Randomday

School: Six weeks down, three left in the first quarter.  I am a little bit more used to the schedule but I still find myself utterly exhausted by early afternoon, every single day.  Students progressing acceptably; parent-teacher conferences approaching next week.  Cleaning the house is not happening, dinner is happening, but not always prepared by me.

Family: Daniel doing well at college, Peter is having his first drill weekend since Basic Training, and experiencing normal Senior year stress.  Cross-Country season is almost over for him.  Tertia went bowling with her class this week and continues to get up early and get ready to meet the school bus every day with a smile on her face.  Quarta... just won a writing contest for the local library, and you can read her goofy detective story here, along with the other winning entries.  We went to the awards ceremony with author Blythe Woolston, who writes the kind of YA novels I don't really ever read, but who gave one of the best author talks I've ever heard, full of humor and insight despite her preference for bleak storylines.  Quarta received a personally autographed copy of Black Helicopters, which I hope she doesn't read for quite some time yet.  Yeah, that difference between J and YA is a wide gulf.  Personally, I like children's literature to be for children, but it is quite interesting to hear about the different trends in publishing.

I have been quilting a bunch in the time when I'm not teaching; it has been a lot of fun to see my rainbow string star grow bit by bit.  I still haven't taken any pictures of it.

Steve bought a dehumidifier to combat the ever-present damp... the heat hasn't been turned on yet this fall but the moisture keeps building up.

I have an appointment Monday afternoon to put a crown on my cracked molar.  Better then than Thursday as originally scheduled, which would be right during parent-teacher conferences.

The girls and I went shopping for a horse costume for Quarta's school play, without too much success.  We went to Goodwill, Party City, JoAnn's, and I finally found coconuts at the third grocery store of the day.  Yes, we are going to attempt a Monty Python approach.  Power of suggestion, although we did get a brown shirt at Goodwill and Quarta can probably come up with a yarn tail and some cardboard ears.  I'm trying to convince her that the clopping coconut shells will be a brilliant touch, appreciated by all adults.