Well, I guess I can acknowledge the need for a snow day for our local schools. Although everything was clear at 8am when I was walking the dog, it is coming down pretty hard. I think we had 1 snow day my entire childhood (no one could get out of their houses due to the drifts. Now they call them in advance.

No working snowblower despite dh's herculean efforts to revive it. 10 inches expected my tomorrow night. My back hurts in anticipation.

I have a serious case of the "I don't wannas". I don't wanna go to bed. I wanna stay up and eat my Fanny Mae Trinidads and have total control of the remote.

AARRGGHHH! Bear, our wonderchewer labradoodle, just chewed apart yet another YakTrax. He hadn't chewed anything inappropriate in a while and I left it out to dry from our morning walk. After putting together the pieces, we determined that he may have ingested a couple very small pieces of rubber. I hope we don't have to go to the vet, but I have to go blow $20 on another pair for tomorrow.

Why can't I wake up today? I had a decent night's sleep. I've had my tea. I took a nap. Do I dare open up the bag of chocolate chips?

I finally took the plunge and started Downton Abbey. Half-way through season one and I am hooked. Can you believe action-and-war-movie-dh is actually watching it with me?

What part of "I do not have time to be sick" does my body not understand? I thought I was turning the corner and I have been whacked by body aches and chills. I will not miss The Hobbit. I will not be sick when college boy comes home!!!!!

Since my boys (13 and 16) have only watched 3 lectures and then we got overwhelmed with other things, I am not sure how much help I can be. I have not watched them myself because I ended up working with my daughter while they were viewing the lectures. From what I heard them discussing and from the assignments that were in the booklet, it would be over the head of a younger child (I was a little fuzzy on what they were talking about myself:).) That said, I think that educating yourself on writing would be a good thing and would make you a better teacher of writing. However since your children are so young, if it were me, I would probably

spend my money on IEW instead and either get it from the library for yourself. Then, when your children are older, you can watch it with them. Does this help?