sleep/dreams – Onward Hoe!

5 Things to Heal the Soul

Everybody has their own remedies for a hurting soul. I’ve already talked about time and God and how you have to participate in the process, but here are my favorite ways to pass the time, connect with God, and receive the good to dilute the bad.

Music – I’m working on a post for next week with the mix I’ve made. I’ve been listening to it over the past week or so as I’ve made and tweaked it, and it’s really good. Music is just good for the soul no matter how you’re feeling.
Rest – Y’all know I love my sleep, and when I say rest is good soul-healing, that includes sleep, but it also includes waking rest. Lie quietly for ten minutes (or five if you’re antsy), and just breathe. Just breathe in and out and let everything go. Rest in bed, rest in a bubble bath, rest while lying in the grass with the sun on your skin. Just give yourself a break. Ordinary life is hectic enough. When you’re recovering from a trauma, you need this even more.
Food – By this, I don’t mean eating your feelings or whipping your appetite into shape. I’m not talking about using food or your control over it to momentarily feel better. Enjoy your food. Appreciate it. Use delicious ingredients in your cooking, and really savor the flavor as you eat. Take your time chewing and really tasting each bite. And be grateful for it.
Hugs – Hugs are awesome.
Laughter – We watched a lot of comedies in the weeks immediately following our miscarriage, and sometimes we felt guilty about laughing so much, but boy did we need it. I’m sure there’s some sort of chemical process that happens in your body to make you feel good when you laugh. I won’t pretend to understand it, but I know it works.

What about you? What heals your soul?

Rest

I don’t get sick often. Not really. I get a cold once or twice a year, but that’s about it. Nothing to even keep me from going to work. The thing is I am very good at knowing when I need to take a break and rest, and I’m very good at saying so and getting the rest I need. But the pace and rigor of this semester have been such that all the rest I get on the weekends simply isn’t enough. And it’s honestly easier to go to work than to get a sub and make lesson plans for them. That is, it’s easier when I’m well. But this week, I’ve been forced to slow down, and I’m very grateful for it.

Last Wednesday, I felt tired. But whatever, I feel tired on Wednesdays. Don’t we all? But I also felt a sort of pain in my ears, like someone was pushing a Q-Tip out from the inside. It passed, and I didn’t think about it again. Thursday, I felt way off. I texted Will in the morning and said I just didn’t feel right, and that I needed to go to bed early that night. By the time I got home Thursday evening, I was really starting to feel bad. I felt feverish and weak, and my throat felt disgusting. I thought it was post-nasal drip, so I took some cold medicine and went to bed.

I stayed in bed until 12:30 Friday afternoon. I tried to get up a few times. I considered it every time I got up to go to the bathroom. But I just couldn’t do it. When Will left for work that morning, we thought I had the flu. But as the day wore on and I didn’t have a runny nose or anything, I started to suspect strep throat.

We went to Urgent Care on Saturday morning, and he confirmed the strep and told me I was not to go to work at least until Wednesday. He also wanted to take some blood to test for mono and said I should stay quarantined until that test came back. So after a quick trip to Target for some penicillin, I’ve been at home since then.

All of that was fine. It was miserable, but it was fine because I wasn’t scheduled to work at all on Friday or Saturday. I was to be a woman of leisure regardless of my health. But then Monday came, and with it, the guilt. I knew I couldn’t go to work, and I had made arrangements and lesson plans for subs, but I felt like I should have been doing something with my WHOLE DAY OFF. Right? Shouldn’t I have been planning lessons or making up tests or doing something productive that I could do from the comfort and rest of my sofa? My husband said no. He said my only job was to get better, and that I shouldn’t do any school work at all. He told me to read, to sleep, to start and finish an entire TV series on Netflix. And for the first time in my life, rest was really, really hard for me.

I realize now that my life had worked up to such a frenzy that coming down so suddenly felt like jumping off the Scrambler while the ride was still in motion. It was scary and not at all safe. But you can’t live your life on the Scrambler even if you do occasionally close your eyes and breathe deeply. So I took the leap.

This week, I have watched all available-on-Netflix episodes of Call the Midwife. I’ve also watched several episodes of New Girl and Doctor Who and no less than four movies. And sure, I did some laundry and some dishes, and I made the necessary arrangements and plans for substitutes for extra days, but I didn’t do any of the work that could wait. I’ll get back to that next week.

