Painful admissions...

Okay, I have been horridly naive about my mouse problem. Foolish me, I kept thinking there was only one mouse, and every time I caught one, another moved in. I caught two today. I drove the first one over to the same field where I let his brother go. The second one is in a deep plastic pitcher, and he is a feisty one, almost managed to jump out before I put the lid on. Needed to bait the trap again right away. I couldn't find the peanut butter, it got behind the milk somehow, so I used raspberry jam. My mice seem to prefer that. Will it ever end? Let us hope so. I plan on putting a lamp by the dog door if I leave it open at night. I notice my mice do not like the light very much.

Didn't get to pick up Punkin today. He missed his plane. So he is arriving on a late flight tomorrow instead. This is probably a good thing, what with all the mouse excitement, and the half day teaching sixth graders a lesson in fine art. Now, I thought these kids would be mature. Boy, was I wrong. I remember being 5'8" tall in 6th grade. I read Gone with the Wind that year (and Lolita, though my mother still doesn't know that). It was interesting to note that almost no one did the lesson as I taught it. And since my whole thrust was individual, personal creations in whatever colors they wanted, that was okay. My worst fear was that there would not be enough time to finish the project. In my first class, everyone was pretty much done 25 minutes early. I got them to work a little more, here and there, gave them more information, then had them come up, 3 or 4 at a time, to show their art, and everyone got a hand. My friend to roped me into this was thrilled with the outcome. I kind of felt that they could have done better. $80 worth of pastels got thoroughly beat up, but they now belong to the school anyway. I got paid, yay. And I stretched myself. Comfort zone is now larger than ever. And I am really tired. Have all kinds of new respect for teachers, let me tell you. Some of those boys would be hard to handle one on one. Everyone said they had fun. Hey, I did, too. A couple of kids did amazing work. I was properly amazed by each child's rendering, how different they all were, how intense they were about the process. Would be nice to think an artist or two was born today.