time change

I should go to bed…but well, I just made a nice cup of tea and have decided to blog a bit.  It’s not that there is nothing better to do…God only knows.  It’s going to be a heavy-duty weekend, one of those with a mountain of papers being submitted, but at least it’s mostly interesting stuff.  Meanwhile, there is training to do…much self-paced training.  My pace has been no pace…standing still. 

My plants are freezing on the back porch.  I know they want to come in.  I brought in the dracaena earlier this week after performing a bit of drastic surgery on it.  I chopped off its tallest stalk and cut it into three pieces which are now (hopefully) taking root.  Tomorrow afternoon, after my class in the morning, I’m bringing all those babies inside.  My Christmas cactus is blooming, I noticed. The kitchen will be a jungle (again).  

The days are short after the time change.  I HATE IT!!  It’s been an odd fall.  We’ve had lots of warm weather, but now it’s been chronically cooler, so perhaps there’ll be no more Indian summers.  Some trees are still beautiful with red, orange, and yellow leaves.  That’s very unusual for this area, for this time in November.  The maples in our yard are bare, but the oaks are still leafy, maroon and bronze.

Gracie, on guard.

Erin and Emily will take the GRE tomorrow (for Erin) and Saturday (for Emily).  Both are sweating it.  They should have taken it months ago but didn’t get around to registering.  I hope both do well enough to get into the schools where they want to attend.  If they don’t do well enough on this first attempt, there won’t be time to retake before the application deadlines for applying to graduate schools they hope to attend.  It’s exciting and a bit scary to think that my little girls will be graduating again in the spring (God willing, of course).  Four years have zipped by, just like that! 

May 2014 - hoping to repeat in May 2018, though not on the same day (hopefully)

The holidays are upon us before long.  With all there is to do with my classes, training, and recertification preparation, how will I ever find time to clean this abysmal house, decorate for the holiday, and Christmas shop?  I love the holidays.  I just wish we could slow the clock down a bit so there could be less rushing around.  Erin is coming home for Thanksgiving, but Emily has to work extra-long hours over Thanksgiving holiday, and Sarah rarely comes home.  ☹  I’ll just have to go visit her.  

University #1 ends December 8^th, and then there’ll be four weeks to prepare for Spring semester.  University #2 never takes a break between sessions – they cater to nontraditional students (working adults) who just want to get it done ASAP.  That’s how it should be, really.  Time is money with most things.