The Days of the Week

My life is falling into daily patterns of late: 

• Many Meetings Mondays (How can a day without classes be that busy?)
• Focused on Classes Tuesdays
• Bad Language Wednesdays (coined with Martina)
• Truly Tired Thursdays (typically without time to breathe, and all too often finding me on the late train home)
• Full of Hope Fridays (hoping I won't have to go to campus, hoping to get enough work done to take the weekend off...)
• Domestic Saturdays (cleaning, shopping, cooking)
• Seeking Balance Sundays (taking them off if I can, getting ready for the work week if I must)

My family life is falling into some of these patterns too.  We have:

• Dr. Who Sundays
• I don't want to go to school Mondays.
• Taco Tuesdays (but only on occasion)
• Pasta Wednesdays (Every Wednesday. Remember Anthony?)
• There is no Thursday theme, even on occasion. (Or, I don't think there is. I might be too tired to notice. See above.)
• Friday Family Movie Nights
• And back to Domestic Saturdays

I think that these patterns either reveal my coping mechanisms in a life that's too full...or just that I've finally lost my senses altogether.  

Now, if I can just get that damned conference paper revised...oh, wait: that can't happen until after finals...
(Note that I am allowed to say "damned" because it's Bad Language Wednesday.)

On the Eve of Hanukkah

This weekend--in order:

1) Anya brought home an eyeball on a stick. I thought it was inspired.

2) The barbie-type dolls hung out with a Dalek. I found it interesting that the Dalek seemed to be playing therapist to one of them.

3) As long as I had my camera in the girl child's room, I took a few pictures of one of the Lego Twin Cities. They've grown over time. (Pretend you can't see the dust in that second city photo...)

4) She looked at the Josefina doll in the catalog and exclaimed "My name is Josefina Montoya. You killed my father--prepare to die."  I couldn't be more proud.  (Do you know the scene from this movie?)

5) I cooked some meals for freezing from this workshop.  I thought I could never enjoy it with this timing--we're at the end of the semester and everything is crazy.  As it turns out, the workshop has given me something to be excited about even before all the exams and papers are graded.  (Mind you, I am still living for the end of the semester, but at least I can think about something other than that once in a while.)

6) Hanukkah began tonight!  First up: Smart Phones for all. Yes, I've entered the 21st century, albeit somewhat reluctantly. (I am excited about the photos I can take with this camera, though...)

Happy Hanukkah!

November Rain

So, I did get a few work monkeys off my back on this rainy day. But this afternoon? I took a 1.5 hour bath instead of grading response papers.

She's At It Again

Anya has a book of reversible poems that she enjoys perusing from time to time. This weekend, while sitting in the kitchen listening to the Moth Radio Hour--I had it on while cooking dinner--she doodled a few reversible poems of her own.

Her other doodles made reference to a $2,000,000 poker jackpot.

Word of the moment: juxtaposition.

October Weekends

As usual, October is whizzing by far too fast.  I want to spend my time lingering over tea and going out for long walks in crisp air and then coming home to curl up in the living room in front of fires or movies with my family and cooking and knitting up a storm...

That's my ideal October. My actual October is filled with blue books and meetings and classes and commuting and hassles.  It includes Saturday morning cleaning and grocery shopping and kid anxiety over assignments and ripping out a knitted gift project in order to start over. Again. 

But somehow, on the weekends, I do manage to squeeze a little bit of that October magic into my life.  Even if I do have to fit it around grading blue books.

Fall in New England just might be an argument for heaven.

This is what happens...

...when Anya sits in the kitchen doodling while NPR is on.

Facing the Tidal Wave

Today at work was nonstop: a meeting about a new grant, followed by my 100-level class, followed by an office hour trying to find answers for a student planning to study abroad next semester, followed by an upper-division colloquium, followed by a department meeting, followed by work on the train. All "free" moments were spent checking on, answering, and organizing emails. Somewhere in there I ate soup.

Until 6:30, when I moved my laptop off the dining room table and put on Julia Nunes while throwing together my part of "leftovers for dinner" and waited for my son to get back from karate.  We settled down to a candle-lit, un-fussy meal and I heard about the kids' days. At one point, I leaned on my husband and soaked in the goodness of life--this family that I come home to at the end of a long day, meeting together around the table my brother made with his own hands.

I am fortunate to have (mostly) interesting and meaningful work. But in October--that most beautiful of months in New England--that work gets really busy, really fast.  It's this crazy little family that keeps me from losing it altogether. They sustain me.

And so tonight I will relax with them. Tomorrow, again, I will put forth my best effort to make our little corner of public higher ed meaningful for both students and faculty alike. 

There are worse ways I could spend my time at 50.