It is cold, dreary, with snow flurries and bitter wind chill. Luckily, we are deep into planning for the cruise we will start on Saturday. (See an earlier post for details on how I won the cruise and ports of call.) At this time next week, we will be in St. Kitts, where the average temperature is 85 degrees in the daytime. I am really ready to experience some fun in the sun; this winter has been brutal. We drive to Atlanta on Friday, then fly to Puerto Rico on Saturday the 20th to begin the seven-day cruise. We'll be back in Kingsport on Feb. 28.


We have enjoyed watching the Olympics. Because I'm not grading papers every night, I get to see so much more than I ever have in the past. The snowboarding races last night were really exciting. I don't think I have ever seen them before.

Seeing the Olympics reminded me of one of my father's ideas of a good time when I was a child. They were having ski jumping Olympic trials near where we lived in Wisconsin, so he thought that we should all go to see them. The "fun" consisted of standing in what I remember as below zero weather, waiting for the occasional person to come flying down the jump. I was not impressed.

Directions for how to post a comment are in the header and footer of this blog.