Fog Lifting

The classroom withstood two weeks of idleness very well.  The plants were all still alive and no mice were in the traps.  Christmas decorations were put away, and then I did several hours of general sorting, tidying up and organizing.  Finally, the other 4th grade teacher and I did mutual hand-wringing and whining over the scant amount of time we had to teach a LOT of stuff in a very short amount of time.   And then we got down to lesson planning and got the plans for next week sorted out.  I came home with a crate of work to do, but also with a feeling of great relief that I'm ready for tomorrow...at least, ready enough.

Down in the valley, where my school is, heavy, cold fog clung all day.  Up in the foothills ,where we live, the sun broke through early on and the whole day became more cheerful with the advent of light.  Yesterday Bruce took a time lapse series of photographs spanning about 1 1/2 hours of the fog lifting from Frogpond. What I love about this series is how Gopher Ridge so slowly emerges from the drifts of fog.  In the beginning, there was light...

On a totally different tack, for Christmas, among other things, Bruce got me hand and ankle weights.  I've been using them for my daily walks and am amazed by the effect that carrying a combined additional 5 pounds of weight can have.  I'm thinking that a few weeks of trucking up and down the hills with these should work wonders on muscles that need toning up.

So, yesterday, while briskly walking around the pond and enthusiastically carrying the hand weights, I went to brush off a hair that was tickling my nose and ended up smacking my lip hard with a finger that was attached to a weighted hand.  The left side of my lower lip is now a violent shade of purple/blue and looks like someone popped me a good one.  God knows what the 4th graders will tell their parents tomorrow afternoon.

I am, as Bruce frequently reminds me, my own worst enemy.