I am overwhelmed by the support that has flooded my inbox this morning. Being rather emotional this morning, of course it has reduced me to tears. Thank you all so much. I will thank you all separately when I have access to a real computer instead of this hunt & peck cellphone method.
Hugs to all of you.
-Edith.
BTW, my son is on the phone next to me setting up his *very first* date - he & the young lady have been chatting for nearly half an hour! So sweet!

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??