I'm taking Lara's suggestion to make an embroidered Elizabethan jacket for my next project, but after reading the article about the Maidstone jacket on Extreme Costuming, I think I'm going to start with accessories. Yeah, 1,900 hours on one piece over a year and four months, which the maker admits consumed all of her spare time, except for the 2-week break her husband forced on her is not do-able by next year's Kingdom A&S. I just ordered two embroidered coif patterns from Reconstructing History. I figure I'll try the coif, maybe a little pouch, and then work up to the jacket. It would totally be a winter outfit, but a plain, lightly boned kirtle (like, oh, the Ren Fair Irish dress patterns?) with a jacket would be awesome.

Almost done with the quilt! I've finished all the quilting, I'm working on sewing up the edges now, and it's done! Yea! I will post pictures when all the sewing is finished.

I ran into the lady whose job I was originally supposed to take this year when we were out for dinner on Friday. She was very nice, she asked where I was now, and how I was doing. She is now teaching music at another school. I asked her what happened at the other school, and she said she didn't know, she was just as surprised as everyone else, and then she said, very firmly "but we're much happier where we are now." So, it looks like that job falling through was a good thing, after all.

So far, I like the new job. There are a few things I don't like, the slightly lower pay and slightly longer hours, but I feel good about it. I've come to realize that one of the most important things about a job is knowing that the boss has your back. Even if you don't like everything about it, even if they occasionally fall short, if they really try to work with you, it makes all the difference in the world. Thinking back on it, I really became disenchanted with my old job the week that my assistant had a nervous breakdown. It was the very end of the 2007/2008 school year, and my assistant at the time was having some kind of personal drama, and she fell apart. For most of that week, she didn't come to work, she only called in once, and the rumor was she was staying out to drown her sorrows. I can only imagine how mortified her children must have been over this crap. I had 18 kids in my class. My boss never got me a sub, didn't come to sub herself, just left me to deal. It wasn't just because it was the end of the year, either, this year, when the other teacher was out, and we had 24 kids between us, she subbed, but she wasn't going to miss her soaps, or whatever she left at 11:30 to do every day. Never mind that I barely had time to get my own lunch out, never mind that I needed someone to either help clean up after lunch, or watch the kids so I could clean up, it was time for her to go, so she left. Conversely, my new boss has stayed later than anyone, has been right there with us, doing exactly what she was asking us to do, and has laid it out that she expects all of us to help each other and to be courteous to each other. Yeah, I think I'm in a better place now.