The conservative inability to consider others as people

A sign that says: "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people"My favourite aunt in law married a card carrying conservative guy. He is, like many of them, a wonderfully nice person when you’re a member of the in group and I actually do like him as a person.But his politics… Now, I have decided that I will not discuss politics with him until he’s back in the workforce. You see, the current conservative motto here is that people unjustifiably have a life and don’t work enough. There are plans to abolish the 8 hour work day for more “flexibility”, i.e. 12 hour shifts. They keep telling us that not only do we need to retire later, we also need to keep working once we are retired.

My conservative uncle? After he worked very hard to inherit money from his aunt, he decided at 63 that he has now worked enough and can live off his savings, especially since he’ll accomplish another great achievement by inheriting more money from his dad. So in short, he’s the perfect example of preaching water and drinking wine. There’s no use trying to argue with him, so I tried to steer clear of political topics at my cousin in law’s wedding last weekend, until…

Well, it wasn’t even a discussion, it was the perfect example of an old white man being completely unable to even consider that other people’s lives might be different from his. Somebody mentioned that food has gotten terribly expensive, as every statistic you care to look at will show, and while all other people in the group sighed and agreed, he told us that THEY hadn’t increased their food budget in three years. As a couple each of them contributes a fixed amount to their food budget, and while this isn’t how want to run a family budget, that’s none of my business. Anyway, he then explained that they achieve this by combing through the special offers, making a shopping list with the things they need and the places where they’re cheapest and then just go from one place to the other. I said: “Yeah, that’s good and well, but the two of you are both retired, you do have the time, us, we both work full time”, something that everybody should easily agree with, right? Oh no, I was informed that this had nothing to do with retirement. This was just a matter of planning and priorities! You see, looking for the offers just takes 10-20 minutes! A lie, if I ever saw one. It takes about 20 minutes for us to make a normal shopping list and that’s with us having a whiteboard on the cupboard where we write down what we need already. Comparing different supermarket brochures to find the best offers and combinations would surely take at least twice as long, if not longer. And of course it’s then just 2 to 3, maximum 4 different shops! All across town, of course…

I kindly informed him that I’m so busy, if he tells me that I have to spend just one more hour on shopping a week, I will cry. That was met with baffled silence. Again, he’s not a bad guy. If you told him “I need you here” he’d drop everything and come running. But he is completely unable to even recognise his own privilege. If he can do it, so can everybody else! I’m pretty sure that he’d pout if I even mentioned the word “privilege”, and I think he’s the poster boy of the kind of old white men who will be literally literally the death of us.

Teacher’s Corner: Keep your paws off the holidays and buy those damn pencils

A drawing of a yellow school bus in front of a blue sky with the words "Back to School"

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Ahhh, August. Summer, ice cream, ripe fruit … wasps and parents on social media.

There are two discussions on social media right now that I find highly problematic. One is as sure as the fruit fly invasion, the other one is relatively new, so let’s start with that one.

I saw complaints, on social media, in traditional media, usually from parents, that the school holidays are too long. This cry seems to be independent from the actual length of the summer holidays. Germany is towards the low end with 6 weeks, while Spain gets a whole three months. The complaint is that parents don’t have that many days off and that those long summer holidays are from a time when mothers stayed home.

Now, I fully understand that childcare is a problem for working parents. But really, forcing kids as young as 5 to conform to capitalism’s desire to control our lives? Is that the answer? Not to mention that the very same parents would then have two other problems:

First of all, not everybody can get days off from work at the same time. Not even in Europe. Already people have to coordinate with co workers. For years my husband and his colleague had to decide who’d get the first, and who’d get the last three weeks. No matter how long the holidays are, they’d only ever get half of them off, which means that either you and your spouse never get a holiday together, or you’d still be stuck with a childcare problem.

Second, family holidays are already expensive as fuck. Families are a captive audience, so to speak. Shorten the holidays, shorten the main season, see prices soar.

