To-Do List

1) Set up my day book so it looks the way my principal wants it to look.

2) Develop an order of assembly for next week's Christmas assembly. This was not really my idea - one of my kids overheard the principal saying that no one had signed up to do a Christmas assembly, and the kid asked if our class could do it. Since the 4's and 5's have been learning all the same Christmasy songs, we're on. Now I have to learn to play them all. EEK!

3) Go digging in one or two bins of baby things to find items with regifting potential. We spent our slush fund for the month on car repairs, and there's not enough left over for a good baby gift. So I dug out some yarn and made a pretty pink bib (thank heaven for crochet and my pack-rat tendencies with yarn!) Now I just need a little outfit. Fortunately, several of the people who came to Elizabeth's shower bought her things that were too small or badly out of season when she grew into them. If they came from family, I put them away for baby number two. If they came from people at the church who I didn't know too well, they're in the regifting box. The really nice thing with this gift is that the baby was premie, and only weighs just over five pounds at age two weeks. She can wear even newborn stuff - in fact, most newborn stuff will be a bit big for a few weeks yet.

4) Set up the Food Drive box, and challenge my kids - for every two items THEY put in, I put in one. I figure it's my bounden duty as a Sally Anner to do stuff like this. Of course, i have a fair number of kids whose families use the food banks from time to time, so I'm not sure how well this will work.

5) Buy cough candies. I really don't want to take a sick day before Christmas, but if my throat feels any worse over the next two days, I may have to. Teaching with laryngitis is a really, really bad idea.

I'd better get down to it. My tea should be ready by now.

Have a nice day, everyone!

What do I want from Livejournal?

This question was posed in the journal ofjinzi. I decided I needed to answer it, too.

What do I want from this?

The opportunity to vent in the way that suits me best - the letter-to-the-editor format. I can count on people to offer reasonable debate, some agreement and some emphatic disagreement, but always respectful and always thoughtful. That is the first thing I want from livejournal.

The second is feedback, on the things I write that are not designed to provoke thought or explain my thoughts. I don't know if I would have written as much of my novel as I have, if I hadn't been posting it as I go. I don't get much feedback this way, but what I do get is generally quality stuff.

Third is the sense of community. I can post things here that I can't say to my family, and sometimes can't say to my face-to-face friends. Also, the sense of community here is more consistent; I know there's always someone reading what I write, whereas I can go weeks without talking to other friends.

That's what I want from my lj community. Most of the time, you guys come through for me. :)