Gifts in the mail

Since last Friday, I have received not one, not two, but three lovely gifts in the mail from fellow knitters. Last Friday, my talented friend Laura from the Motherhood Later group sent me one of her awesome felted vessels:


Isn't it cool? Laura is the person who suggested that we send RAKs to each other in the Motherhood Later group to celebrate our group's anniversary, and she told me that she had me in mind when she made the suggestion. And what is really cool is that she is the person to whom I sent my anniversary RAK!

Yesterday, a nice, soft envelope from my friend Kelli was waiting in the mailbox. She sent me a copy of a pattern (a free pattern, people - no copyright laws violated); I had admired a market bag that someone had made for her and she tracked down the pattern. She also enclosed three skeins of Nashua Handknits Painted Forest in a luscious Jewels colorway, not to make the market bag but perhaps a warm hat for those cold New York winters ahead! It was so kind and so typical of Kelli to send such a thoughtful and unexpected gift.

Then today another envelope arrived, this one from Florida. It was from a person in the Handmade RAK group and she made a Pokemon card holder for Aidan in his (current) favorite color of orange:


As you can see, he is delighted with the card case! Let's just hope it cuts down on the number of stray Pokemon cards that I find throughout the house.

Three gifts in one week, which makes me wonder: are knitters the most generous people on earth? Or do I just happen to know wonderful people? Yes, and yes!

Meet the teacher

Yesterday afternoon, we met Aidan's teacher for the coming school year. It started at 4 pm but Aidan was so excited that he started asking to leave around 2 pm! I managed to hold him off until the reasonable departure time of 3:50, although we still got there quite ahead of James, who was coming from work.

The school was the usual Meet the Teacher chaos of parents, children, bored and/or crying siblings, teachers and staff. We found Aidan's class easily and met Mrs. Corley, who will soon be our darling's new favorite person, at least until the first time she disciplines him. Mrs. Corley seems like a good combination of warmth and steel. Aidan was delighted to find that three of his classmates from last year will be in this year's class, and I was delighted to find that one child in particular from his class last year is NOT in his class this year.

We delivered the bag o'supplies, filled out the requisite paperwork and took home more paperwork to complete. At the transportation desk, we were thrilled - ECSTATIC, really - to learn that the World's Greatest Bus Driver, Mr. Kemberling, will be Aidan's bus driver again this year. Mr. Kemberling is punctual, reliable, watchful and careful, all wonderful qualities to find in a school bus driver. He is also friendly, an added bonus.

James and Aidan then left, and I went to help sell school spirit wear: t-shirts, pencils, jewelry and those ubiquitous car magnets.

Side note: There are enough things about my station wagon that scream "mom!" without adding a stupid school magnet.

I enjoyed chatting with a few people and seeing some of Aidan's classmates, but our table stayed quite busy the whole time and we had to hustle to keep up. I am amazed at the amount of money that some parents dropped to outfit their children in school t-shirts! Six pm was a happy sight; we packed up the goods, stored them in the PTO workroom and I was free to go home and enjoy that well-deserved cocktail.

And thus begins another school year.