Peel Me a Grape

One good thing about blogging is that it forces you to write something pretty much on a daily basis, to keep things fresh and your readers reading . . .

One bad thing about blogging is that you have to keep writing something pretty much everyday, to keep things fresh and your readers reading.

I actually do think about this blog a bit - thinking of the wonderful links I should put up, topics I should write about, maybe even load up pictures and redesign it so that it looks better. Then my distracted mind flits on something else for a while . . .

I think about Virginia Gal, and bless her heart for being a regular reader. You rock! And I hope to get to meet you some day!

I am going away next week, starting on Thursday, and I'll be gone for several weeks on my much mentioned train trip to the west coast to visit with my husband's family. I don't know how much internet access I will have, so the Blog might lay silent until the 22nd.

This thought makes me rather sad. For while I have no idea in what direction this thing is going, I'd like it to keep moving somehow. I probably will be writing in a journal during the trip, but the results of that won't be seen for quite a while. I'm going to ask a friend of mine to guest blog while I'm gone, and I'll let you know if they take the bait. Cross your fingers!

Anyway, things are getting pretty busy in the neverending drama that is my life. My friend who was despairing of law school loans has finally been able to solve the problem and WILL be going back next month. YAY! My friend who hurt his knee is going to be catsitting for us while we are gone, and is looking forward to doing so. My husband's mom is A-OK for now, but we when we are out visiting her over the next few weeks, we may start nudging that she may want to move out here to be closer to us . . . for safety's sake, so we can be nearby if anything happens to her . . . and also so she can be near any possible grandchildren.

The final ESL class of the Summer semester was last night. There was much potluck food, and one of the students and a friend played Bolivian folk music through the dinner part. I gave out certificates to my students who came to 70% of the classes, which turned to be 10 out of my 11 students. The Program director said that I had the best retention for this semester, and that my students have progressed beautifully. Wow! I'm glad that things worked out this semester - I hope I can keep it up in the fall. The Program director gave each of the site's teachers a note and a small plant for our work . . . somehow I ended up with two, because one of the guy teachers didn't want his. It was also exciting because one of my students in my Spring class has now graduated from the program . . . which is awesome! I am trying to hold on to this wonderful sense of accomplishment that I felt last night . . . moments like that don't come along often.

To continue to end on a happy note, here's a song I've had stuck in my head today . . . imagine this Gershwin tune sung by Diana Krall, and you've got it:

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no they can't take that away from me
The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no they can't take that away from me . . .