Somehow a month has passed since my last post. I'm hoping to get better... we'll see how that goes.

So I left Ohio early on Friday morning with a wonderful send-off of hugs and prayers. Thanks, everybody. It was a long drive, but I made it back safely without any problems (except that my cd player was not working).

As I got out of my car fourteen hours later, I was greeted enthusiastically by one of my roommates. Then she broke the news that my classroom had not been painted over the summer as planned, and some coat hooks that I had requested for my students had been installed in a really inconvenient place. Then I went upstairs to find a foot-high stack of mail including a notice that because of errors on my taxes in 2002, I was going to be fined $500, blah, blah. There were a handful of other great surprises like these. I almost cried.

My initial reactions were not as calm and graceful as I would have liked, but things are looking up. (Thanks for your prayers!) My other roommate Cari spent seven hours painting my classroom with me on Saturday. Not only did she cut my time in half, but she also convinced me there was hope. Another friend is helping me relocate those hooks. And others have been very empathetic when I have lamented my tax problems. (I decided to just pay a tax service to figure it all out in an effort to minimize stress, and it looks like I won't have to pay that fine.) Most of the other frustrations were cleared up fairly quickly. Phew!

Since I have been back in NH, I have spent most of my waking hours in teacher orientation meetings or in my classroom getting things ready. I'm making progress, but I still have a lot to do.

Looking over my class list yesterday, I discovered that I will have three students named Grace. I took this as a hopeful sign.