Weak signal

I wanted to upload a picture of one of the horses we worked with last Friday, but the connection to the wireless I'm freeloading off of is very weak tonight and is moving very slowly. I think this is only fitting as my connection to whatever drives me feels a bit weak tonight as well.

The good news: I'm typing this at our new butcher block 8 foot kitchen island. It's beautiful...promise, pictures coming as soon as I'm up and running on my own cable service.

Other good news: There are chocolate chip cookies baking in our fabulous new oven.

Now for the exhaustion: We head to our remote island...me, my teaching partner and now about 19 kids as one has opted out of going (well, her evil mother has), the other came down with strep (second time in a month...she apparently got it from reusing the same toothbrush...go figure) and the other was home sick today hoping to recover from something not quite finished in her system. Two out of the three are a great loss to the trip. Evil mother child is free to stay home in my opinion as the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree and not having evil daughter of evil mother go makes our trip a lot easier and well, a lot safer. Long story.

But the other two, well, it will be a loss as they are kind and gentle and always engaged in whatever we're doing. Still, it wouldn't be a good end to the year if we all ended up with strep on our remote little island!

Oh, and our other set of exhausting events came in the form of one of our field trip drivers having to back out because her youngest daughter broke her arm...I mean broke as in had emergency surgery. Couldn't be helped, but we spent much of our day trying to figure out alternate drivers for the trip. All solved, but it took most of the day. Whew. Nothing like a mom with a van!

I want this trip to be over...it's going to be two nights of sleeping in barracks with young girls and a few chaperones. Kind of like Cider House Rules..."Good night all you kings of New England" or however that went.

Cross your fingers, though, the weather looks like it might be decent and when we get back there are only 2 days left of school! Yahoo! And I'd rather spend the last days of school outside than inside trying to give tests. Been there and done that and this is much nicer if a ton more work.

Hence, the chocolate chip cookies -- for the car ride and the ferry wait.

We're listening to Lizz Wright and soon the buzzer on the oven will sound. Then it's bedtime and rest before we shove off for our voyage. Peter Pan and Wendy...and the Lost Girls.