Variations on Hope

Here are the Inauguration Dresses the Little Ms. Erises wore to church on January 18th. If you asked Littlest Ms. Eris what she wore, she said, "Inauguration Dress. Barack Obama!"

Special thanks to Grandma Numismatist for making Inauguration Dresses in lieu of Christmas Dresses this year.

Here is the pin that appeared at the center of the black bows.

And, drum roll, please......................

Here are the treats Mr. Eris's co-worker brought back from D.C. for me.

That's right, it's a program, a commemorative subway ticket, a pen (that works great!) and a button (that makes the president and first lady look like your town's most trusted news team.

It's 5:30 a.m.

I am on the train that left at 5:10 in the morning. Despite all my good intentions, my 4 o'clock mornings have not been supplemented by an earlier bedtime. I have, however, started napping under my desk at school.

The bonus of the early mornings? Today is Friday and I will be home by 11 a.m. Mr. Eris has Fridays off and all the kids are in school, which means we will have four hours of grown-up time. We will be napping or something else and will not answer the phone so don't bother calling.

Awkward: The Sequel

Today I came back to school. This means I went back to the gym. Yay! I elected to start off with my favorite activity: swimming. I swam. I showered. Then I went to my class.

Oh, did I mention that my teacher was the woman who showered next to me after the pool?

So, I Guess This Means the Break is Over?

Prologue:
I have been enjoying this week with the Little Erises back at school and me being all childless 3 days a week. I did some shopping (I love Target and Old Navy clearance racks). I did lots of organizing. And I am still dealing with student questions on grades that I got roped into posting. (Rant: Damn-it! If you can't read an excel spreadsheet you should not be teaching quantitative methods!)

I go back to school next week. I am one of those strange types who completely loves going back to school. It's fun for a few weeks, tedious for a few weeks, a mad dash to the end for a few weeks.... and then you get to start over with new binders and dividers and color-coding! Awesome.

Today I got the emails detailing the homework I have due on the Monday. That would be Monday, also known as "the first day of class!" I have a paper due! And six articles and three chapters to read! No kidding, I have a Political Science class with assigned reading in the form of a book a week and a typed review of said book. And no, this is not a random book. It's stuff like: New Federalism: Intergovernmental Reform and Political Change from Nixon to Reagan. And with the required book review I will not be able to make my usual two charming, yet insightful comments during class to demonstrate that I did the assigned reading (even though I actually only read 2/3, just like everyone else in the class). NOOOOOOO. I have to finish the whole thing! And understand it enough to write about it!

[Sidebar] Duchess, this is why I am not in Political Science. I can only handle one of these types of classes a semester.

On the plus side, I found a set of index tabs for my binders that has 16 preprinted dividers AND a box of 3-hole punched copy paper! Um, score!