I'm getting old. Actually, I think earlier this year -- the first Winter Storm of 2007 -- took all the joy of a snow day out of me. The kids were out of school for an entire week in January. Now we've just found out our district is closed again tomorrow. Fun for the kids, but now I have the fear of using up so many snow days that our school year extends into June again.

Closing school is reasonable because at least one of the schools has no power right now, and who knows what tonight's weather will bring. Fortunately, we have power and a wood-burning fireplace.

As for the number of school days, that brings up another issue for me. If I remember correctly, in Oklahoma, students are required to have 275 days of classroom instruction. You would think with all the talk of making our kids more competive and prepared academically in this global society, we wouldn't settle for holding school the minimum number of days required. How many school days do we have? With one snow day built in? I believe it's 275. That's setting a great example for our kids. We only do the minimum required, but we expect them to give above and beyond to succeed. That makes a lot of sense.

I'm going to encourage D to continue taking a more active role in our community and school system (he's starting to get involved in several things already), so when our school board seat comes open, he will be very ready.

Off my soapbox now.