I got home late yesterday afternoon to a cool but nowhere-near-freezing house--good news, given that the stove hadn't been stoked since 6:30 a.m. and temperatures outside had fluctuated between the 20s and the 40s. Tom and I have both gotten so fond of this doughty little Jotul. How sturdily it saves us.

Still, we need to move forward, and T is close to formally hiring someone who says he'll be able to install a new furnace during the week after Thanksgiving. Now our decision to spend the holiday at home feels ever more prescient: we would not have been able to leave the house to itself so would have wrecked my sister's plans.

But fortunately this trip to Monson will be our only absence before the repair guy arrives, and for the next two weeks I can concentrate on keeping the place warm.

Today I've got to deal with a passel of housework chores, and I need to catch up on reading before I meet with Jeannie and Teresa tomorrow. I might mess around with a little poem I drafted during class yesterday. I need to read my son's grad school application essay. I'll do a bit of grocery shopping. I'll take my walk. I hope to go out to write tonight. It's good to be home.

By the way: Applications to the Conference on Poetry and Learning have been open for little more than a week, and we are already a third full . . . plus, I've had several more people express interest in registering. If you are hoping to attend, you should apply ASAP.