Happy Hallow'en!

One advantage of not having kids in the house is that when dinner turns out to be frozen waffles covered with jam at 10 o'clock at night, you don't have to feel guilty.

I spent yesterday transitioning Ms. C's class to the long-term sub, and I haven't heard anything from either today, so hopefully no news is good news...

And of course, instead of taking today off as planned I subbed for Mr. N at AHS instead. They're a good bunch of kids, and it was fun dusting off my old calculus knowledge, so it was a good day, but I am tired. The vintage theater in our neighbor is showing the latest Harry Potter, but the run ends tonight, and I'm waffling between going out to see it and just wrapping things up and heading off to bed. Sad as it is, I suspect a bubble bath and then hitting the hay will win. Where's my spirit of adventure? But it has been a long 3 weeks with lots of short nights, so curling up with a cat and a book sounds awful appealing right now.

Yesterday was a long day of class. I'd stayed up past 11:00 again working to get the last bits of homework done, and got up at 6:00 to finish it off. As of yesterday evening I was *finally* caught up with all my MIT homework. Hooray. I even got some sleep last night.

The challenge now, of course, is to get a jump on this week's homework now, so that I'm done early this time. Which I'm off to do now. More later. There is some indication that the ongoing substitute situation may be resolved during this week as well, which will help to some degree.

Meanwhile, D. got our pumpkin carved and out on the stoop last night. Here is an initial pic, and I may have a chance to post more later.

Still scrambling to catch up with all the homework in the newest MIT class (LA for K to 2nd grade); still in every day subbing for Ms. C.....

As promised below, here are some pics of the Halloween decorations...

Man, oh, man, for as busy as I was this past week, you'd think there'd be more to write about, but no. Ms. C. continued to not be able to come in, so each evening was filled with either e-mailing with her to answer questions she had or to try to get homework done. As it was, it was a last-minute scramble anyway to finish the homework, and when I walked into class, one of my teammates asked about my reflection. OMG! I totally forgot about that! So I've got a 3-5 page reflection that I'm working to finish up today. Couldn't do it yesterday; our latest class started then, and it is INTENSE. I think we learned more in yesterday's class than we have in the entirety of some of our other (more recent theory) classes. And there's home work due for that one, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, and we have reading to finish for Friday. Like I said, it's intense.

Meanwhile the darling husband has done a great job with the Halloween decorations this year. Everything's a lot like previous years, but he's put it together in a pleasing way this time. Either that, or I'm ready for holiday lights to perk up the drizzly fall nights we're having now. I'll try to post pics later.

It was a tough call last night. I'd agreed to keep myself available in case Ms. C was still unable to make it back to her classroom and needed me to come again. But then I was notified by the sub system that a math job for another friend at AHS was available today for half a day. I went ahead and accepted the math job, and started trying to contact Ms. C to see what she thought the chance of needing me was... to no avail. I hadn't brought home her phone number and couldn't reach her by e-mail. It was finally getting towards 8:00, and I decided that I couldn't risk reneging on my agreement... so I canceled out of the math job while there was still time for the system to notify some one else that evening.

So glad I did. This morning at 6:00 I got another call from the sub system; Ms. C did wind up needing me, for both today and tomorrow. Whew.

I'm missing the monthly presentation at the National Space Society. It was a discussion by MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle, speaking about Pluto, and his new book The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference. I would have liked to have gone, but a migraine hit. It's been threatening since last Thursday (I originally thought that it was going to materialize while I was subbing for last week's 4th grade class, but I was able to forstall it... apparently only for a little while, though).

The good news was that it was a lovely (although rather cold) day today, so I got ambitious early and got outside to whack back the jungle that used to be the walkway on the south of the house. I've made more progress, although I'm impeded by the fact that I'm trying to use the blackberry canes to feed the rabbit, and she only eats so much each day. Or, rather, I only *let* her eat so much each day. But I was able to fill another yard waste bin and had come inside to get the shopping list in order, when the migraine became evident.

So D. did the shopping after he ran, and I scavenged some crackers and cheese and ate that with my midrin pills. D. also brought back some ground beef for me (we don't keep red meat in the house any more, since the kids are gone and D. can't eat it) and I had a patty with mustard. Between the headache meds and the protein, I'm not in bad shape, but not good enough to go out. I'll finish this off and head to bed.

