Where did the day go?!?

Saturdays go so fast. Usually I sleep in on the weekends, but I let the cats in my room last night (an experiment to see if I get woken up less by them being in, than by them scratching at the door to get in...) and needless to say, I was up early. That did give me a chance to say hi to Phil when he got home (he is in the middle of six, twelve-hour night shifts at the hospital).So today I went about my errands early--dump, post office, grocery store. When I lived in town we had trash pick-up, but here, just 2 miles out, we have to haul our trash to the dump ourselves. With bears and dogs and other scavengers, it doesn't work well to have cans of old trash outside. Luckily, we usually can get away with just one bag of trash a week (although that bag is pretty full by Saturday).

I don't mind having to go to the post office for my mail, but I do mind having to pay for it. You can not get home delivery in this town, so everyone has to have a PO Box. The rip off is that we have to pay for that box. How many of you have to pay in order to get your mail?!? There are 4000 boxes in our post office, and only about 2500 residents in town (and many are families that share a box). There is no competition for boxes and it has to be much cheaper to just put mail in the boxes at the facility than to have workers and vehicles delivering the mail. So why do we have to pay when the rest of the people in the country get their mail for free? It really doesn't seem fair.

Okay, I know I am ranting a little--but that really bugs me! I do have one good thing to say about our post office. The other day I was picking up my mail and looked down the hill to the bay just two streets down. I saw a humpback whale blowing and then taking a dive. How many other post offices in the world have that kind of view?!? Anyhow, about the day slipping away...

I came home, did some cleaning, sat down to read a book and the next thing I know it is 4 o'clock and I had fallen asleep for three hours. I guess I really didn't sleep well last night. Now I find today has quickly slipped by. Tomorrow I have to do all my school prep and gear up to tackle another week of tweenies who's first priority is certainly not math or science. Still, I do love what I do and I am fulfilled doing it.

Last week two of my previous students stopped by my classroom after school. They hadn't seem me in a year or so, certainly not since I have lost so much weight. One girl said, "you are so beautiful," and gave me a hug. It is one thing for Phil and my mom to say I am beautiful (they are a bit biased, but I still cherish when the say it). It is quite another thing when a student spontaneously compliments me. It is very rare and very sweet.