freecat15

It's been a while...
I had some busy and exciting weeks, so I just didn't find the time to post anything. Two weeks ago school started again, and the only one of us just going back there as before is my third son (a seventh grader now).
My oldest son graduated from high school in July and starts going to college in October. My second son left junior high school and is a sophomore student at high school now, and my daughter went from elementary to junior high (or middle school? I'm not really clear on what it's called. She's in fifth grade now).

And I, I said 'good bye' to my fourth graders in July, too (they also left elementary) and 'hello' to a new class of first graders last week which will be my class for the next four years.

I'm positively surprised by these students. I'm working in a school in a social hot spot with all the challenges you'd expect to have there, and my last class was - difficult. I loved them, but it took a lot of strength to work with them, even more than usual. The new ones seem to be a lot calmer and ready to observe the rules, and while there were some really aggressive vibes from day one in my last class, this one didn't show any sign of that until now. A LOT better start than four years ago, so I'm pretty happy. Of course there's the highly traumatized refugee boy who kind of does what he wants (and comes when he wants...), but he does it friendly. There's this other refugee boy that doesn't speak much German, but I gladly switched to English for the important things once I realized he speaks some. Also, he smiles all the time and is generally totally cute. Then there's this boy whose stepfather already threatened me and the principal (because we believed his son who said no one had beaten him, go figure), but his son is a little weird, but not aggresive at all. And the others are pretty normal, cute kids. Good times.

Meanwhile I got some more banners *beams* :





They are all made by the wonderful red_satin_doll, and as always with her banners they are not just gorgeous, but bring out the icons even better than they are solo!

And then there was the first challenge over at btvs_lims, and what I never expected - I survied it, without a single vote against my icon at that! There was really tough competition, awesome icons all around, so I'm beyond happy I still survived! Tonight is the deadline of the second challenge with the voting probably posted tomorrow, so go have a look and maybe even vote.

To complete the good things happening to me lately - another one of my fics has been nominated at wicked_awards ! It was my entry at seasonal spuffy - A New Life. It's not that I see any chance in winning anything there, the competition is way too strong, but just being nominated means someone thought it worthy, and that is just neat! So THANK YOU whoever did it!!! You absolutely made my day!

I did round 10. Got thrown out in the frist challenge. Did the come-back challenge - alas, I didn't come back.
But: It was still fun, and I learned so much that round! The concrit I (and otheres, even though I didn't always agree) got there was kind and so helpful, and I want that again!

So, despite knowing I've no chance in hell to survive even one challenge, I'm still going to do it again:



Sign ups at lims_btvs are still possible, so go over and, well, sign up! The more participate, the more fun it is!

And again one of my icons won the mod's choice over at whedon_elite !
red_satin_doll made this wonderful banner:



Thank you both, the mods and the bannermaker!

For most of you this is probably as normal as having breakfast, but for me it's not! only three weeks after downloading GIMP (and never having done anything like it before!), I participated at whedon_elite 's latest icon challenge, and one of my icons won the mod's choice! I never even thought anyone would vote for one of my things, and I made a happy dance each and every time it still happened, and then this!

And now I even got an award banner made by the wonderful red_satin_doll, and isn't it beautiful?
(Okay, I have no idea if this is the common thing to do, but I post it here. I'm pretty proud of it, okay?)