I've got to make an airport run later this afternoon to go pick up my very best friend since the 6th grade and her husband. They live in Hong Kong most of the time now, so I haven't seen her in 6 months and I haven't seen her husband in almost a year. They arrived in the Bay Area (their U.S. home base) on Wednesday and now they are coming to visit us!

I wish that they were staying longer, that we had the time to go up and hang out with them next weekend, and that I didn't have...

At the school where I work, we are required to pitch in and take a couple of recess duties. My shifts are in the mornings before school starts, as if I don't have enough to do each day. 3 fifteen minute shifts, standing at the front of the school, watching the parking lot.

Yay?

I have to say, it's one of my favorite parts of the day. I get to greet the kids as they come in to school. I get to see them when they are bright eyed and bushy tailed, or when they have...

I mean to do this every year, to keep track of the books I have completed, just to get an idea of how much I read. This year will be skewed against me because of school, but I figured I could keep a running list here and see how it goes.

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
3. The Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson
4. The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn
5. My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler
6....

Disappointing.

Though I have grown a couple dozen Sea Monkeys, they have not begun construction on their castle yet, nor are they having any parties. They just float around in their little tank, twitching and not doing much of anything.

Okay, they are young, I'll give them that. Maybe they don't know what to do at this point. It's just, I figured that by now, one would emerge as the leader. I'd know him right away, of course. Because of the crown, naturally....

I have 10 days of vacation left. Here are some things I need to accomplish, posted here to keep me honest.

• break down the Christmas tree and pack everything back up into the attic
• sort student papers, put writing samples in folders to save
• plan for the next 2 weeks or so (getting lazy and just looking ahead to the next week)
• finish an online course on classroom diversity
• print a bunch of documents and place in BTSA portfolio
• laundry, of course
  [*]passports for the family

...