Missing a day of school

This is a very bad photo of my kitchen curtains (and my cat's window seat) that I took after I washed and rehung them. I made them a couple of years ago. I searched everywhere locally for fabric that would go with the wall color, border design, and 50's style formica/chrome/vinyl dinette set. No luck. So it happens that my husband and I were taking a little jaunt to NYC for a couple of days, so, Project Runway fans, guess where I bought the goofy fabric! Here's a hint to those of you who watch the show: Thank you, Mood!! Mood is the coolest fabric store ever - it is so nice to be close enough to NYC to take an overnight trip to NYC. It's an easy trip by train, which heads south to the City along the banks of the Hudson River. (*I don't know why my font size and style keep changing and won't change back. Hmmm..)

School started today for teachers, tomorrow for the kids.
I've got everything ready to go tomorrow, but today I spent a lot of time in the after school hours doing something very strange for the first week of school - writing sub plans for Thursday, and preparing all the necessary materials. I'm hardly ever out of school, and the only time I remember missing days the first week of school was when my Dad died, 16 years ago. This is something totally different. You readers wouldn't know this, but I'm Jewish. The Jewish High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah is on Thursday. This, along with Yom Kippur, are the holiest days of the year in the Jewish faith, and all my life I have attended services at my Temple on those days. As a kid, it really annoyed me, because I never was able to get the perfect attendance certificate at school. I'm past that now, but it will be tough missing the kids on their first day in art. Luckily, my sub will be the gal who was my student teacher this past spring. She knows all the students, all my routines, and is pretty much the only person I would trust to handle this day for me. And I'll be back in school on Friday.