Which all leads me to the suspicion that they don’t actually want more education, they want childcare where they’re free to take the kids out of class for a holiday. And since they are all working under the false assumption that teachers have all those school breaks as paid time off, they want to punish us and make us “work like normal people”. But here’s a heads up: If we work like normal people, I will not call you, read or answer your emails or schedule an appointment after 4 pm or at the weekend. I will absolutely not grade at the weekend. Trips? Forget about it. A 4 days class trip is 60 unpaid hours. Oh, and I will take my days off when I want.

Also, how much do you actually hate your own kids? They made it through the year, they are exhausted, there’s a heat wave and you want them to sit in class and do homework? What parents should be asking for is cheap or free summer daycare*, but then poor kids might profit as well and I guess we can’t be having that. Instead parents demand that their kids be turned into good little workers.

*My kids had that in primary school and it was amazing. I could never have organised all those activities myself.

Imagine some clever way in which I linked the two topics here

Which leads me to the second part, the inevitable whining about school  supplies. Let me get my point clear before I continue: I’m the first person to demand that we finally properly finance education and also school supplies. Schools should get both the money and time to organise and buy the things needed, including exercise books, folders and pencils. But I guess until that moment, we’re stuck with the Karens on Instagram. (If we did, they’d probably complain about not liking the colour of the pencils).

What really annoys me about this discussion is that it takes away attention from actual issues with school supplies: They can be a huge burden for poor families, especially when a kid starts school. Every year I have to collect (as a teacher) and pay (as a parent) “photocopy money”, to pay for each and any copy  we make. On top of the usual supplies, this can be quite difficult, especially if you have more kids. I always inform my students to discreetly tell me if they need more time. I’ll then put my broad back between them and administration and take the blame for not handing the money in.

Another issue is that there are colleagues who do use this as a personal self fulfillment trip with seriously ridiculous demands. I once had a colleague who insisted on fountain pens in year 8. Like, WTF?

But all that justified criticism gets drowned out by the Karens and Sabines*, usually financially safe white women, crying about having to spend two hours shopping for supplies and another two hours with labelling them, if they care to do so. Why don’t the teachers do it???, they want to know. Well, maybe because you’re not paying me. Just a guess. Why would I spend even more unpaid hours and pay with my own money, hoping that in a couple of months you will deign to pay me back? I already spend more on supplies for other people’s kids than I spend on my own kids. And again, what message are you sending to your kid? That school and education are not your priority. That you don’t really care. Lady, that’s not a good look.

*Of course it’s not the Todds and Martins who do this because they don’t even know what year their kid is in.

To finish my rant, parents and their ever growing sense of entitlement are really the worst part of the job. So if you’re friends with a teacher, remember to keep them from social media in August and maybe give them some pencils.

Giliell goes electric part 2: I want to ride my bicycle

Bikes are great, there’s no doubt about it. They allow you to move relatively quickly with ease and are great exercise. Whenever you have a discussion about changing the way we go from A to B (because cars ARE a really inefficient way to do so), at least in Germany you’ll hear about the Netherlands and their cycling infrastructure. Which is great. And yes, better cycling infrastructure gets more people to cycle. But it’s also an undeniable truth that the Netherlands are mostly flat, while right here the only street names that don’t end in “hill” or “mountain” are those that end in “valley” or “vale”. If you think I’m kidding, I grew up in the “Eagle mountain street” and I now live in the “Oakwood vale”. Which means that cycling around here is great for exercise, but bad for transportation. My daily commute is 8km one way, uphill and downhill. Can I cycle 8km uphill and downhill? Absolutely! Am I presentable and able to work a full work day afterwards? Nope, no way. In comes the ebike and a program that makes leasing one a no brainer.

The ebike is a game changer in individual transportation. It allows people who are not super fit to use a bike as a means of transportation, riding comfortably without over exerting yourself and it allows fit people to expand their range. Also, there’s a program that’s called “job bike”: you choose an ebike and you lease it from a company. But your monthly payment is deducted from your gross salary, thereby reducing your taxes, so in the end you pay a lot less than the actual nominal fee. Now that I finally have a stable contract I qualify for the program and went on hunting for a bike.

