The Dreamer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1879

Today was a slow news day for me. At work, I split my time between Saint Charles and Saint Louis, trying to cover both bases. For me, it was another work day, another Monday.

Anne continued student testing today. She is part of the team that runs the standardized testing mandated by No Child Left Behind. Anne likes to refer to this act as No Child Left Untested. She has been preparing to test or actually giving the tests for the entire month of April. In May she will wrap up this year’s testing season and then get ready for summer vacation. She has about two more weeks left, twelve days to be exact, not that she is counting the days to the end of her school year. 😉

What are the three best things about teaching?
June, July and August

The picture will this post is of Renoir’s “The Dreamer”. I photographed it at the Saint Louis Art Museum earlier this year. The following paragraph is the museum’s writeup.

This richly colorful work is one of many studies of young, unidentified models that Renoir painted at his Montmartre studio in the late 1870s. He uses his characteristically feathery brushwork, particularly in his treatment of the background floral wallpaper. The mild eroticism of the sitter’s gaze – the English painter Walter Richard Sickert later described this as a “saucy” portrait – is enhanced by the way in which she idly places her finger in her mouth.

So what are Anne’s summer dreams? There is of course the Cabin. This has become a summer staple. Jay and family will be there this summer. We’ll be visiting California. This will be our “big” vacation this year. There will be lots of people to see and places to go, while out West. We hope to encore last year’s League of Michigan Bicyclist ride. This year the plan is to do MUP (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula). She spent much of yesterday planning a quilting project, so some sewing is likely in the cards and maybe some painting too, painting the bathroom that is. It all sounds saucy to me.

Happy Birthday, to our prettiest and smartest niece, Ashlan!