One of the hardest parts about being a grown up is finding the right balance between work, play, and rest. It’s hard because it’s different for everyone, so you can’t use others’ lives and needs to prescribe your own. It will only make you feel guilty or crazy or weak. I have coworkers who teach insane hours while also taking care of kids and chronic health problems and who knows what else. They do it, and they’re fine. But their bodies are different from mine, their support systems are different from mine, and their passions are different from mine. Their struggles are also different from mine, and I don’t know what their struggles are, but I know they exist. Nobody has it all together. So all I can do is listen to my own body and give it what it needs. This week, rest has been very, very good.

10 Things That Change When You Get Married

I know I haven’t posted anything since I got married. It’s not that I’ve forgotten or that we’re too busy having all the sex for me to blog; it’s that I’ve been trying to figure out what to say. I feel like some big life lessons or revelations are in order considering I just went through (and am still going through) a major life change. I don’t know if I have any big or important things to say, but I feel like I should, and maybe the pressure of that has just had me blocked. So I’ll just start with some basic differences between single life and married life, and then maybe the words will begin to flow out of me like fresh limeade from my Fiesta™ pitcher. Oh wait…we didn’t get the pitcher. Not a good sign, but let’s get started anyway.

You get to live with your best buddy. I know this seems like not that big a change for me considering the awesomeness of my past roommates, but it’s true. Ideally, you marry your best friend, and you’re closer with him than you are with any of your girlfriends because you’re closer in a different way. And then you get to live together, which is just fun! You goof around, watch movies, fall asleep snuggling, wake up next to each other, and come home at the end of good days and bad to your favorite face. It’s great.
People suddenly stop making coy references to your sex life. Before the wedding, questions about the honeymoon were always punctuated with sly winks and elbow nudges. Now when people ask about it, there is none of that. I don’t know if they assume that now that we’re married, we’ve stopped doing it, or if they know that we’ve now started, and that weirds them out too much. Either way, it’s nice that these kinds of conversations have ended.
Your laundry is insane. I know when/if we start having kids, our laundry is going to quadruple, but seriously, washing two people’s clothes seems like a lot more than double just one person’s clothes. I don’t know how that works, but I really need to start doing it twice a week instead of just once.
We run the dishwasher like every other day. Part of this is because when you live alone, you don’t cook for just yourself that much. You eat frozen things or go out with friends or let your married friends cook for you. Cooking for one just requires way too much effort for nothing more than sustenance. I can get sustenance at Taco Bell, and the clean-up is nothing. You only cook for yourself when you’re trying to save money, and then you’re eating sandwiches (on paper towels, because seriously…), mac-n-cheese (and you wash and reuse the pot the next day for more mac-n-cheese), or soup (which you pour directly from the can into the bowl and microwave). But when you are married, it makes more sense financially to cook, so you cook a lot, and then you have all the pots and pans and prep bowls and dining dishes, and it doesn’t take long before your dishwasher is full.
You share a bedroom. This has been one of the most difficult things for me. On our honeymoon, it was fun. We got to have sleepovers every night!! But when we got home, I started to get really cranky in the evenings right around bedtime. This was worrisome, but I think I’ve figured it out. I’m an introvert, so my brain really values alone time. And before we got married, I had built-in alone time every night when I was getting ready for and going to bed. As much as I hated leaving Will at the end of the night and going home alone, I really enjoyed that alone time at the end of the day to wind down and process the day’s events. So after we got married, my brain was pissed at me every night when it was bedtime and someone else was there. But since I’ve acknowledged this shift, things have been much better. My brain has started to understand that it can’t rely on having alone time at night, and that’s ok. I get plenty of it at other times, and I’ve learned to ask for it when I need more.
Your schedule really opens up. Now that I’m not planning a wedding (hallelujah), I have all kinds of free time. Unfortunately, it’s in the afternoons, when most other people are at work, but I’m ok with that (alone time, remember?). Before the wedding, I read that people sometimes get depressed after their weddings are finished because they miss the planning and the stress and all the attention being on them. I am not that girl. But I do like to have goals and to work toward something, so I’m slowly starting to fill my newly reclaimed free time with new projects.
You’ve always got a helper. My car wasn’t starting so well toward the end of last week or over the weekend, and we couldn’t figure out why. Turns out it was just the battery dying, but not quite dead. It wasn’t a big deal in the end, but when we didn’t know what it was, we started to brainstorm how we would get by without one car for a day or two while it was being fixed. Because we live together and share everything and work together to help each other, this didn’t seem like a big deal. I’d drive him to work and pick him up. That way, I could take his car all day and do whatever I needed to do. When you’re single, you can figure out a way to get by without a car, but it takes more effort, and you have to ask people to put themselves out to help you, which I don’t really like doing.
You are more aware of your negative feelings because there’s always someone else around to experience them. Even if you’re just gassy or tired, you can’t feel bad without it coming out in your words, actions and attitude. If you’re single and home alone, you can just stay home alone and not subject other people to your crankiness. Even if you have a roommate, you can escape to the solitude of your own bedroom. But when you’re married and your headache comes out in curtness, you can’t escape that. It’s good in a way because it makes you identify the source of your feelings and work them out, which helps you feel better faster and helps your spouse not get treated poorly. Also, when you’re trying to work out your feelings, you have your best buddy there to help and support you.
You can go to bed at 9:30. Before we were married, it was SO HARD to say goodbye every night and go home. Consequently, the goodbye-ing took forever, and we rarely went to sleep before 11. Now that we live together, we’re brushing our teeth at 9:00, reading at 9:15, and drifting off by 10. AND because you’re married, your friends fully expect you to be a grandma and not go out with them. I got a solid 9 hours of sleep last night, and it was awesome.
You feel like you ought to feel completely different, but you really feel exactly like you’ve always felt. Because of the whole changing-of-the-name thing (which I haven’t officially done yet), I’m having a little bit of an identity crisis, but other than that, I’m still me. I wear the same clothes, do the same getting ready routine in the morning, do the same job with the same coworkers, make the same jokes, think about things in the same over-analytical way, have the same friends, and eat the same foods. The only difference is that now there’s someone else around to witness it all and love me unconditionally through it. There’s someone to watch me silly-dancing while I put on my makeup. There’s someone to laugh at my jokes or tell me I can do better. There’s someone to listen to my over-analysis and tell me if I’m being unreasonable or help me find solutions to problems. And there’s someone to look at the outfits I put on in the morning and say, “You look gorgeous. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” (And yes, that is a direct quote.)

