A weird start to the week. I had planned on going into hermit mode for a couple days, as I had a large library book that is due Wednesday and I still had to plow through about 200 more pages of it. I tried to renew, but there’s a waiting list for it, so I endeavored to dive in and finish it up, avoiding online time as much as possible.

Then I got a call at 12:30 yesterday that threw everything out of sorts. The main water line just outside St. P’s had burst. They were closing school at 1:30 so I had to run down and get the girls earlier than normal. Apparently there’s some kind of law that you can’t have school without running water. Weren’t kids educated just fine without running water until only about 100 years ago?!?!

I got the girls home and they were just a little wound up, as you would expect. Being so close to Christmas break did not help. The initial word from school was that they expected the line to be repaired on Monday and school to resume today. But less than five minutes before the girls would go to bed last night notification came that the repairs had not begun yet, so school was cancelled for today, too. There was much rejoicing, especially from M who was supposed to have a big science test today. Even if they go back to school tomorrow – and crews are apparently working as I type – the middle schoolers are off to see a performance of A Christmas Carol tomorrow, which gives her another day to prep for the last big science test of the semester. She’s pretty fired up about it.

We gave the girls a little extra awake time last night, and I let them sleep in this morning.[1] It’s crazy cold here today, so we couldn’t go do anything outside. I figured a movie would be a good way to waste some time. We just got back from seeing Coco which was completely fantastic. We went to the fancy theater where you can order food, so the girls all got treats along with popcorn. But the best part was we had the theater to ourselves. Which makes sense for 1:00 on a Tuesday three weeks after the movie came out. It was kind of an odd experience.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first day that school has been cancelled at St. P’s since our freak snowstorm that wiped out the first day after spring break back in March of 2013. We’ve had a couple delays here-and-there, but no snow days since then. Hopefully this isn’t a sign that this winter will be filled with days off.

Oh, and I finished my book with a big push last night and this morning.

Our Christmas break is going to be a little different this year. We’re headed to Denver on Christmas day to spend a week with our family out there. So I need to cram some decent content into the next week-plus. Be looking for my breakdown of TV I’m Watching Now, which I haven’t done for awhile. A new Reader’s Notebook entry. And at least two posts revolving around my favorite music of the year.


  1. Except for L. I wake her up at 6:50 every school day. But on weekends or days off, she somehow gets herself up at like 6:30 every time. Kind of maddening.  ↩