I have a massive stack of papers to read and grade. Most need to be done by Wednesday. I'm a little behind. I guess that's not news.

In honor of that, I talked a student into a play date with L and O and I are going to go see Iron Man in a few hours!! Sadly, it is starting to rain and I know L really wanted to play in her new sandbox.

We got L a sandbox! Talk about taking advantage of my personnel... I had two students take their much larger than mine car over to the store and pick it up, along with 150 lbs of sand, and bring it back to my house last week. Was that wrong of me? Well, they certainly didn't seem to mind.

L loves it. And it's great to distract her while I try to garden. Yes! Garden! Yay! Living the dream! Okay, it's only marginally effective as a distraction when I'm trying to garden. I also bought it to appease some Mommy guilt from a recent trip to NC for a nutrition conference that happened right after I'd been working constantly.

Oh but while I was in NC, I spent an afternoon at a property of the sole owner of Dole. That was a hoot and a half. I have to elaborate on that soon. Surreal.

The best news of all: they let her come back. She finished her last exam yesterday. And she still doesn't seem even slightly ill. In fact, she is our babysitter today. Yay! She's really an amazing person. I'm so proud of her for making them listen and convincing them to let her come back.