It was an interesting week. I was in for the same teacher every day, Tuesday through Thursday. She had been out since late September, which is a long time for a class to have a series of substitutes. They were a really good class, all in all. I'm a little surprised that they weren't able to get one of the previous teachers to repeat, although one other (fellow?) appeared to have come in twice(?).

Knowing that I was returning the next day made things easier in some ways and harder in others. I was there an extra 2 hours each afternoon (except the last) setting up the lesson plan for the next day. The extra hours made it harder; having a lesson plan that I was familar with each morning made it easier. By the end, I felt like I was within one day of having the schedule down pat and not feeling so rushed. On the last day, I actually had about 20 minutes during lunch where I could sit and work on my 'real life' schedule, instead of scrambling to get things ready for the next period the entire day.

So, having 10 hours each day dedicated to doing the substitute-thing meant I was working hard on my lesson plan for my graduate class late into the evening several times. I still have some chasing to do, but I'm in pretty good shape right now. Good thing, because I need to scramble to get the reading and other assignments done for tomorrow's class.

The other interesting thing for this week: with the nights getting colder we're finding the Yar cat and the Cat with A Thousand Names curled up on the foot of the bed more often. It's nice but it means that we get pushed towards the edges of the bed. These are big cats, and they want to take their half out of the middle. Fortunately, they're both good for a snuggle and a purr. I think we'll keep them.

Just a quick note, because I've got to dash again this morning. I've been going into the same class all this week for a teacher who's been out since late September. I'm rather amazed that they didn't find someone who would agree to come in on a reoccurring basis before it finally got around to me. The kids are some of the better dispositioned fourth graders that I've worked with and it's been an interesting time. In theory, today will be the last day she needs to be out. I've learned a lot and it's been good practice.

Progress continues to be made on the sidewalk on the south side of the house. Last night, I almost reached our side door and we filled up the yardwaste bin once more, for the third time in as many weeks. I'm pretty sure that I could walk on this sidewalk earlier this spring and even into the summer. It amazes me how quickly everything grew up. I'm thoroughly fed up by the branches that the cotoneasters have thrown out after all my pruning earlier in the year so I've lost my patience with them and they are being turned into small trees. At least they're tall enough now to arborize, and they help hold up/back the rose brambles and the blackberry canes.

And why, oh why, did I want to grow so many things that have thorns? I'll admit, the hawthornes are not my favorite, although their mayflowers are pretty in the spring. Since I don't seem to be able to discourage them completely, they're being arborized unmercifully along with the cotoneasters.

I'm ready to tame the blackberry brambles as well. While I really want to keep them for their fruit, I'm drawing the line at the canes that are migrating across the walk into the neighbor's yard. Cutting them back goes slowly however. I cut enough to feed the rabbit and the rest have been left to provide her with dinner throughout the rest of this week. Hopefully by this next Sunday, she will have eaten enough to let me clear that part of the walkway. The brambles are actually still bearing fruit, some of which is not yet ripe even, so I've actually had a few berries this year after all and might even get a few more before the growing season is over.

As a benefit of this recent activity, I did manage to reach one of my rose brambles and actually got three flowers off of it. I've put them out into the front room by my computer where I can enjoy them. They are lovely and smell wonderful. Hopefully the kittehs will not knock them over during one of their prowls. That could be very bad for the piano. I need to go get more blackberry leaves for the rabbit's dinner; I'll check for more blooms then.

The weather continues cold and drizzly. Yar has spent the past two days curled up on the futon in the front room, on top of the laundry that I keep saying that I'll put away TODAY. He starts moving again right around dusk and then spends his nights outside in the wild, silly cat. It's wet and cold and rainy, and it's bad enough in the daylight.

The Cat With a Thousand Names, he's a different story. He's just come in from his morning jaunt, and has occupied my lap to warm up. He purrs quite a bit these days, probably realizing that he gets held longer when he does.

Jazz Cat remains our little Wild Thing. Based on our last few walks around the neighborhood, I think I've figured out which one is her "other" house. It is my theory that she is hoodwinking the couple a few houses up into believing she lives there. At the very least, I think she spends a fair amount of time in their yard.

With the weather the way that it is, I keep expecting to wake up to find the bed invaded by round fur bodies, but it hasn't happened yet.