There are two small independent sellers that participate in the program and one big sports chain. I went to all three of them, and in the end bought at the big chain. Not because of the price (though that also played a role), but because the people there who are salaried employees were the only ones who acted like they wanted to sell me a bike, while the owners at one of the small ones acted like I was wasting their time  while the other just couldn’t offer what I wanted.

Anyway, so here’s my new bike. I’ve done a test run to school and back. It takes 20minutes instead of 12 and is a comfortable ride, mostly on bike lanes. I just need to get out of “gym mode”, remembering that I actually don’t want to do a sweaty cardio workout. Now I need to convince the bosses that we need a decent teachers only bike rack.

Oh, and I’ve also run into my first “no good enougher” on the internet when talking about the bike. What’s a not good enougher? That’s somebody, usually a single male urban somebody, who will dismiss any and all small efforts you make to use less energy or produce less carbon dioxide as “not good enough”. You changed your combustion car for an EV? Why do you need a car anyway? The healthy single man living in an urban area an working from home doesn’t, so neither do you? You made a nice vegan meal using vegan minced meat? Why do you use “ultra processed food”? You got an ebike? No healthy person needs electric support! You know the type, right? Amazingly, they’re rarely working mums, unless their job is social media. They move goalposts so fast you’d think that the speed of light was getting envious.

But they won’t spoil my fun. Financially this won’t save me a dime, but it will hopefully be fun and still provide some additional exercise. We do what we can and recognise that not all things are for everybody.

Adolescence, mini series, a review (Spoilers, of course)

Image of a young boy in the froeground. In the background you have a middle aged white man on the left and a similarly aged black man on the right. All look straight towards the viewer

Copyright: Netflix

After hearing all about it, I watched the Netflix mini series. It was hyped to be about how the internet turns young boys into misogynists, about Incels and the manosphere. I was hoping for some actual content about these matters for so far uneducated people, and boy was I disappointed. In the end, I watched it so you can do something better with your time.

Episode 1: The crime (not actual titles)

The series starts with the police storming the house of the Miller family early in the morning, arresting their 13 years old son, who promptly pees himself. Why that arrest needed to be made in this frankly brutal and disturbing way is beyond me, except to frame the boy as a kid, scared, in his PJs, in his nice little single family home. You know, somebody you should feel sorry for. Afterwards everybody is really decent towards him, calming him down, treating him kindly. If you don’t know the premise yet, you’re wondering what is actually the matter here. The episode deals mostly with the legal shenanigans, who is going to be his “responsible adult” (his dad), getting a lawyer, collecting evidence, etc, until we come to the questioning. The boy is questioned on the murder of a girl from his class, where he had been the night before, etc. His dad asks him when they’re alone if he has done anything and he steadfastly denies any wrongdoing. Then the DI shows the CCTV where you can clearly see him stab the girl to death. At this point, it still could have become a decent series, and I will say that both acting and directing the story that they chose to tell is superb, especially by Owen Cooper, who plays Jamie, the young murderer.  The episode ends with the shocked father laying down flowers at the place where the murder happened and the viewer is now left with the question of “why”.

 

Episode 2: The investigation

This is where the show turns sour to my taste. In this episode the DI (male, the guy in the picture on the right) and the DS (female, of course) visit Jamie’s school to find out why this happened, to talk to his friends and classmates. The two adults stumble cluelessly through the comprehensive school from hell, where kids are just on their phones all the time and the teachers just leave them alone don’t even bother teaching anymore (while for some reason the building is nice and clean). I know, teaching and schools are in a crisis, in the UK as much as elsewhere, but come on. But it sets a pretty contrast to the orderly loving home. Obviously, if anything went wrong it must be here, rather than at home. We get to know the victims best friend, the angry black girl, we get to know Jamie’s friends, but in the end the DI’s estranged son who coincidentally goes to the same school tells his dad about the online codes in the exchanges between Jamie and his victim, only that here the idea is that she bullied him online, calling him an incel. This should have been the point where the series dove deep into the toxic masculinity of the online world, into a world where Andrew Tate poisons the minds of young boys and men. But instead we’re left wondering how Katie, the victim, was nasty to poor Jamie. This another one of the big shortcomings: The victim remains mostly faceless. She is a prop for the storytelling. We get a glimpse at her through her best friend, but that’s it. After this episode, she is hardly mentioned again, nor is the impact that her death has on her friends and family. We get to know more about the DI and his relationship (if you can call it that) to his son, his thoughts and feelings, than about the victim. The DS is clearly just there to give the man somebody to talk to (not so much with). Her character remains flat as a piece of paper. The episode ends with the DI taking his son out for lunch, apparently in an attempt to make up for his previous neglect. We never see any of these people again.

