Thursday's List

READING: Next of Kin by Joanna Trollope, which could probably be one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read. It's unusual subject matter and not for every taste, but it's one of those books that changed me, made me....stronger, maybe? I don't know.

LISTENING TO: Aisling playing Vince Guaraldi's moody, evocative version of What Child is This on the piano, bookended by a rollicking rendition of Linus & Lucy and Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.

FAVORITE NEW FIND: Standing in the pool while reading, see below. I can hardly wait to get back in tomorrow.

HAPPY TO SAY: All the HISTO and Shakespeare Workshop binders are assembled and ready to move out the door. All Hamlet books and study notes (complete with an ink pen and a highlighter marker) are rubber-banded together. I just have to print out the handouts and I'm ready for Tuesday. Feels soooooooooo goooooooooood!!!! I've been working all summer to accomplish this gargantuan task and I got it finished before deadline.

FAVORITE THING TODAY: I just had a really long drink of water, water of the perfect degree of coldness. It tasted so good, better than champagne.

HOURS OF SLEEP LOGGED LAST NIGHT: I got a lot of sleep last night because I took a Benadryl to help me get there. I've had four nights in a row of sleeplessness, the combination of a couple of good library books, excitement about Shakespeare and my regular cycle of insomnia.

SCRAPBOOK PAGES THIS WEEK: None, and I don't plan to do any until the girls and I go back to our 4-H scrapbooking workshop at the end of September. We have a lot of prints to sort through and plans to make for upcoming pages. We'll be too busy getting our school year off to a start to be fiddling around with the scrapbooks, although they do beguile us from their honored spot on the coffee table.

THE CAUSE OF MY STRESS: I feel too good about all those binders being filled (forty-two total, nine of them with a sixteen page book inside that I copied off on our printer. In color.) So I don't really feel much stress, other than I have to attend a homeschool group board of directors meeting tonight, which I definitely don't want to do. Oh, I enjoy seeing the other board members, but I wish we could be seeing one another for pleasure instead of business. Urk. Board meetings are very, very dull -- I hate meetings of any sort -- so how I ended up as a board member of two different boards (homeschool group and volleyball league) is beyond my knowing.

PRAYING FOR: Young Peter, who's out in California with his family, receiving the proton radiation therapy for a viciously malignant tumor on his spine. It isn't going well. The tumor is badly placed, wrapped around his optic nerve, so that destroying the cancer may well mean destroying his vision. Everyone is praying firmly and fervently for complete restoration of his health -- a miracle. St. Peregrine, please pray. Join me in an Our Father for Peter, if you would.