Tempus Fugit

Lord knows I owe you all some writing.

At the moment, I want to write about how it's already mid-November, and I'm not even caught up on summer. I draw up work plans, schedule classes, book tutoring, and then something changes – a family emergency, an unexpected visit, a friend in need, a blessing out of the blue. I am old enough that I should no longer be staggered by the passage of time.

I am now a year late on Sixty-Five Weeks, which turned out to be a much more massive undertaking than I had really anticipated. That helps explain why no one else has done it. I mean, that, and the fact that really, if I'm honest, no one else could do it. I've raised the price once, but it will go up again once it's published – fingers crossed for the end of the year – based on how much work it is and how many more pages it is than I had originally planned. It is basically a curriculum, if that's how you want to use it, even though that's not what I set out to do. Anyhow, I'm promising nothing other than that I am working as fast and as well as I can.

I am, however, making good tonight on a promise to get 2024 LEX Calendars in the store. The same six designs are offered as last year, which you can see online; no new designs this year. They are more than just calendars – each one offers word study, language history, grammar, orthography, and more! This year, because my former student Cupcake has overcome her illness, I'm changing the charitable donations from the calendars from the CureJM Foundation to Arizona's Public Schools, in honor of Poppy.

And speaking of Poppy and time flying, I really need to update you on that girl. A year ago, when I last wrote about her, I had fought for her to get pulled out for literacy support instead of ESL, since English is the only language she speaks. I won – she got Tier 2 or 3 phonics interventions throughout first grade. Did it work? Well, she did just read her first chapter in a chapter book the other night, but there's more to that story. Every time I see her, I tell her, "Keep reading!"

Likewise, you should keep reading now to get access to an exclusive discount for the 2024 calendars, a retrospective of Poppy's last year, and my vision for her future as a reader.