Stepping Out of the Boat

A couple days ago, as we were walking down the stairs in our apartment building, we noticed that suddenly, overnight, Christmas decorations had appeared all over the stairwell from the second floor down to the first floor. There are lights, mistletoe vines, and poinsetias! What occasion prompted our neighbors below to decorate the stairs in this fashion? Is our calendar two months behind? Have we lost track of time? Incidentally, we noticed that this same neighbor (whom we have never met) has also gone all out on his or her balcony as well - tons of Christmas lights! I wonder if we'll ever solve the mystery...

Otherwise, things are going just fine. The weather this evening isn't quite as warm as it has been, although early today it was just as hot. The sky was filled with clouds part of the day, and thunder rolled in the distance, but it never rained. Tomorrow is laundry day, so even if the sun is shining all day long, it will most certainly start to rain when we put our laundry up. :)

School is fine - according to the way things go here. Soon, we'll start making our Unit Plans for next quarter, but at least this time around, our students will have text books so that we can teach our unit plans. I (Claire) am still waiting on two novels, but the school is reordering them from different providers. I hope they come before I'm supposed to teach them! John is having some class novels ordered now since everyone at the school negelected to order books or tell him that books needed to be ordered before school started. All things considered, we'll find something to teach!