And the frost is on the pumpkin ?????

Dang, the weather changed seemingly overnight!

Whereas yesterday, the first day of school, started out sultry and overcast, the rain showers rolled in around noon and by dinner time, the cool breeze was blowing the paperwork off of your desk and Lydia's. We had to put on sweatshirts to walk the dog after dinner, it had cooled off so much.

This morning, the cooling trend had continued, enough so that Lydia didn't need any urging to put on jeans rather than booty shorts for the second day of school. She even added a hoodie without being reminded, it was that cold. I think I heard the morning temperature was only 50 degrees! Definitely a hint of fall in the air.

Before I forget, here's Lydia's official first day of school photo for 2008. Bit of a change from years past, taking the photo in front of the hydrangea tree, but the flowers looked so pretty that I thought we'd try.

Lydia's not all too keen on school this year. For some odd reason, all of her teachers have seated the students in alphabetical order for the first semester, and she's ended up marooned in a sea of unknown, unliked boys, far away from her friends. And Mr. Lenz didn't help matters by noting, "I hope you do as well in Geometry as your sister did. She was really good." Made Lydia feel slightly paranoid, and inadequate. She's already nervous about the class, cornering me this morning at breakfast to get my promise that I'd be always ready to help her out on her homework because she's convinced she won't get it.

And South View has done a whole lot of rearranging of classrooms and the lunchroom over the summer, which adds to Lydia's sense of unease (she hates change!). The new acting principal seems to be imposing new, strange dress code rules, the apparent Word For the Year is "Restitution" (which makes absolutely no sense). If Lydia is to be believed, the teachers don't really know that the word "restitution" means "repayment" in the sense of making something whole and right again, like paying back money you've stolen or paying to repair a window you've broken. They are using it as a synonym for "responsibility" which simply doesn't fit. On the other hand, it's entirely possibly that Lydia has got the word wrong, and it isn't "restitution." Only time and a bit of research will tell.

Here are my best wishes for a fabulous first day of classes and for a beautiful day on campus! Hope your meeting with your advisor is positive, and that you hear back from your job inquiries so that you can get that part of your life underway as well. Dad is mailing off a heavy box with your skates et al. (first class) so that you'll probably have it in hand by Monday. It's such a big, heavy box that it's just too expensive to mail it Priority Mail, I'm afraid....sorry!

Love,

Mom