"Spent"

I made this painting during a previous period of unemployment when I was making extra bucks substitute teaching. I was killing time during a free period, and it was pleasant to rag leftover tempera paint onto a scrapped piece of poster board. That didn't kill enough time, so I made circles over the background with a plastic circle template. I took it home and finished it with colored pencils. Somewhere along the line I decided all the circles represented coins, and I needed to bring more coins into my life. I liked the colors well enough that I hung it up at home, but I have often thought that I should've been trying to manifest dollars, not coins. I'm still trying to manifest dollars.

I liked substitute teaching. The kids were fun and often sparked new ideas in me for my own work. I liked popping in and out of their lives, hopefully leaving some useful tidbits behind.

One class, there was a very dry lesson plan about water cycles. Clouds rain, water flows downhill, evaporates into clouds... The kids looked like they needed poked with cattle prods. When I explained everything flows downhill, that all junk eventually ends up in their drinking water, they started to pick up a little. One punk kid made a joke about drinking pee. I said "exactly", and they all started talking. It was a lively, educational discussion, and I think I helped make about 28 kids more environmentally friendly.

Sure beats "killing time" between classes, but I guess even that goes to show that it's our choice what we do with our time. We can bitch and groan about time wasting, or we can use the time towards something more valuable.

On a completely different note, I found this Confederate money in a box this week. For those of you outside the US, America split in two in the 1800s over issues of states rights and slavery. A very bloody war was fought, and the Confederacy (Southern states) lost. My grandpa's family was from Tennessee, which is how this money ended up in my box. I doubt I could get $5 for it today even though it is 150 years old. Money from winners is always more valuable, isn't it?

The bill is very delicate, so I scanned it to look at it better. I haven't decided what to do with it yet, but it seems like there's an art project in it somehow? If nothing else, at least the South got an artist to design it in the first place, but it seems like bloody money. I just think it's interesting, and thought others might like to look at it too.