It's Christmas Break!

Today, is the beginning of the holidays (at least for me). Here’s why:

• I only have three Christmas presents left to buy. (Thank you, Amazon and son with Amazon Prime’s free two day shipping).

• My husband starts a two week vacation. This morning he cooked bacon and eggs. (He’s also going to do a watercolor of a photo we took while we were in Paris. In case you don’t know, Cal is a gifted watercolorist. When he’s finished, I’ll post a photo.)

• My kids will be coming home. (Ariel has her last final is tonight. Of course, she’s got grading to do—she’s grad student. But she’ll be home sometime this week. Luke finished his grad school finals, but he's doing his lab research. His one week break starts Friday.)

• My youngest has deigned to play Scrabble with me! (I love Scrabble and no one except my daughter will play with me.)

• Visitors. Today, dear friends are coming to visit. We’ll have fourteen people in our house. Air mattresses will line the floors, but it will be a blast!

• And I finished the edit of book three of the Screwing Up Time series! 

Here's a photo of our Christmas tree. Of course, this is before it feel over. It looks about the same now, just fewer ornaments, which is a good thing. :)

Party On, Girl!

Luke and Ariel are both going to grad school in the fall. This past weekend, they both visited schools. Luke visited Texas A&M. He called once. I picked up the phone. I settled in to hear all about his visit—his impressions, the people he met, the swag they gave him, etc. Instead, I got two one word answers from him and then he said, “Can I talk to Dad?” He spent twenty plus minutes on the phone with Calvin, discussing the basketball game that was on television. After they said good-bye, I asked Cal, “What did Luke say about his grad school visit?” Cal replied, “Nothing. But his bracket’s being trashed.”  Right. Because that’s so important.

Ariel’s visit was different. She texted, phoned, and emailed me. I know about the professors, the graduate students, why Emory has a fantastic math PhD program, what she ate (not as good as food at home), why she didn’t sleep well (loud heater), etc. In fact, I got an email early Saturday morning about the math grad school party she went to on Friday night. “…no one can party like math nerds. We played Carcasonne, made fun of Fermat, and figured out how many Tetris pieces there would be if the pieces were made up of five blocks.”  Okay, then…party on, babe!

I'm know this has nothing to do with the proofs that my daughter and her math nerd friends do, but  it's a cool math-ish diagram courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.