Seriously, What Does Happen to a Dream Deferred?

As many of you know, from the summer of 2004 to the spring of 2012, rarely a day went by that I did not wish I lived in Europe. I pursued this dream down many an avenue, rabbit hole, sidewalk chalk painting and dark alley, and then one day, just like that, I knew my chasing was done. The next few months were pretty hard as I tried to figure out where that left me, and I thought a lot about the famous Langston Hughes poem.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Friends, never in all my BS-ing English lit days had I been able to truly understand this poem. I mean I got it. We all get it. Where do dreams go when you stop dreaming them? What happens to them? But when you’re in that place, that vacuum left in the departure of your deepest desire, you know it’s not the dream drying up – it’s you. You feel like the life is just oozing out of you, like you stink of the death of your dream, like a crust has formed over your heart, like you’re carrying the weight of your life that used to float along on hope. You feel like you just might explode.

I thought about this poem, this topic, a lot, and then very slowly, over the course of a few months, I stopped thinking about it so much. I was challenged by it again later when asked what my dreams for my life were, and at that point, I realized that new ones were starting to build up inside me. I would still love to live in Europe, and I would do it if the right opportunity presented itself, but I’m content just exactly where I am. Maybe for the first time ever.

And now when I look back on last spring (and the 8 years leading up to it), I am thankful – thankful for the dream and the adventures it gave me, thankful for the passion it stirred up within me, thankful for the people it led me across, thankful for the lessons I learned in pursuit of it.

Donald Miller’s latest blog post includes these lines:

There is no guarantee our dreams will come true. But is that the point of dreaming? Must our dreams be realized, or is the call to dream them in the first place? … We must understand the realization of the dream is not so much the gift as the dream itself.

So keep on dreaming, kids. Whether you get there or not, it’s totally worth it. And if you can stop off at my place on the way for a night, I’ll make you some tea, and we’ll choreograph a dance.

Oh Golly Gee

There is SO much to tell you. I want to do a birthday post because this past year has been quite the journey, and I have learned a LOT. I want to tell you all about my travels thus far (For those who do not know, I am in Spain at the moment, going to Italy on Wednesday). I want to explain that I am not using contractions in this post because I am on a Spanish keyboard that uses a funky one I am not sure will translate properly. Oh hey, I did one! Success!

