I decided (again) that we're not going "home" for Thanksgiving. Instead, we'll stay at our home, and celebrate the season with another local SMC family. That is, chosen, rather than biological, family. I made this choice partly because my sister's fiance is a Trump-supporting, gun-toting, homophobic, asshole, and although I *can* call him out, my mother has prioritized "keeping the peace," which is, essentially, a silencing maneuver and one that condones through its silence. That's just not how I want to spend a day off. I also didn't really want to spend 5ish hours in the car twice during peak travel times, with cranky kids, when that time could be better spent. On Wednesday, Tiny Boy will go to "camp" at the gym for 6 hrs, while I catch up (student rec season!) and maybe take LG to find a winter coat, because apparently she needs to touch it, which means I can't resort to online shopping.
We've reached the part of the semester where I can (and should) come up with a complete list of things to do, including ordering books for next term. But I've also scheduled a haircut and massage for the last week in November (my birthday week) and have turned to the reading of novels instead of the things I might potentially teach (unfortunately, the book I'm reading is 800+ pages long with ridiculously tiny print, which means it will probably take me a good six weeks, unless I make a day long reading experience, and it's not that sort of book [maybe I should move on to something else, but I kind of have it in my head that I want to do this])
I will say, for all my feeling like I'm not getting any real work done, that I've finished/revised and submitted 5 longer (3000+ word) pieces, and two shorter (~1000 word) pieces. The little ones were picked up immediately. That frees up some mental space for returning to longer projects sometime soon...
Still, there are things that remain on my to do list week after week. I'm great about dealing with the URGENT and pretty good about maintaining the IMPORTANT but it's the stuff that should-be-dealt-with-before-it-becomes-a-crisis (which is a lot of stuff, esp in the house-and-kids realm) that I really suck at.
We've reached the part of the semester where I can (and should) come up with a complete list of things to do, including ordering books for next term. But I've also scheduled a haircut and massage for the last week in November (my birthday week) and have turned to the reading of novels instead of the things I might potentially teach (unfortunately, the book I'm reading is 800+ pages long with ridiculously tiny print, which means it will probably take me a good six weeks, unless I make a day long reading experience, and it's not that sort of book [maybe I should move on to something else, but I kind of have it in my head that I want to do this])
I will say, for all my feeling like I'm not getting any real work done, that I've finished/revised and submitted 5 longer (3000+ word) pieces, and two shorter (~1000 word) pieces. The little ones were picked up immediately. That frees up some mental space for returning to longer projects sometime soon...
Still, there are things that remain on my to do list week after week. I'm great about dealing with the URGENT and pretty good about maintaining the IMPORTANT but it's the stuff that should-be-dealt-with-before-it-becomes-a-crisis (which is a lot of stuff, esp in the house-and-kids realm) that I really suck at.
Glad you have a chosen family to spend the holiday with! What is SMC?
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! SMC=single mother by choice.
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