Our foreign exchange students. Ish.

In the same vein as when people tell me they're going on a "mission trip" to Paris or Tahiti, we're hosting two foreign exchange students.

From CANADA!

Only it's not really an exchange, because I'm not sending anyone. And they technically aren't students since they aren't going to school here, they are playing hockey. And it doesn't last a semester, only 5 days.

So really it's just driving around high school hockey players for a week and washing their jerseys.

Which I do everyday, so that's really not foreign in any sense of the word.

Which means this experience isn't nearly as exotic as it was when I began this post, so never mind.

I write the songs that make the whole world sneeze

Because I had the unmitigated gaul to post this little diddy on not knowing the difference between the cold and the flu, the germ gods decided to give me both illnesses back to back.

I hate the germ gods.

On my two day hiatus in between the sickies, we managed to make it down to Tampa for a concert and for some sun fun. While I don't think I'm much of a Barry Manilow fan, I am a fan of the friends I got to spend the weekend with. I miss them and how much they make me laugh.

I would write here that I am back at my lame attempts to getting on a schedule and in a Tennessee routine, but I think we all know that's a big lie and I could sue myself for libel. We've had more snow days, another couple of trips planned and more visitors on the way. Life is day-to-day, hour-by-hour, snow fall to snow fall, and germ god blasphemy to germ god blasphemy.

1001

Post 1,001 and the first of 2011. EIther I talk too much or not enough. Or a little of both.

Since last we blogged, we were invaded, partied, and were abandoned by 50 Tampaites who braved the ice and snow and snow and ice to ring in 2011 with us. It was such a wonderful week of non-stop partying, that we have yet to recover. We didn't venture out much--some hockey games and restaurants--but instead spent our days and nights hanging out old school style with games and food and drink. I don't think a more perfect week could have been planned.

They left, and we all got sick. We spent our first week back to school with varying attendance and doctor's visits, and by Friday half of us were on antibiotics and the other half was hacking away. (I wrote about that sickness here.) We took down the Christmas decorations (my least favorite job of the year) and otherwise tried to put things back in place.

We still haven't gotten back into a routine--we were hit with a few inches of snow on Monday that shut down the entire town except for my kids' schools. Seriously, on Tuesday every school in the state of Tennessee was closed and only our kids had to go to school. The public schools are still out today. I am trying to console them by explaining that they will appreciate this at the end of the year when they don't have any days to make up, but when you're staring at a snow day, all summer bets fly out the window.

And so the two weeks of 2011 are still incubating, waiting to shape up after we finish digging, thawing and straightening ourselves out.