Claire has worked very hard in her first semester of middle school. Many many long and late nights to keep up with all of the homework. More than one night involved a few tears as she tried to figure out how to get it all done. Her planner has a lot more planning in it that my own work calendar. She scratches off each task as she completes it, and as I flip through it now, her calendar looks like every day is filled with scratch marks.

Her probe math class was a real challenge, but she slowly built a B into an A, finishing with a 90, so she landed straight A’s and made honor roll. Hurrah!

As a reward for all the hard work and starting middle school off so well, she is getting to trade in (with me) her iPod shuffle with an iPod nano. She was very excited and decided to get a blue one. Seems like blue has always been her favorite color (including the blue iMac Grandaddy now uses… we ordered an orange one, but it arrived blue. At the time 4-year-old Claire was so excited Apple had decided to send a blue one.)

When I ordered Claire’s new iPod I realized the lowest priced Nano only comes in aluminum. The colors are a step up in price. Clever Apple. No matter, offer stands. I get a shuffle out of the deal and Claire is getting a pretty good lesson in how hard work can pay off.

She’s been watching it on the FedEx website shipping from China to Alaska.