Back to School

Most of the schools in our area didn't have school today.  When I moved to Pennsylvania in 1996 I learned that it was the norm in this area to not have school on the Monday after Thanksgiving because it is the first day of deer hunting season. Since I gave my kids all of last week off, I decided that today would be a school day for us. Last week I exercised six days in a row (Mon-Sat), but given I was up late last night watching the Steelers win (we're 9-2!) and the fact I was homeschooling the kids today, I skipped my exercise. I go back to school tomorrow. I have four days left of class (T/Th this week and next week) and then a week of final exams. Last week I got almost everything done on my to do list. It was a very varied list that included things like writing final exams, polishing my shoes, creating a calendar on Shutterfly, getting the last of the apples off the grass, etc. Two of the things I didn't complete were ironing the drapes I bought in August for the basement (I ironed 2 of the 7 panels last week) and ordering new carpet for Ian's room. Of course I did some things that weren't on the

list such as today I ordered supplies for the guinea pigs and a new washing machine. Ours started working only sporadically in early August, and it was getting even worse lately so I decided we have probably gotten all we could out of that machine, even thought it's only 5 years old. My dryer is still going strong, and it's 21 years old! My first washing machine lasted 16 years so I wasn't expecting our second to only last 5 years. Hopefully we'll get more than 5 years out of the one I bought today. In addition to homeschooling the kids, cooking dinner, doing the laundry, etc. we also did some grocery shopping at Walmart, went to the library, and I had my annual mammogram.

I have a phone interview tomorrow at 10:30 for the spring semester (even though I'll actually be on campus during the interview). I had been working on the spring semester some. I knew it was a bit of a gamble because I hadn't signed a contract yet, but I didn't want to wait until the last minute to start working on it like this semester. Hopefully my efforts haven't been in vain.