First Day of School

Today is Mandy's first day of school, the 10th grade. I can still remember the first day of 10th grade. Over the weekend Mandy and I gave her room a makeover. We spent eight straight hours going through everything and re-arranging, re-organizing, re-decorating. It was nice. Now she has all her beautiful things displayed and organized. Everything is clean. All her new clothes are neatly folded in her drawers and hung in neat little rows in her closet. All her school supplies are organized on her desk. And there is plently of room for homework to be done on the desk. Today I have to get her some new pillows and we will be set. It was nice to spend so much time with her, just the two of us, working toward a common goal. Of course we didn't agree on anything, but we managed to make it through without any blood shed.

I finally got around to reading Mandy's favorite book, Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Mandy has been after me to read it for a couple of years. We used to read books together all the time, but with Lily being born and Mandy growing up we seldom read the same books anymore. So this was long overdue. The book is 656 pages long. It took me a week to read. I spent every spare moment reading it, I read it at the playground, during Lily's nap, after she went to bed, every spare moment. I finally finished the book only to discover it is just part one. Mandy handed me the second one this morning, it appears to be even longer. I enjoyed spending time with Mandy, the two of us have had moments of connection that have been missing for ages.

Lily and I are off to gymnastics, she is already screaming at me, this doesn't look like it is going to go well.

*updated to add: It seems that the at home screaming must have purged Lily, she did great at gymnastics. Back to reading for me.

**There is still time to join our online bookclub. We only have a handful of participants, we are picking our first book soon. So if you have ever wanted to join a bookclub, this is a great opportunity, you can even help us pick the books. Even though it will be online it will still be fun, we will find a way to incorporate drinking.