Episode 3: The psychologist

This episode is the one where we’re somewhat dealing with toxic masculinity. Jamie is in a holding centre for youths, awaiting his trial. A psychologist visits him, to write a report for the trial. This is not the first visit, nor is she the first psychologist. Of course this psychologist is female. She brings him hot chocolate with marshmallows and tries to talk to him about the men in his life and about masculinity. When pushed on the issue Jamie, who still denies having committed the crime despite being on video, becomes violent, throws items, and frankly enjoys scaring the psychologist. This is the one where we actually see who he is: an angry young man who enjoys hurting women, who has zero remorse or accountability. He accidentally confesses his crime, only to walk it back again. We learn that his victim was also a victim of revenge porn and that he had approached her, saying that since she was damaged goods already, she might as well hook up with him, but her rejection was what made him finally kill her.  I consider this the best episode. It dealt well with how he is, but again, it leaves the question of how he became like that completely unanswered.

Episode 4: The dad

Infuriating in missing the mark. The episode deals with the Miller family and how they’re dealing with the situation. Did I say the Miller family? I meant the Miller dad. This episode shows how the producers actually avoided any and all critical thinking on masculinity. While they want to celebrate the father’s 50’s birthday, they discover that somebody sprayed “nonce” on the father’s van. From this moment on, the whole family has to deal with his rage and mother and daughter are busy handling his mood and emotions. They appease him at every single turn. And while his rage might make the viewer uncomfortable, it is also shown in a sympathetic way. The poor man is under such a lot of stress, the poor man is breaking. What about his wife? What about his daughter? How do they deal with being known as the murderer’s family? Especially the teenage daughter? We don’t find out because those two are so damn busy doing the emotional labour of handling the father’s emotions. At one point the parents actually talk about what has happened and how they had thought that their son was safe when he was in his room with his computer. The mother mentions that unlike her husband, she sometimes still can’t believe it, because unlike him, she hasn’t seen that video, and the father has the damn audacity that it should have been her in that room. That one time when his son actually asked for his support, when he needed to be present, he wishes that he could have dumped that burden on his wife as well. The series ends there. During the episode we get to know that Jamie is finally pleading “guilty”, but we don’t know what brought on this change, whether it was him finally taking responsibility, or him hoping for a lesser sentence.

In the end, it’s a series by men, about men, for men. That promotional image I posted at the top pretty much says it all. There’s 4 episodes, each one centred around one character, and the one woman is missing. It never critically investigates online culture and communities. It completely fails to understand the link between the dad’s casual violence and entitlement to female emotional labour, and the son’s brutal misogyny. It frames this discourses as something that happens to boys, instead of something that is perpetrated by boys. It touches on revenge porn, but then tosses the topic aside quickly, not caring about the mostly female victims. It fails to investigate communities and family structures. My friend has a son, and she liked it and was so worried about her son becoming like that, without her being able to do anything about it, as if it was a sentence handed down by god that your son has to end up in the manosphere with the parents being unable to do anything about it. It hits different when you are a mother of two teenage girls who would be blamed for her on deaths because they were not nice enough to some creepy boy.

Teacher’s Corner: It’s Ramadan

I am a life-long atheist. I didn’t have to deconvert  and I’d go as far as saying that I’m anti theist, because I do think that religion is a net evil in the world. But here and now I share the planet mostly with religious people and for the majority of my teaching career I’ve been teaching at schools with large Muslim populations, so I’m well used to the month of Ramadan, where Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Thankfully, it’s moving backwards in the year, now being in early spring and no longer in the middle of summer. Those years were pretty hard. I won’t say I’m a fan of children not eating and especially not drinking, but I also understand that it’s important for the kids. Where religion takes a backseat for most of Germany’s Christians, it’s still at the centre of most Muslim children’s identity, especially of those who arrived from Syria in recent years. It’s not just religion, it’s a piece of home.

