Day 1461: New year, new cold

Surprise!  I woke up with a cold.  Where did that come from, I thought.  No one in the family was ill while they were home.  I haven't been out that much.  Oh, yes.  The musical staff party.  I hugged every nearly guest as they came in and I remember one who was recovering from a miserable cold. I spent the day with a nose like a faucet that's been rubbed raw by coarse tissues.

Nevertheless, I plunged into my work, wrote off and on till 9:30 tonight and accomplished a great deal.  We restocked the groceries and I made a big pot of chili that will last a few days.

In the Triumphs chapter, I have finished Bismarck's story and nearly completed Maeghan's story.  The  new story on kids falling in the mud is done, too.  That's the bulk of the chapter.

At the end of the chapter, I have comments from the superintendent and a few others on the value of outdoor education.  I decided I need some remarks from Fredonia's school board president, the Brocton superintendent and the Cassadaga principal. The new Silver Creek superintendent will not take office till March 1 and we plan to meet with him to iron out all staff arrangements.  Maybe I can elicit some observations then.  I'm not even sure I will even keep those comments in this first chapter, but I need the comments, nevertheless.  So far, it's six pages and I'm thinking it will run no more than eight.  I really, really need feedback on this one.  It has not had the scrutiny that all other chapters have had.

We booked our flights to NYC for the Scotland trip today.  We'll be sitting in JFK for six hours, but we decided that it was far safer to arrive very early for the international flight than to take any chance of missing the flight.  Jet Blue only offers one other flight that day that arrives before our 8:40 departure time.  It will be fine and we'll have a great time no matter what.

Ten deer, grazing and munching at dusk.  In the background, you can see reflections of items in my office.  Only two days of snow cover and they arrived en masse to attack the bird feeders and tromp all over my lilies.