James and Aislinn went back to school today, and John went back to teaching. The dog got very depressed because of the departure of John and especially because of the departure of Aislinn.  He whined at the front hall window, then did some unhappy yowling there, then curled up on the front hall rug, and spent a lot of the day there, unhappy, and looking out the window, whining now and again. I had no idea he'd miss her so much. I did the best I could to cheer up D.J.  I took him for a walk, which was quite lousy, actually, we're still working on control during walks together, I played with him for ages, and I spent a lot of time with him just sitting with him on the front hall rug, stroking him and talking to him gently, hoping that my company would appease his loneliness somewhat. Even Diana took him for a walk down to the post office.

The trip down to the post office was to see if a particular acceptance letter was there yet. Universities these days accept students by e-mail, but they still send the information by mail. She's been accepted into four universities so far, but was still waiting for the info packet from her university of choice to arrive, and it came today. Oh, LJ Friends, she's done so well. By dint of working her ass off for four years during highschool, doing one hell of a lot of volunteer work [about 200 hours], doing athletics, clubs, and committees, and teaching in South America for a semester, she's managed to get not only acceptance at Canada's most exclusive university, but a nice entrance scholarship to boot. Four years of driving herself hard have really gotten her to where she wants - to the university of her dreams. 

We're all so proud.

My son James turned 16 today.  We had spaghetti for dinner, with ground beef in the sauce [a major sacrifice for Diana, who doesn't eat red meat, and who not only ate it, but cooked it as well], simply because James loves pasta and had requested this.  Now he and my husband have gone to see the new Will Ferrell movie - it looks awful, but James has a deep and abiding love for terrible-looking sports-related films, and there seems to be one out around his birthday every year!  There will be cake upon their return.  I await their return eagerly - the cake is chocolate fudge and there is a part of me that wouldn't mind suffering tomorrow if it meant eating the whole cake tonight.  

Good news for Diana today - one of the universities of her choice, in Ottawa [the capital of Canada, for all you non-Canadians] sent Diana an offer of admission and an entrance scholarship of $10,000 - she is elated and her dad and I are so proud.  She is such a hardworking student, and in her last semester of high school achieved straight A+ grades.  Any university will be lucky to have her.  

And, as my userpic points out, I am off for the weekend, no more work until Monday - and no more school for the kids until the Monday after that as March Break has officially begun.  My older children are off to Florida with my ex-husband, and my younger daughter and my husband and I are off to the SPCA to adopt a dog, probably tomorrow. Wow.  We'll be dog owners.  I don't exactly know how I feel about this, considering that a large dog is preferred by everyone else, [I'd go for a shiz-tzu], I'm nervous, but game.  People tell me that dog owning is wonderful, and I am fully willing to believe that they are right.  I must admit, however, that I find that lizard-owning is fulfilling and I hear that dogs are a hell of a lot more demanding that lizards!

Any advice from dog owners out there, other than don't get Yorkshire Terriers who eat keys off laptop computers??