Turning Broken Glass Into a Mosaic

Monday, May 11:

After painting the upper level, my dad moved on to staining the front doors. He spent the majority of Saturday sanding off the old stain of the doors, which he propped against the house and began Mother's Day by sanding as well. Later in the morning, my grandma came to our house and we spent the day outside. When it was time to go on our hike, my dad carefully set the large doors back against the house. We had a picnic outside, went on a long hike, and climbed a tree. The weather was perfect and very sunny. It was a really fun morning and we were tired in the afternoon. We packed up our picnic and belongings and starting walking home. As we reached the top of the driveway we saw that one of the doors had fallen onto the driveway and shattered all of the glass. It was a horrible sight and no one really knew what to do. We began by sweeping and vacuuming up the thousands of pieces of glass. My grandma mentioned that if her boss was here, she would make a mosaic out of the broken glass and this is what I decided to do. I grabbed a container and started gathering the larger pieces of glass. My dad didn't know what I was doing and when I wasn't watching, he threw the container away. Now all of the glass was in the dusty vacuum container but I was determined to make a mosaic so I fished out some pieces, which weren't as clean or large as my first selection. The pieces of glass are now stored in a secret location until I can make the mosaic and we currently do not have a front door. At least it isn't winter because there is a large tarp covering our entrance... but I don't know if I should tell you this because none of us want to be murdered. Oops!

Tuesday, May 12:

Today I have my AP Calc test. I am a little nervous and jittery but this helps me do well. It is natural to feel this way and it will encourage me to study a little bit more this morning, although there is not much I can do at this point. Reed actually has to "go to" school for another week and I am excited to get some things done while he is doing online classes. It will be a great opportunity to finish setting up my Etsy shop and make the mosaic! I love getting little things done because they really are what count in life. It brings me joy to finish something I have intended to do for months, like changing some frames in my room or updating my vision board. Yesterday it rained ALL day, which is very uncommon in Colorado. I appreciated the weather and thought it was perfect for Monday. Today, I can see the clouds below our house but I think it will be a sunny day, after all.

Wednesday, May 13:

Just a few more days! I cannot believe it. The test went fine, it was really hard and I could have studied a little more but it's okay. I will find out if I passed in July. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself because I know that I could have prepared more and spent extra hours studying. However, if I wanted to study more I would have. Instead, I decided to fill my free time with things I wanted to do. This made me feel better and happier. I guess it's okay if I don't score amazing because I've had fun over the last few weeks and I have really taken care of myself. It's very difficult to find a balance between school other things. I think this summer, I am going to designate just one hour every single day and do academics. This will help me re-enforce what I have learned over the year and be prepared to be successful next year. Being strict with myself and not spending more or less than an hour will be the tricky part. I'm thinking of breaking it up into 10-minute intervals and since I have 5 core classes, each day I will rotate what class gets 20 minutes. I'd like to do something different each day. Maybe some days it will be watching a video others it will be doing Khan Academy. It is tough to keep to a routine in the summer but I am determined. I have calculated that if I spend 60 days (I have 13 weeks of summer and I will only work on the weekdays) doing academic work for 60 minutes per day, it is the equivalent of spending 10 hours on each class. It will be tricky to plan this out. I am thinking of working Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the salon (my boss needs me more but I don't think I will be able to). My neighbor also contacted me a few days ago and wants me to plan activities to keep his son from playing video games. This is more of a "camp counselor" type of job so that will be fun and I don't even have to leave the house. I also have plenty of practice doing this with Reed. I am thinking of doing that 1-2 days per week.

Anyway, the rest of the week was pretty uneventful but I am done with school now and it is summer!!