Early June

Sorry for so few entries lately. Right now I am preparing for my summer teaching schedule. This includes classes for the UW-Eau Claire Summer Institute and SmART Summer Art programs. In addition to a fun art course for primary grades, I have added a new course called Eco-art. I will do a version for upper elementary and one for high school kids. So I am busy preparing my supplies and fine tuning the activities. While I am excited about including some clay straw building along with rust and mud dyed cloth, the preparation is overwhelming at the moment. The immediacy is heightened because this weekend I travel to Pittsburgh for my Aunt Dora's 90th birthday celebration.

The weekend was consumed with a pizza party we offered for our church auction. We have a wonderful brick oven out at our "farm" that my husband built for me when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. I am fine now, by the way. It seems that building something that will outlast us was his way of coping with the news. This is a phenomenon I have witnessed in other couples. Now we get wood fired pizza and bread. How healthy! There is a wonderful mud and straw bird's nest full of new hatchlings inside the oven shed. I am anxious to see how big they grow this week.