switching gears

When was the last time you were asked to calculate the slope of a line perpendicular to a line whose equation is y = 5x + 9?  If you're like me, it's been at least 14 years!  But in order to score well on the GRE such skills must be retrieved from the forgotten back corners of the closet, dusted off, and put to good use again.  And all the math review I've had in the past two weeks should serve me well in coming years as Eliana moves past simple multiplication to algebra and geometry.  Bring it on!

Don't worry.  We did bake cookies, make gingerbread houses, attend a Christmas Eve service, go on a family vacation, wrap and deliver presents to the neighbors, bake cinnamon rolls, open presents at home, play games, watch movies, and have a birthday party for Jesus (not in that order).  I've had plenty of time to play.  I even worked on our family scrapbook and got it caught up! 

But it's time to switch gears again - to order books, plan the semester and take lots of deep breaths.  This will be a full one, and as usual I'm in syllabus shock.  We'll just have to take it one page at a time!

(By the way, in case your wheels are still turning ... the slope of a perpendicular line is the negative reciprocal of the first line, so in this case the answer is -1/5.  Now isn't that inspiring?!)