(no subject)

There hasn't been a lot going on the last couple of weeks. It's all the routine of getting up and getting Delia to school and later on picking her up from school. I don't seem to do much of note while she's not here-- dishes, Sit and Be Fit, library books, sometimes a nap. The days rather blur into each other.

Scott's been working a fair amount of overtime. This week, third shift has an extra guy out (in addition to the one on long term medical leave for an injury), this one due to kidney stones. Scott worked 3 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. yesterday, and they called him last night at eight to ask him to do it again. Since they were asking, he said no. He'd have had an awful time doing two long days, one right after the other. They must have found someone else because they didn't call back to insist.

Delia has started a Chinese class. We were afraid that it wouldn't get enough people to run, but it did (Unlike the break dancing class we tried to sign her up for). I don't know how much she'll actually learn, but she enjoys it.

Delia has also started basketball practices. The first game will be on the 22nd, so we'll have had two weeks of practices by then. Delia wants me to go away during practices, but there really isn't anywhere for me to go to. An hour isn't long enough to justify going home, especially as the weather gets worse (the season runs into December). Last year, I'd just bring a book, sit along the wall in the gym and hope not to get hit by a basketball. I expect that's what I'll do this year.

We'll have three weekends when we'll have both a soccer game and a basketball game. As it works out, the soccer games will be in the mornings. The basketball coach has promised us afternoon games during the overlap period. His daughter's not on the soccer team this season (she's playing field hockey instead), but I told him the schedule.

I've started volunteering in the school library again. It took a few weeks to settle exactly when I would be needed. They had the schedule set but then, with the addition of a new class to ease overcrowding, had to rejuggle everything. I've had two weeks of helping out at the new time (after missing a week for a doctor's appointment). This year, I actually know all of the kids. There's nobody new. My impression is that that's how it will be for the next couple of years. There will be few-- if any-- new kids, and some of the kids from the previous year will be gone. That's what happens when a lot of the kids come from grad student families. Parents graduate, and the family moves on.

I plunked down $160 for two new dresses. That'll let me retire two of the worst worn of the ones I have been wearing. I seem to be able to get about three years out of a dress before it starts developing holes along the seams and at the cuffs and pockets. I have to get my dresses specially made because nobody makes the style I like any more. Every catalog I look in has endless empire waist dresses and nothing with an elastic waist actually at the waist. I look dreadful in empire waists.

I signed up for ficfinishing again. This time, I hope to finish chapter 20 of Rheotaxis. I think the problem was that I was trying to force a character to do something that he simply wouldn't do because I didn't see a way around it. Instead, I need to face that he won't do that and write about the consequences of that refusal.

I'm still trying to figure out how to do Yuletide this year. Scott really would prefer that I not. He feels that it gets in the way of my being able to participate in holiday preparations. I really would like to do it because it's a lot of fun and is a challenge I can't get anywhere else (New Year's Resolution stories don't seem to work for me. I always intend to do several, but with no actual deadlines, I procrastinate and end up doing nothing). I need to talk to Scott about it. I ought to be able to do all the writing during the day while Delia's at school, assuming nothing goes wrong.