February 18th

Hi, it’s Christina –

I was up before five this morning, and when I went outside with the dog, there was less than an inch of snow on the ground, but when I came back in, I checked the school’s website just in case. Sure enough, we had a two hour delay. Two hours later we had a little over two inches of snow. No big deal. I woke Dani up so she could get ready for school, and fifteen minutes later, we get a phone call saying school has been cancelled…again. Really? They couldn’t have called a few minutes earlier?

So, as of right now, the only day the kids have left of spring break is Good Friday. I feel bad for all the families who had vacations planned. I also worry that these families are still going ahead with their original plans, because I just heard yesterday that if the schools don’t have 80% attendance, the day doesn’t count. I have not verified this little tidbit of information, not exactly sure how I would go about doing it really, but if that is the case, I think we may run into a whole lot of problems.

This winter has been murder for schools throughout the state, and I truly feel the governor needs to step in at this point. Yes, the kids should be in school for 180 days. Yes, education is extremely important. However, when Mother Nature steps in and makes it virtually impossible, the kids shouldn’t be made to suffer. It’s not like anyone can control the weather.

UPDATES:

My “niece” is now home from the hospital and learning how to function without the use of one arm and one leg. The doctors told her eight weeks before she is allowed to put any pressure on her ankle, and with her hand being out of commission as well, she can’t use crutches. My girlfriend Sharon is going to have one stir crazy, cranky teenage on her hands in a very short amount of time. Perhaps you should add prayers for her sanity as well as for my niece’s recovery.

The driver from the other car, Jimmy, is still in ICU, on a vent, and in a drug induced coma, so he is still in desperate need of your prayers. I do not know the boy or his family, so it’s questionable if I will be able to get any more updates, but if I do, I will let you know.

To the best of my knowledge, there are still no leads in Billy’s, the young man who was found beaten to death Saturday morning, case. I find it hard to believe no one saw or heard anything. You can’t honestly tell me there’s no one on or around the Rutgers campus who’s either acting squirrely or has bruised knuckles or has simply been MIA since Saturday. Perhaps the police do have leads and they are just not making them public. In the meantime, yet another family in my town is making preparation to lay their child to rest and all the young folks are reeling. We have lost so many kids since the summer of 2008, it is positively heartbreaking.

Thanking you in advance for all your prayers! (For those of you who don’t believe or are non-religious, please just send out good thoughts into the universe.)

I did get some editing done yesterday, but zero writing done on my own projects. Instead of stressing myself out, I am going to put my own stuff on hold until I finish editing the book I’m working on. I had hoped to be finished with it by now, but it is REALLY long – over 600 pages at the moment – and life has been getting in the way of me being able to spend as much time on it as I’d like.

The one thing that is keeping me from pulling my hair out, it the story is quite good, and after the author does some rewrites, it’s going to be really good. The manuscript has some booboos, recurring booboos, but no major catastrophes, so he’ll be getting a whole lot less yellow highlights than some of my previous edits. The biggest challenge will be convincing him the story needs to be cut down to the 400 page range or it will be a tough sell. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. He’s smart and very talented, so I have every confidence he will be able to trim effectively.

Okay, enough chit-chat, I’ve got to get to work. (Since it is getting late, I’m going to save the challenge until tomorrow.) I hope you have a great day, and happy writing!