With that in mind, it’s important to me to support my students, all my students, in growing into the best version of themselves and they can only do that when they’re feeling safe, accepted and respected. We’re talking a lot about teaching kids respect and tolerance, but many colleagues simply don’t do that themselves.

I took over a year 5 ethics class* four measly weeks ago, and this week the Muslim kids practically ambushed me during break because of one of my colleagues. During class, one of the Muslim kids had not felt well and was tired. The teacher asked him what was up, he said he was fasting, and she turned around and audibly murmured about “victim religion”, which greatly upset the kids. How, I mean how on earth can you do that to kids? Does she think that any learning was happening after that remark? And most of all, does she think those kids will trust her when she tries to teach them about humanist values? In my experience, if you turn it into an “either your religion or being part of our community” situation, their religion wins. From that point on, any new idea will be seen as an attack on their faith. Also, they’re children. They’re still closely linked to their families of origin. If you bring them into conflict with their families, you put them in a position they shouldn’t be in.

Also, in my experience, if you treat them with respect, you can set some ground rules that will be accepted. My rule is that we don’t comment on how another person practises their faith. If or when to fast, or wear a hijab, varies greatly between groups and populations, and I especially don’t need any competition about who’s the best Muslim. I tell them that if Allah is almighty, he doesn’t need 5th graders to do his work. This works well for me. They understand that this rule protects them as much as it binds them. They know that their way is accepted and tolerated, and in return they tolerate others. That’s how you actually teach those values, and not by insulting 10 year olds who can’t argue back.

 

  • In Germany school must provide religious education for Catholics and Lutheran protestants. If you don’t belong to those groups, you get ethics class. I teach them quite a lot and like them pretty well.

It’s been a Bluey kind of week

Me and the kids, we love Bluey. While the girls are officially out of the target age by about 10-12 years, they are  also in that sweet spot where they feel nostalgia for their childhood definitely being over and evaluating things from a more mature perspective. Not always the most comfortable spot to be in, as a parent. Also, it’s sometimes frightening how much the Heelers resemble our family taht we’ve been wondering if the Australian government is spying on us. Anyway, I had 10 days of no school and I actually took a week to take care of things outside of school, having pulled 50+ hours weeks ever since the year started. Which means: crafting time!

First of all, while we already have a Bluey plushie that the little one got for her birthday, we clearly needed a Bingo as well. The pattern was no problem, with the amazing Choly Knight offering one for free. What was difficult was finding three corresponding fabrics. I now have about 8 or 9 different browns and tans, because you can never tell exactly from the pics on screen. (Please don’t tell me that I should shop locally. The local fabric store has business hours that don’t work for people with jobs.) They’ll get used up eventually, I’m sure.

After that, the sewing and embroidery could start and the pattern turned out to be about 95% the same as the commercially made Bluey, because how else are you going to do that.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Finally the Heeler sisters are united again and my little “Bingo” has a Bingo to cuddle.

Next, I had a bag that I’d gotten as a freebie. It’s a sensible shoulder bag, but it was booooring, so I added some embroidered patches.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The only problem here is that nothing sticks to corduroy. I think I’ll have to sew them on in a few select spots.

And, last but not least, my new favourite denim jacket. I bought the jacket on a kind of Ebay for second hand clothing, because it’s difficult to get second hand stuff in my size in regular stores. While I was shopping the Kid #1 asked for some new pyjama pants and I mus say, sometimes the people on these platforms are weird. My jacket was 9 bucks including shipping, which was about the usual range, only brand name ones were priced at 20 bucks. And that jacket looks like it’s pretty new. And then there’s people who offer clearly used Aldi and Lidl pyjamas for something close to the original price… Yeah, no, I don’t think that is going to sell quickly.

Back to my jacket.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Isn’t it the best? I wonder what the kids at school will say. I do have to strengthen my reputation as the weird teacher, and Bluey knows that I will!

