Back in Santa Cruz....

We sure are lucky.  After a really great commercial fishing season, we get to come back to a place in which many would like to live.  We just pulled in on Saturday night.

We were able to do a bit of the the second opener right before leaving Craig, and we offloaded our biggest catch then.  The following day, we got the boat ready for haul-out, then we caught our ferries back to Ketchikan and to the Lower 48. 

On the Bellingham ferry, I played my harp for a very appreciative audience.  I'm loving my new portable carbon-fiber harp.  It's very versatile and stands up in every imaginable condition. It also did fine in the trunk of the car during the very hot ride home.

Shawn has already started work today.  He doesn't seem to need a lot of transition time from arriving home to starting work.  In a similar "back to school spirit," I went to my classroom today, and I'm really impressed with how sparkly clean it is.  I can tell that our custodians worked super hard over the summer.  They are awesome! All I had to do was take out my computer, printer, and router, and plug it all in.  Amazingly, everything still works.  I'm also rather proud of myself for getting most of my stuff organized at the end of last year.  I spent an extra week in my classroom after the last day just to organize all my "stuff."  It was worth it. Of course, I still have a big list of things to do before officially starting the school year next week.  This is already a smoother re-entry, as I am not starting at a brand new teaching gig as I was last year.  I have a lot less furniture to move around this time.  I'm not fooling myself, though.  Once the school year really starts, I know I'll be pretty consumed with the never-ending to-do list. That probably means fewer posts here.  Otherwise, it may be a little repetitive: I'll either be working on lesson plans, or grading papers.  Happy New Year to all my educator friends out there!

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