The Endless Round of Ilness
Well, this has been a rather blah holiday. Not only have the immediate family been ill-- colds, stomach virus-- but the extended family has been passing it around as well. This means that the cousin in for a week from Maryland, who I planned on hanging out with a bunch this week, got to hang out for about an hour, with a sick kid on her lap. And all those holiday goodies??? Most people weren't eating....
I did manage to use my time to clean my house up some and put away Christmas piles, but after a week of being home, things aren't so clean anymore. :( Snow storms have also brought the endless salt crumbs across my hard wood floors, despite trying to get kids to remove boots at the door.
And, as always, there is the endless pile of grading that I have largely avoided but must be completed by Monday or my life will be hell again...I just don't have that spark this year. I have hardly any desire to try and make my lessons interesting, and have abandoned a lot of things that used to be fun but difficult to do. Just don't have the energy. (On the bright side, a massive research paper for one of my principal certification classes on the insanity of No Child Left behind testing on urban and minority youth-- 22 pages, with a 2 page, single spaced bibliography-- got an A. Not a great paper, but those professional writing skills serve me well.)
The bright side of vacation has been some nice time with my Blossoms, who loved everything they got for Christmas (And this was the first year that there were toys on their list that were specifically requested and hard to find on Black Friday....Barbie Video Girl, Unicorn Pillow Pet, and Barbie Puppy Swim School among them) and have greatly enjoyed hanging out with cousins as time and health allowed. One of the things I remember most from when I was younger was family around at holidays. That's something that just doesn't happen as much these days, and I often wonder how the heck my aunts and uncles managed it so much back then. I think I'm just a wuss. I don't have the energy to hang out for hours and deal with cranky kids who don't sleep enough. Its a different dynamic than I remember as a child. I watched my niece some this week, and we were late getting home from hanging out with my side of the family, and she didn't want to stay over and save her mom the trip to pick her up at 9 PM when she was coming back at 8 AM the next day...she cried to go home. I remember crying to STAY, not leave, when I was her age.
I do hope that my kids feel as close to their cousins as I did as a child. Although maybe it was because I was an only child that I did.
Another bright side of my vacation has been spending time with Hubby. He does so much to make my life easier while I am overwhelmed with work and class and writing and kids...sometimes, we just don't get solid time to ourselves where I don't HAVE to multi task all the time. We actually spent a nice night watching Zombieland this week, and had so much fun. Zombieland is an awesome movie, one I didn't think I'd like-- i'm not a big zombie person--but it was great. I actually think I could use it to teach Fruedian literary analysis-- the hunt for a Twinkie in the apocalypse, the role of a Twinkie in the line between worlds in Ghostbusters...good lateent versus manifest content analysis there. I highly suggest watching the movie, especially if you are a Bill Murray fan.
Some of my other time was spent writing-- i actually went back, and wiht a fresh eye, decided how to rework my novella sequel to Going All In. I was having such issues with it-- and with my principalship classes and new administrative duties at work, as well as taking over most of the school yearbook and having to learn that-- that I haven't done much with it in months. But now I feel like the block is over, and that I can start trying to resurrect the writing as a business again.....if my publisher is even interested any more. And if not, there are plenty of e-publishers out there. I have at least been doing fan fic as time permits-- over 2200 readers at fanfiction.net this month alone, with over 5,000 chapters read. I just haven't managed a sustained marketing effort, and that might sink me. But again, can always find another publishers if I need to.
After all, its New Year's...and this is when new possibilities beckon and the past is evaluated.
Hope all is well with anyone still reading my irregular updates, and happy New Year!
I did manage to use my time to clean my house up some and put away Christmas piles, but after a week of being home, things aren't so clean anymore. :( Snow storms have also brought the endless salt crumbs across my hard wood floors, despite trying to get kids to remove boots at the door.
And, as always, there is the endless pile of grading that I have largely avoided but must be completed by Monday or my life will be hell again...I just don't have that spark this year. I have hardly any desire to try and make my lessons interesting, and have abandoned a lot of things that used to be fun but difficult to do. Just don't have the energy. (On the bright side, a massive research paper for one of my principal certification classes on the insanity of No Child Left behind testing on urban and minority youth-- 22 pages, with a 2 page, single spaced bibliography-- got an A. Not a great paper, but those professional writing skills serve me well.)
The bright side of vacation has been some nice time with my Blossoms, who loved everything they got for Christmas (And this was the first year that there were toys on their list that were specifically requested and hard to find on Black Friday....Barbie Video Girl, Unicorn Pillow Pet, and Barbie Puppy Swim School among them) and have greatly enjoyed hanging out with cousins as time and health allowed. One of the things I remember most from when I was younger was family around at holidays. That's something that just doesn't happen as much these days, and I often wonder how the heck my aunts and uncles managed it so much back then. I think I'm just a wuss. I don't have the energy to hang out for hours and deal with cranky kids who don't sleep enough. Its a different dynamic than I remember as a child. I watched my niece some this week, and we were late getting home from hanging out with my side of the family, and she didn't want to stay over and save her mom the trip to pick her up at 9 PM when she was coming back at 8 AM the next day...she cried to go home. I remember crying to STAY, not leave, when I was her age.
I do hope that my kids feel as close to their cousins as I did as a child. Although maybe it was because I was an only child that I did.
Another bright side of my vacation has been spending time with Hubby. He does so much to make my life easier while I am overwhelmed with work and class and writing and kids...sometimes, we just don't get solid time to ourselves where I don't HAVE to multi task all the time. We actually spent a nice night watching Zombieland this week, and had so much fun. Zombieland is an awesome movie, one I didn't think I'd like-- i'm not a big zombie person--but it was great. I actually think I could use it to teach Fruedian literary analysis-- the hunt for a Twinkie in the apocalypse, the role of a Twinkie in the line between worlds in Ghostbusters...good lateent versus manifest content analysis there. I highly suggest watching the movie, especially if you are a Bill Murray fan.
Some of my other time was spent writing-- i actually went back, and wiht a fresh eye, decided how to rework my novella sequel to Going All In. I was having such issues with it-- and with my principalship classes and new administrative duties at work, as well as taking over most of the school yearbook and having to learn that-- that I haven't done much with it in months. But now I feel like the block is over, and that I can start trying to resurrect the writing as a business again.....if my publisher is even interested any more. And if not, there are plenty of e-publishers out there. I have at least been doing fan fic as time permits-- over 2200 readers at fanfiction.net this month alone, with over 5,000 chapters read. I just haven't managed a sustained marketing effort, and that might sink me. But again, can always find another publishers if I need to.
After all, its New Year's...and this is when new possibilities beckon and the past is evaluated.
Hope all is well with anyone still reading my irregular updates, and happy New Year!