Our school days look different every day. some mornings we are reading stories on the couch  in our jammies and other days we are up, dressed, chored and sitting at desks. Some things however stay constant.. we are together, as a family, and we are at home.

My school days looked different from my mother of homeschooler days (as I am sure many can relate to). I schooled at home and home was school but I was not with family and I was not "at home" I was at boarding school.

My day started with the ringing of a BIG brass bell as a house mistress proceeded down the hallway opening doors ringig the bell in each dorm and turning on the lights. Then if you can imagine 50 girls trying to get through bathrooms and showers in half an hour you have a very vivid imagination :0) and an idea of the aftermath of the bell ringing!

The bell rings again and it is time to get out of the house and walk to breakfast. My house was about 1/2 a mile I think from the main school building which is where all our meals were served. Come rain, snow, sleet ot heat we wlaked to breakfast. We took our name tag off a large baord and walked through the buffet line having breafast put on our trays as we did so. At the end of the line a housemistress took our tag..checked we had enough food (anorexia ran rife) and we were free to seek out a space to eat. Imagine school cafeteria three time a day, who should you sit with? Who were you not going to sit with if you could at all help it?

Breakfast swallowed you took your tray out into a long grey hall and scraped the food off, put your plates in their stacks and filed your tray. Later in my school life we ended up doing kitchen duty too and then you had the joy of loading and cleaning everyones plates inthe huge dishwashers.. you got clean plates and a facial at the same time.

Then it was the long walk back to the house to make beds, clean the dorms and get ready for the next bell.. school time.. and the walk BACK to the building we had just left. I did a LOT of walking :0)

... to be cont.