Monday Morning Journal

OK. I did it. I just submitted grades.

A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated being done with the semester a little too early. When the last lecture was finished, I mentally shut down, put my feet up on my desk, and smelled my lilac trees. Then I gave the exams and collected final projects. The blue books sat on my dining room table for a week, staring at me, hating me. I picked them up one at a time and hemmed and hawed over the grade. At that rate, I was going to finish the grades some time next year. The grading machine finally kicked in yesterday, and I polished it off at 2:30 in the morning.

I plugged the grades into the computer with a prayer that I had hit the correct buttons. I have some lingering incompletes that have to be dealt with this week, but perhaps it's okay to really put my feet up on my desk and smell my lilac trees.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I'm not much of a holiday girl, but I woke up with a need to be honored in the cheesy, Hallmark way. I wanted to get dressed up in a powder blue pants suit with a corsage on my lapel. I wanted a breakfast buffet. Too bad poor Steve didn't get the memo and was unprepared for my unexplained desire for a carnation corsage. Instead, we played miniature golf at a Korean driving range where they served sushi. That worked, too. He ordered out for dinner and watched the kids as the grading machine went into high gear.

This week, I have to tie up loose ends at school. Grade the stragglers. Clean up the paper mounds on the dining room. Answer e-mails of students desperate for information about their grades. I'm eager to put this semester to bed and move on to the next projects.

At work, I have a paper for APSA to write, and I have to pull together my classes for the fall.

At home, we have projects that were put on hold for months. Before the semester started, we had started prepping our bedroom for a paint job. There's still blue tape surrounding the window frames. We also need a new kitchen. When we bought the house, we did some cosmetic fixes. Pancake makeup and a wig on the 60s appliances and 80s wallpaper. But the old girl needs a real face lift. Actually, she needs a whole new face. We've got to gut the room, the ceiling, the floors, the windows. I'm not sure where to even begin.

Someday, I'll really put my feet on my desk and smell the lilacs.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

We're at the same "not knowing where to begin" stage on the kitchen. Let me know what you learn...

[jen]

We bought our house in 1999, when it was 105 years old. We've slowly been working our way through the rooms since then, with a serious delay when our first kid was born. We just got around to the kitchen beginning in the fall of 2005.

It has taken forever! And we didn't even do anything impressive -- no walls or windows moved, we didn't even get new cabinets. We did gut to the walls but retained the original cabinets; we also took down the ceiling which was an enormous mess. And then there was some rewiring and a new floor. We sort of split it into big chunks: plaster-related, appliance-related, windows & doors, floor. The electric was bundled in with the plaster work since the walls were open. We'd take a couple of month break between each chunk.

I think the key to surviving it all has beeing discovering my triggers. Mess is a trigger; having everything turn out badly is a trigger. Cost overruns of less than 15% turn out not to bother me so much, and neither does delay. (After this much rehab, I've come to view those things as inevitable.) Since the mess drives me batty, I personally supervise packing things up and taping things off beforehand. I also often leave town with the kids in tow for a week or two, visiting relatives while my husband deals with the contractors. And then I reward myself for surviving it all by indulgently decorating afterwards.

Good luck!

[WendyW]

I'm jealous! I have 44 portfolios and 14 group projects to grade by tomorrow, and exams starting tomorrow.

I'll just watch Heroes instead....

[Scott Lemieux]

OK. I did it. I just submitted grades.

Yay! Alas, I'm more than a week away from that blessed day...

[laura]

And now it's APSA paper writing time.