Guess what ... our dishwasher still leaks.  *sigh*  A repair person came yesterday and we are hugely disappointed.  It was as if he had his mind made up before he even arrived as to what the problem was.  He didn't bring in any tools and didn't attempt any repairs.  He told us what we were doing wrong and left it at that.  We ran the dishwasher again last night and it still leaks.  It will be another 2 1/2 weeks before another repair person can come so I'm going to be getting in lots of handwashing therapy and our dishwasher will be a very expensive drying rack. 

On a positive note, with the new year I changed our homeschool "schedule" (not that I ever really did things on a schedule in the first place...).  Math and language arts are on MWF now instead of 5 days a week and science and history are on TuTh.  Other subjects are still daily, but this new schedule of sorts has seemed to lift a lot of weight off me.  Ds1 and I have talked about it and he likes this new rhythm as well. 

And ... all good things must come to an end.  We are finishing up The Chronicles of Narnia series.  We actually read through the books in an odd way.  Ds1 insisted on starting with book 2, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  We read through all the books and find ourselves now back at book 1, The Magician's Nephew.  I must admit, while reading book 7, The Last Battle, I found myself wishing that we really had started out with book 1 from the start.  Now that we're actually reading book 1, I'm glad we did things ds1's way.  We're about to start chapter 8 (so about halfway through) and to this point I have been incredibly bored - it just doesn't seem to have the same flow as the other books.  Ds1 admitted that he has been as well.  We both know the book will get better and far more exciting in the chapters to come, but I fear if we had started out with this book that we (I) would have scrapped it just a few chapters in and never read the series.  Ah ... the wisdom of little children!