December already!

Blog posting has been put toward the bottom of the list lately, but for Mom and Dad (I think the only followers of this blog!) here's a little rundown:

• No pics - our computer fried and we lost a lot of digital stuff (waaaa!) not to mention my Gentle Teaching presentations of the past 2 years. Hopefully I backed up or can find my zip drive, but for now I'm not worrying about retrieving things. I'm just glad the computer is back for the school work I'm starting.
• Speaking of which, I received my textbooks last week. I'm enjoying the reading - I guess that makes me either a total nerd or someone who chose a course that is of great interest to me. "Overcoming the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team", "Reframing Organizations", "Learning in Relationship"... what's not to love? It's already giving me neat thoughts and ideas at work.
• Tim's leadership party was last night. We usually host but his staff has grown so much over the past year that we can't hold the leadership plus spouses anymore. It was nice not to have to clean up this morning! But I am campaigning to have an 'executive leadership' party at our place in January. I think we could manage that number.
• As of a few weeks ago, Tim's agency is supporting someone special, a second cousin. Tim used to mention how great it would be if that person could join the party, and now he has. It's a nice feeling to see him settle in and get comfortable.
• J1 is back living at the House of Jones for a while. Too many roomates who kept moving in and out until he didn't know anyone anymore... so he and one buddy are currently viewing apartments. A great experience, a fun journey to watch.... as long as we don't have to help move the furniture, the revolving door is always open at the House of Jones.
• J2's fall drama was fun. His character gets clocked with a frying pan... or was it a baseball bat... either way, his landing was spectacular! His grades are good. They better be... some of those classes are Grade 12.
• J3 has loosely chosen a high school. She will continue in the advanced program at Bedford. Her best friend is going there, and it is now a fairly small school, what with the new schools up in the West end. I think it's a good fit for her. She is not a fan of the idea of a huge, huge student body, so the smaller the better.
• Minuit is a very old girl whose arthritis flares up whenever we go somewhere. So, while we were in Portugal we were kinda fearing the worst, and the concerned emails from J3 were getting more and more frantic. But she doubled her chondritin and was fine. Whew.
• Lexi has TUDE! But she is so happy and so cute that her occasional bouts of selective memory are forgiven. She is very good at not jumping..on me, that is. Everyone else seems to think this is cute. I however absolutely do not. And she has learned that there are some humans that you do not jump on. I have faith that the other humans will get on board with this eventually, and Lex will be able to keep 4 on the floor.
• Today we are starting... or are we finishing... bathroom renos. We are in a bathroom reno continuum that may never end. Today some tile goes up in the lower bathroom, and some drywall goes in in the upper bathroom. If I EVER get 2 completely complete bathrooms in my house I will... well... I will probably start the renos on the master bath. Just being honest! Maybe we really, really love renos more than we think...