OOps! how’s that for publishing in the middle of a word. anyway, I am watching lots of movies that I missed and have downloaded the whole second season of Dexter to my computer since we don’t get showtime. I also invested in a Kindle and now have 25 books on it. They are cheaper than print books and also save me shelf space. If I read something I really want to have on my shelf, I can always order it. I also started an online book club with several other talkies. I have gotten in touch with a couple of colleagues who have also retired and we go out to coffee, for lunch, to movies, to retired teachers, and volunteer at some nursing homes. Yesterday we went on the tour of homes decorated for Christmas. These are the kind of homes teachers will never live in. Wow, one was two stories with a complete house complete with three bedrooms, three baths, and kitchen, family room, dining room and living room and office on each floor. Unbelievable.Now I have to think of what I will do with the rest of this year to make it profitable, in life experiences, if not monitarily. One of the cool things is that I have made a 91 year old friend at one of the assisted living homes. We go out about once every two weeks so that I can take her to do some shopping, out to lunch, and anything else she wants to do. She is amazing and as bright as anyone I know. She has a walker, but usually just steadies herself on my arm when we are out shopping. It is amazing the world you can find once you stop the grind and really have 24hours a day of free time. I’ll worry about getting more organized next year. One vow, I will try to add to this each week on Monday or Friday.

I am really bad about posting to this blog. It has been months and now we are close to the end of the year and my first semester of retirement. So I will try to catch up on a little of what has been going on in my life, or not going on as the case may be. Some of the things that haven’t happened. I have not signed up to substitute, in fact I have only been back to the school once to return some books that I had at home. I have more in the trunk of my car that I have to get up there, but think I will wait until it gets a little warmer. I haven’t written the great American novel yet, though I have been reading voraciously. And I didn’t go to NCTE in San Antonio even though I had reserved a hotel room and registered for the conference. It really bums me out that I missed it, especially since I had not been to San Antonio since I was a child. But I have some health problems that keep me from any long trips right now. Back problems which interfeer with my walking very far. But some things have been accomplished. Art and I pretty much hung around the house and Yankton this summer. I am still unpacking from the things I brought home from school, and doing three years spring/fall cleaning at the same time. Of course I work in one room for half an hour, read for an hour or watch a movie, then work in another room for a while. At this rate I may get it all done by my 70t birthday. In September, taking advantage of the lower prices after the season and the fact that for the first time in many years I could take a vacation during the school year, Art and I drove out to the Black Hills, Custer specifically. It was very nice except that we both had some kind of intestinal upset for about three days of the trip. Kind of cancelled our plans to go on the 1812 railroad which was used in the movie Dances With Wolves. Oh well, there is always next year. But when we got back, we decided that we had better cancel our San Antonio trip until both of us could get around a little better. Maybe next year in Philadelphia. I have watched lots of movies tha