guest reader, plus

I was a guest reader at Dolores' kindergarten class this afternoon. What a delight to read a good book aloud with so many eager faces watching your every move! Intoxicating.

This has been a nice day. A leisurely vacation day. Grab it now or lose it as there is so little time left this year. Dolores' alarm went off. I hid mine. I woke lazily as she stirred and got up to get ready for her day at school.

Before too much time passed, I got up and dressed to run. It was snowing out. I figured I'd shovel first but it was not enough to shovel. Just a very light dusting in the still dark of the early morning.

The girls were up to. While both have come home for the holiday, they are off again. This time to New York. They gave themselves each a ticket to Wicked. How cool is that! And they even managed to get seats next to each other. It was just meant to happen like this.

One booked the hotel and the train. The other scouted out things to do and made those arrangements. They called me this afternoon while they were waiting in line at the NBC Studio tour to let me know (so I could also let their mother know) that they had arrived safe and sound.

Wicked tonight, more touristy things tomorrow, then the train home tomorrow night. Ah, to be young again!

No, actually. Been there done that. I'll take things leisurely now. After running three miles this morning, including a stop at the bank ATM to make a deposit (and why not save a trip in the car (and gas) since I was going right by the bank on the return trip?), I did do some work. I had a conference call cancel out on me but another one I needed to keep as I was leading it. All went well.

Then a delayed breakfast. I made a batch of our homemade syrup and hearty pancake mix then had some French toasted raisin bread. Delicious. Some blogging followed. I got ahead of myself for some Hitchhiker posts. I have been so neglectful of the trail lately. I am still finding places but not finding (or really making the time) to share them. But now is the time. One more workday (Friday) and then vacation until 2008.

I'll concede that I'll keep in touch with my work email while off next week. It will be better to spend a little time along the way rather than try and play catch up all at once. That is not how to return from a vacation!

Oh, the book was The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy. A good Christmas story for kindergarteners!