Happy first Monday of 2023!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Mine, as you know, was not what we had planned due to unexpected illness. We were finally able to spend time with my family this past weekend. It's not the first time we've celebrated Christmas after the fact or even the latest we've gotten together. One of my friends shared a sentiment from their late mother that I think sums up the season: Christmas is a season. Celebrate when it's convenient.

As far as New Year's Eve goes, we didn't do anything special at all. In fact, we were all in bed at our normal times. Of course, the fireworks going off all around us were pretty annoying, especially since our dog barked until they stopped. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I wish our city's fireworks ordinance was actually enforced. It's not like people were shooting off bottle rockets and roman candles. Nope, these people had the giant, house-shaking fireworks you expect to see in a professional fireworks show.

We stayed home on New Year's Day and for the first time in years celebrated as just us. Chris got up and went hunting that morning, I spent some time reading, and Alexis watched a movie and played. We had pizza for lunch and grilled pork chops for dinner. We did have some black eyed peas but no greens (couldn't find any last minute).

I go back to work tomorrow. Students return on Thursday. I'm spending today finalizing lesson plans for my first unit on Song of the Trees. I've also got to get some solid plans in place for our upcoming novel study of Restart by Gordon Korman.

I'm still working on my goals for this year, but I hope to have them ready for you by the end of this week.

I hope you all have a wonderful first week of the new year!