P.S. Did you know that apparently some conservative moms are upset about finding out that Bluey, a blue heeler, is indeed a girl despite being, you know, blue?

German elections, quick and dirty rundown

So Germany has voted, and yes, it’s bad, but it could be a lot worse. We needed early elections after the FDP (libertarians) broke up the coalition with the SPD (labour) and the Greens. The campaigns were overshadowed by two deadly attacks by Afghani refugees, one probably with an islamist background.

First, the naked data, and yes, it looks grim:

See post

Source: Tagesschau

The black ones are the conservatives. Their leader worked together with the far right AfD to “stop immigration” a few weeks ago, sparking wide protests all over the country. Merz will be our next chancellor and apart from his politics, his Black Rock past and lack of experience, he is lacking the character to lead a country. They are the strongest party, followed by the far right AfD, Elon’s and Trump’s favourites.

SPD and Greens lost big, also pretty much deserved. they allowed the FDP to run the show and they also allowed the conservatives and the right wingers to dominate the whole discourse with nothing but immigration.

Then we have the FDP, who rightly got kicked out. Their treachery didn’t pay off and neither did their ultra libertarian course.

And the BSW, the “Union Sarah Wagenknecht”, which split off the party “die Linke” (the left) about a year ago, because the Left wasn’t racist and homophobic enough. Actually, they’re mostly like the AfD minus the ultra capitalist angle. I always say that Sarah puts the “national” in “socialist”. She’s also an absolute Putin pal. Good riddance.

Leaves us with the Left. Now, that’s where my sympathies lie. I know, their Ukraine policy is shit and my one big issue, but I’ll say this: if you think that their Ukraine policy is a dealbreaker, but can overlook the Greens’ and the SPD’s policy on Palestine, then be at least honest: you don’t care about human rights, you care about white people. What is amazing is that after the split off, everybody thought that was it. In the polls, they were at 3%, well below the magiv 5% you need to make it into parliament. And then they did something no other party did: they actually fought for the  votes. They refused to bow to the “we need to stop refugees” narrative and were the only party to have a truly humanist position. They were also the only ones that positioned other topics like high rents and inflation. They pushed hard on social media, actually reaching young voters and made a huge come back.

And this is why I’m not desperate. Before the CDU started campaigning, they consistently polled way above 30%, at 37% at their highest. And then their shenanigans lost them a lot of votes, with only a minority of them going to the AfD (about 1%).

Now the work begins. Since Merz deemed to insult all of those protesting against fascism as “not having all the cups in the cupboard” (aka being several cards short of a full deck), the motto is: get up, fill the coffee cup, keep fighting!white coffee mug with rainbow heart

Hippo New Year (with plush)

I’ll say it out oud, 2024was not my favourite year. Apart from the world going to shit, I had to deal with a lot of health problems and I don’t like that. Also work was very stressful, especially towards the end of the year. With roughly 1/3 of people being sick, the rest of us worked a lot of overtime and I just made it to the christmas break before going down as well.

But at least I got a break and got myself a gift: time to make a pattern I’ve been wanting to make for months but didn’t have the time: a baby hippo modelled on the infamous Moo Deng

The face pieces nearly drove me nuts, and I didn’t wire the legs because that cutie lives in my bed, and I’m totally in love with her.

Image of a plush hippo, front. You can see the wide open pink mouth, the feet and one ear.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Side veiw of the hippo. You can see the chubby legs and the neck rolls

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Side view of hippo sitting

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Close up of face

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Invasive but Cute

Nutria have been a nuisance in Europe for some decades now, having escaped and been released from fur farms. In areas where there are dikes they can pose a risk, but otherwise they’re pretty harmless neozotes. They’re also cute as fuck. My area has a pretty amount of natural and artificial ponds and the nutria, being pretty ok with humans in proximity, make good use of areas that their shyer relatives like beavers avoid. Our local pond has been populated by them since last year and yesterday we took a walk around it. Did I say “pretty ok with humans?”. Well, actively investigating us would be more accurate. As I took out my phone, this fellow came over to investigate whether that thing might be edible. The whiskers do tickle.

