Whew.

Holidays, for me, are officially over today but my working vacation is still a few more days (a week, I guess). I ought to take down the Christmas tree today (we'll see). Kiddos are back in school, with not too much fighting the system this morning. I have soooo much work to do this week-- publishing my magazine, writing my new syllabus (at this time I only have one to do but may end up with two). I need to get a new perm, get my eyes looked at so I can get new contact lens prescription (by the way-- I think optometrists have a racket-- my eyes haven't changed substantially in 20 years but I need a new prescription every year? Humbug.) School starts back for us on the 13th, and I have a full load of classes, and will be pretty busy.

While I don't DO New Year's resolutions, what I am doing is planning one of the more typical things people do at this time of the year. This is not really inspired by the New Year. It's inspired by me getting on a scale when we were at Grandma's house.... something I rarely do. Ugh! Really? So, then= weight loss, fitness plan. I had so little time with my odd schedule last semester to work out, but I believe that this semester I have a little more free time in the day. My plan is to lose 20 pounds by my big conference, which is the PCA/ACA one in New Orleans, by April 1. To accomplish this I'll need at least two vigorous workouts a week, and a sort of diet. Mostly, just not drinking a glass & 1/2 of wine a night for a few weeks will accomplish an amazing amount. It's not that wine has so many calories (which it does, enough) but that after a glass of it, cheesecake et al sounds like a good idea.

Anyway. I hope to get all my work done properly this week. We'll see. In the meantime, here's a nice picture. Grandma has a lovely player piano, and the kids LOVE it. This visit, they actually did more than just bang on it. They tried to finger-play songs, and followed along with the machine. I have cool video, and this is a still from one of those videos. Please to enjoy.