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Contractor update: Still waiting. Insert MP3 of crickets chirping here.
On the plus side, however, we have a new door to our garage. Previously we had a plywood door that made a satisfying SLAM when it closed — satisfying, that is, if I was angry about something. The sound was not so satisfying when the kids decided to play a game that involved Spider-Man (or whatever character) going in and out of the garage in quest of the latest Bad Guy. Nothin’ like a Saturday afternoon of BAM … BAM … BAM!
The door contractor is not the same as our dining room guy … the door contractor is actually the two-popped-collars guy I described in an earlier post. Ok, so his fashion sense is a bit like mine — totally opposite of whatever’s currently in fashion. But hey, the guy knows his doors, and my husband decided to give him a try for lack of alternatives.
I gotta be truthful — I hestitated about writing a post tonight. I am exhausted to the point of feeling brain dead, and I figured any post I wrote tonight would be clear evidence of such a state of mind. And perhaps it is, indeed, evident, but I am feeling mild guilt about letting blogging fall to the wayside. Bloggers Excuse is a nasty disease, but I must come to my own defense here. It’s not that I don’t want to write, it’s just that at the end of the day, I can hardly think of anything besides taking a long, hot bath until I feel remotely human again.
The paperwork kills me. I suppose it’s a natural element (or curse?) of being an English teacher, but it’s always about this time of year that I start to lose the battle. End of the quarter is next Friday, and this means that I have exactly a week to get all the papers graded that are stacked on my desk (two desks, in fact, since I teach in two different buildings). Sure, I could bring this stuff home each and every night, and I have been spending my weekends on school stuff, but the reality is also that I am a mom to my two boys. I am already parted from them for 8+ hours every day; I refuse to be absent for the mere hours I have with them until they go to bed.
So the race is on … tonight after school I stuffed my bag with any stack of paper that was on my desk, meaning the bag is fairly bulging. I gave myself a holiday tonight, but Saturday and Sunday will be a flurry of ink and shuffling of papers.
I guess all of this is a good thing, for it has taken my mind off of renovation a bit and made the wait a bit easier to take. I’ve given up hope of this project being completed before Thanksgiving, and will now be pleasantly surprised if it is completed before Christmas.
But dang it, we have a new garage door. That oughta count for something.
As a retired teacher and mother of 3 who were born within 3 years of each other, I can totally empathize. Have you considered peer editing prior to your touching the work? Also some assignments can have a holistic eval. Quick and dirty read and grade. Some assignments can just be recorded as completed.
I also found rising early in the morning to either work at home or get to school very early was a very beneficial use of time.
Su:
Thanks for your suggestions! I too have learned some coping skills over the years, such as your “quick and dirty read” trick; in fact, that’s what mode I’m in for much of the chapter summaries I’m currently trying to wade through. Most of the stuff I have piled up is fairly easy to grade, but there’s just so much of it! Out of the 4 classes I have this year, 3 of them are using new books, meaning that I’m rewriting curriculum for those 3 classes. That’s what is so time consuming; it makes it hard to keep up with everything.
Next year will be better … or that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway! 🙂