Pic of a nutria that poinbts its nose towards the camera. Nose and whiskers are in focus, the rest of the animal fades into the background

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A very Shark Look

A common prejudice against teachers is that we have so much free time, because a lot of people think that school holidays = teacher holidays and end of schoolday = end of workday. Sure, people do see my car parked all snug and safe at 2 pm, they don’t see me sitting at my desk at 10 pm. Same with the holidays: not only is it the time when we’re reducing our overtime, it’s also grading and preparation time. Not to mention that nobody cares if you are sick during that time, the grading is still expected.

But here still is some free time left so I used my new work area to get something done I bought the material for last year: A shark hoodie. We absolutely love sharks. Dolphins, those guys are assholes, but sharks? Cool!

Side view of a woman wearing a hoodie with a shark fin on top and eyes on the side

©Giliell, all rights reserved

3/4 front view of the woman in the hoodie. You can see the shark teeth in the hood

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Actually I’ll claim that this is medically necessary as my neck should be kept warm and nothing is cozier than a hoodie.

Back to the Cutting Table

Off.

Did you hear that, when I finally finished? I just completed a major project on my journey to a less cluttered house (which is all part of our devious plan to get a dog).

My office/sewing room is a pretty big room with a large window front. My desk and my sewing table stand at a right angle to the windows, what is left of the walls has bookshelves and cupboards and some chests of drawers. This leaves a pretty big space in the middle, which got constantly more and more cluttered. No crafty person has ever enough storage space, neither does any teacher, and the combination is a lot. Any attempt at cleaning up was doomed to fail since I didn’t have any storage space.

I finally got fed up and decided to do something about it. Especially since the master plan is to get the house into a state where it’s possible to add a fluffy four legged family member to the mayhem. The idea was to take some chests of drawers the right height to work on them standing, out them back to back with some space in between, and then add two desk tops to make one big surface.

Problem 1: the Ikea Malm chests either come in 80cm (too low) or 100 cm (too high). I finally went for the 80 cm and added feet, which was no easy feat, since Ikea furniture is not made for “unauthorised” changes. We had to add some pieces of wood with some metal angles to create enough surface to add the hardware store feet. Halfway through I was like “fuck that shit, we’ll return the one chest we haven’t opened yet and get kitchen cupboards, they come with feet, but then I saw the price tag and decided, I could stick with my original plan.

Problem 2: The original plan was to create a surface of 1.6m x1.6m. While this fitted, it made the room too cramped. We finally decided on 1.4×1.6. Now the ready made desk tops were too large and need to be returned. It wanted to buy some solid wood panels, but they absolutely don’t come in the sizes I need. I’d have to buy 4 pieces of  40cm x 200cm  and then have 60 cm cut off each panel. This seemed like a lot of waste, plus it would cost another 150€, so I decided on two laminated boards that would fit in between, which leads us to ….

Problem 3: The Malm chests are pressed flake boards where you have little chance of adding a decent screw. In the end we glued and screwed some strips to the backsides of the chests so the boards can rest on top. At this point I was ready to throw everything out of the window. This works, kind of, but I think I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy those wood panels. In the end, it just took 4 more days to clean everything up, but look at this!

View of the two chests of drawwers, with the sewing table in the background

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I finally have the possibility to clean up, let’s hope it stays that way.

Have some Sheep

It’s been a week and a half since school started and I really could do with some holidays. It’s not the kids, it’s being new at with a new class. Having to do all the administration while significantly lacking in knowing how to is a drag. Each school has their perfect system and, well. It’s also funny what is pretty normal at one school but an absolute no go at another. Because I need a holiday, you get some holiday pictures.

A white sheep on green grass in front of the blue sea

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Sheep are vital in maintaining the dikes. Their hooves put just enough pressure on the ground to make it hard enough, their grazing is just right to encourage the grass to grow deep and strong. Cows are too heavy, goats are too greedy.  Sheep are also cute. While most will run away when humans approach, there’s always one or two that enjoy cuddles. Yes, I cuddled a sheep. It was very fluffy.

So enjoy your fluffy holiday break.

white sheep on a green dike. The sea is far in the back

©Giliell, all rights reserved