Back home and back to blogging and EXCITING NEWS...to me anyway :)

The one thing I do NOT like about being at the lake is not having internet access. Since we're only there part time, we see no sense in paying for internet service (dial up, at that) when we wouldn't be using it all the time. I really miss being able to read all my bloggy friends' blogs. I have tons of catching up to do!

John actually got home early on New Year's Eve, so we left for the lake much earlier than I thought we would. We had such a nice, relaxing time Thursday and Friday. Danny and Linda and Ron and Cindy came out for a bit Thursday, and then on Friday we rode over to Ron and Cindy's. It takes maybe five minutes by water to get there, but it takes a good 30 minutes by land. I'll be glad when it warms up and we have the boat back up there. :)

We got up yesterday and decided to tackle to boat house. When we bought the property, we spent DAYS cleaning out and throwing away junk from the inside of the trailer. It is amazing the kinds of stuff people (myself included) accumulate. (I have gotten MUCH better about tossing things on a regular basis.) We never did do anything with the boat house, though. There was so much old junk in it that we thought it would take a week to get it all out. Surprisingly, it took only a day. Most of it was just big, bulky stuff--old life jackets, broken aluminum chairs, etc. I can honestly say that I do not think I have EVER been so dirty in my life!!! And today...my calves are so sore I can barely walk, especially after sitting. We still have a pile of stuff that we have to haul to the dump (or somewhere) and there is quite a bit of scrap iron we need to get someone to take away. The last "big" project we have to do is to re-plumb. John decided that he is going to completely redo all of the plumbing. After that, we should be able to spend more time enjoying ourselves instead of working our a**** off. Of course, there will always be the normal upkeep that has to be done.

We left today around noon (after much whining from me about not wanting to leave) and made a stop in Jasper. Dad has been in the hospital so we went to see him. The doctor decided to start him on coumadin, and they won't let him come home until they've regulated his dosage. He had an episode Thursday night/Friday morning, so they had to lower the dosage. He probably would have already been home, but his regular doctor was out of town for the weekend. He's hoping to go home tomorrow. My dad cannot just sit still, so staring at the walls of a hospital room is driving him crazy. At 71, he stays as busy as he did at 41. And I'm glad!!! Both of my parents are extremely active. I've seen too many older people retire and quit doing anything.

Tomorrow is back to work. We have a professional development day, so the first part of my day is getting professionally developed. LOL We have a list of sessions that we had to choose from. Since I'm having to do this, I chose to attend sessions that I'll enjoy. I'm going to Conversational Spanish from 7:30 until 9:30. Karen will make this both informative and entertaining. The second session I'm going to is Using Wikis and Blogs in the Classroom from 10 until 12. I've been saying I was going to get Laura to help me get a wiki set up for classroom use, so this will be perfect. She will be informative and entertaining as well. I got a lot of my copies made for Tuesday before we left for Christmas break, but I still have a few things to do, so I'm sure I'll be in the copy room for a while. And then Tuesday I get my new classes--two English 12 and one English 11.

I guess that's about it. Oh wait! I said I had some EXCITING NEWS! As of Jan. 2, 2009, our house is PAID FOR!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!! When we signed all of those 48,000 papers in Dec. 1993, it seemed like this day was SO long away, but the time has really flown by. Now we can start taking care of a few other things.

Now, THAT'S about it for now. I hope that everyone had a great start to the new year. I look forward to reading fantastic things from you in 2009. Have a GREAT week!