Justin’s had a 103F fever for 3 days now. This is his 2nd day home….Please pray that he feels better soon and pray that I don’t get sick for my upcoming break!

He still has to go to class tonight with me for grad school. Zero-tolerance attendance policies stink.

It snowed this morning just enough to keep my spirits up for school today. I spent most of last night driving around from my school to Justin’s to the UW to Costco to Whole Foods to the UW to home. Most of that driving was so I could get lab materials for my bio class–onions, filters, distilled water, corn syrup, eggs, and vinegar. I was jealous of the people buying fruit snacks and interesting cereals in bulk.

First, I must say that I think that it’s odd that Costco does not sell corn syrup in bulk. It doesn’t sell corn syrup at all, in fact. No–I had to go to Whole Foods and spend $45 on corn syrup and water. They probably thought I was the craziest, least healthy woman among them. I thought it might be cheaper to boil down some Sprite than to drop that much money on the most ubiquitous substance in North American foods.

Second, I had to front the almost-$100 for my labs this month. The other $45 I submitted in receipts for reimbursement was from stamps I have used for attendance notifications, letters, and invitations to parents. At least I’ll get that back (hopefully).

Tonight consists of much bundling-up in preparation for this cold front that is coming, of grad school homework, and of laundry management. That means folding and ironing of laundry while watching some TV for an hour, I think.

Justin is doing OK–he just recouped from a nasty fever. We got home and he had a headache and body ache, as well as a 103.2F fever!! I gave him some NyQuil and Ibuprofen and he napped for almost 2 hours. Now he’s down to a 99.7F and feels almost clammy compared to before. Time to feed him dinner.

When I tallied up my work hours from last Monday to this Friday, (Jan. 30-Feb 10) I worked 136 hours. That’s 50 hours overtime without pay. That’s a lot of time put toward chaperoning, meeting, grading, planning, and calling homes.

This weekend, in contrast, was pure luxury. Not in the satin sheets, chocolate-dipped strawberries, fur coat-sense, but in the spontaneously productive relaxation that I enjoyed. Yes, I exercised, did laundry, grocery shopped, cleaned house, worked on school stuff, did grad school homework, and cooked, but I also enjoyed my walks with Justin in the sun, learned how to knit a hat, listened to Garrison Keillor, made tasty, healthy food, went to church, watched a couple of movies, socialized, and went on a 10 p.m. light dinner and dessert date with my hubby in downtown Seattle.

I deserved it.

On to lesson planning and laundry folding, with Gray’s Anatomy in the background!

Grrrr…..

I had typed this ingenious post about Peter Jackson’s King Kong yesterday, but I didn’t finish it and didn’t post it. Now it’s gone and I’m not passionate about it anymore. Maybe I’ll be more motivated tomorrow.

I didn’t do much today–Justin and I slept in until 12:30!!! Justin’s not feeling well, and I’m trying to fight it. I went for a walk with Andrea today in the sun, made peanut butter cookies, did my grad school homework, knitted, and that’s about all. Last night I went to a clothes swap party–super fun! I got 2 new pairs of black shoes (like I need anymore), a red puffy vest, a black bag, some brown corduroy pants, and a dressy red shirt. After the party, Joy, Andrea, and I played Scrabble while the guys played video games and solved word puzzles. Yeah, we are major geeks.

Tomorrow holds what Sundays generally hold–housecleaning, church, and getting ready for school. I’m tired of working so hard during the weekends. No, really. I actually looked into jobs at community colleges, the Pacific Science Center, and in New Zealand as a teacher. Who knows….

Rain…..again. I feel like flippin’ Noah, here. We’re on day 23, and we only need 10 more days to set the record. I would kind of like some snow, sun, or something to mix up the weather a little bit. On a humorous note, I was reviewing for a test with my bio students and stopped mid-sentence to exclaim, “AHH! The sun!” For a moment, I saw the elusive orb’s rays, but soon after the exclamation, the clouds took control of the sky again.

In other news….I got 8 hours of sleep on a school night! The scary thing was, I woke up after 6 hours (4 o’clock) and I couldn’t go back to sleep for about 10-20 minutes. I kept hearing things, but it was just the heater and the wind and rain outside. I did dream I had foliose lichen and turkey-tail fungus growing on my feet. Ugh. Imagine my relief this morning in the shower.

Here’s what it looked like in my dream:

I had an ultra-super-busy week this week: between getting adjusted to school, going to my book group, restarting grad school, and going to a 3-day Mary Kay event, I was pretty out of it by last night. I took a 2-hour nap and skipped film night to do laundry and put away the Christmas decorations. We didn’t have electricity from 9-5 today due to the construction of the light rail in our area, so today was pretty interesting, too.

All in all, I am OK–just recuperating from a blogless, busy week. Here’s to staying home for 3 nights this week!!

Grad school is over….for a month at least. We stayed home yesterday to finish our portfolio and the other millions of assignments. I also went to the dentist and chiropractor (I had a major headache–now it’s gone). Class started at 4:30…..4:30 on a Friday, I tell you! After our three hour class, we were relieved, yet starved. I didn’t feel like making dinner, as we’d get home close to 8:30p.m., so we went to Lemongrass, a Vietnamese restaurant that we go to when celebrating beginnings and endings. We had good food, much-needed hot tea, and conversation before going home to watch a Robert DeNiro/Ed Norton/Marlon Brando heist movie called The Score.

Anyway, with that out of the way, we slept in LATE today (I’m not even going to say “this morning”) and I did such exciting activities as grocery shopping, exercising, going to the post office, cleaning the office/bedroom/closets/bathroom, cooking, and going to the bank.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to cross items off of my to do list and feel organized again. I can’t seem to sustain my organization; rather, it comes in pendulum swings.

Tomorrow we begin our adventure into $11,000 worth of graduate school for the summer. I’d rather spend that much on a vacation, but we get paid back for having a master’s degree. Last summer Justin and I calculated that it was roughly a dollar a minute for each of us to be in class, so we had to make the most of what we learned. Sheesh. Most of what I learned was in the time we weren’t paying for, in some cases. I received our 9-page syllabus for our special education class that starts tomorrow. We have 2 papers, 2 tests, and a final project due–all in 8 class meetings. I’m skipping my last day of school for this, so I’ll keep you posted.

We’re currently taking one class (Assessment) and one professional certification seminar at Seattle University, in addition to teaching full-time. We took 12 hours this summer, and will probably take next semester off to focus on our teaching.