! This whole week has been absolute chaos and if I had longer hair, I probably would have yanked it out by now. A thunderstorm swept through yesterday morning as the kids were getting on the bus, so I came home and got to work on some computer stuff before starting the illustration work. First of all, Erin’s Vice-Principal called to ask us about putting Erin in a 6/7 split class next year as one of 8 grade 6 students rather than in the straight grade 6 class. Then a client called in a panic with a problem to fix and before I knew it, it was almost noon. Last night, I worked on Santa’s Dragon, my big design release for Charlotte, because I am still worried that it might not be finished in time.

No problem! I still had a day and a half before my darling daughters are done school and joyfully underfoot for the summer... right? To make a long story short and spare you the sneezing, snonking and retching sounds, Erin is not in school today. Her asthma medicine must always be taken on a full stomach and you can’t take a decongestant before you take it... so she did not get on the bus this morning.

The school called in an absolute panic after I’d left my message on the Safe Arrival machine because she is going to receive an award tonight at the graduation/awards night and they wanted to know how sick she really was! With Nick doing the graduation ceremony in Petitcodiac tonight, that will mean taking a cab to the school, but it will be worth it if she’s feeling better. We’ll see in a few hours.

So what did we decide about the split grade? Her academic work is high enough that they feel she’d be a perfect candidate (that’s actually what she is receiving an award for tonight) but we’ve been down this road twice already. I had promised the school that I would think about it and talk it over with Nick before making a decision. I also had a chance to call my sister yesterday for her perspective, since she was in a combined class and actually skipped a year afterwards! Nick and I both feel that she would be much better off in the straight 6 class next year, but that if there is ever a split grade where she is one of the older students rather than the younger (as she was in grade 3 being in a 2/3 split) we would be happy. Last year in a 4/5 class, she felt too much pressure always measuring herself up to kids doing the grade 5 work. I also want to let her enjoy maturing at her own pace socially instead of trying to keep up with grade 7 students. We thanked them for the offer, but politely declined as her parents.

So, just as I FINALLY get set to draw this morning, I end up untangling another knot with the scheduling for the CSNF in the fall and another cool lecture that they’d like Doug, Teresa and I to do...

It’s now almost 11:30 am and I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much of anything this week except spin in circles... I actually feel like I am sitting inside the middle of some mobius loop, thread hair ball trying to untangle enough threads to find my way out of the maze!

At least I like playing with thread.... At least I like what I try to do for a living.... but Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!!!