But I also want to go to bed because it is after midnight, and I have to get on a bus to Madrid in the morning. So I will keep it short. The people I have met so far are amazing, and I have had so much fun seeing the country and hanging out with them. They have been extremely welcoming and taken excellent care of me. And I am pretty sure I am allergic to my apartment because when I am not there, I feel fine, but when I go back, I start coughing, and my nose starts running. Mold? I am suspicious. When I left, I had chest and head congestion, but after running through the airport to catch a 6-hour flight, sitting in recycled air for all that time, barely sleeping for the past four nights and traveling to a foreign place with foreign germs, I feel totally fine. You are suspicious too.

Anyhoe, tomorrow, I head back to Madrid to meet up with Amaris (!!!!!), and then I head to ITALY!!!!!! Then back to Madrid to hang out with Ana!!!!!!! Then back home. (!?) I will be happy to fill you all in on the whole trip when I get back, but for now I would just like to close with this…

When I got on the bus, I opened up my journal to jot down some thoughts. It has a Bible verse on every page, and this was what I saw today:
“I am teaching you the way of wisdom;
I am guiding you on straight paths.” Prov. 4:11

Not bad, huh?

Countdown

Y’all, I have one more week in this long, long, long, long, long semester. Not bad-long, just long-long. And I’m ready for a break, but what I’m really excited about is organizing all the boxes of class materials under my bed into spiffy binders. And these spiffy binders will all fit into one box, making it possible for me to get rid of all the others. Then, I’m going to adjust my prices and re-list my books on half.com in the hopes that they all sell so I can get rid of that book case. And after that, I’m going to go through all my clothes and sort them honestly based on what I wear and what I don’t. I’m going to get rid of the ones I don’t wear, and then I’m going for a run.

When I get back from the run, I’m going to shave my legs. Both of them. All at once. Then I’m going to catch up on all my stories and take a nap. When I wake up from the nap, I’m going to go to the movies. I don’t know what I’m going to see, but it’s going to be good, and then I’m going to do my Christmas shopping.

After that, I’m going to read. I don’t care what. I’m going to go to the ‘Bou, get the free drink they promised me after making me the wrong drink last time, and read until I’m over it. Then I’m going to look at Etsy and Pinterest while I watch Bones and, let’s be honest, probably Elf for the fourth time in a month. I’m going to lie on the floor and watch the lights on my Christmas tree twinkle while I listen to all my favorite music. And I’m going to talk to people on Skype at all hours of the day and night when I would normally be asleep or at work.

If you would like to join me in any of these activities (except the napping and leg-shaving), you are welcome to do so. It would please me very much. We can make gingerbread houses and eat cookie dough and go ice skating and maybe even hold hands.

What I’ve Really Been Doing

Ok so now that everybody pretty much knows, I guess I can talk about it.

I might be moving to Europe. It’s weird to type it out into the world like that. So far, it’s just been discussed privately among a few close, trusted friends and people I knew would understand and be excited with me. Honestly, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’ve been taking things one step at a time, and really, at any point, the whole process could just be over, and that would be it. We’ll see. But for now, we press on.

I’m applying to go with World Team either to Italy or Spain. This is the same organization I went to Italy with back in June, and so far, this process has been…quite thorough. It’s been very cool – I’m learning a lot about myself as I go – but it has also been taking up lots and lots of time that I might have otherwise spent blogging. Or (let’s be honest) watching every episode of Bones (again) on Netflix. The application alone was at least twelve typed pages, and then they sent me the personality tests, the spiritual gifts test and the Bible tests (one of which I told you I flunked miserably, the other I haven’t been brave enough to take yet).

Then they sent me the official invitation to join them for a week of information, evaluation and mutual assessment, and suddenly things got really real. First of all, I need about $700 to make it happen, which is the first real commitment I’ve had to make. Until now, it’s all been literally on paper. Just theoretical. Just a really, really amazing dream of a possibility. Just paella and/or pizza, European public transit, Romance languages and adventure abounding on every side. But when it hits your pocketbook, it hits home.

Then, speaking of home, I started thinking about all the things I’ll miss if I leave. Weddings, birthdays, family reunions, my godchildren growing like weeds, Baby Josh, maybe Moravian Sugar Cake in my PJs with my family on Christmas morning. I don’t know what I’ll miss and what I won’t, but I know I’m asking my family and friends to make as big a sacrifice as I’d be making in going.

But then I started thinking of all the things I’d miss if I didn’t go, namely the chance to do something awesome, something bigger than myself, something impossible, something I’ve felt compelled to do for the last seven years. I don’t know the details of what’s in store for me. I just know that if I don’t at least try, I’ll always regret it and wonder.

I think y’all would too. You know me. You know I’ve got this crazy pull toward Europe. I honestly think if I didn’t at least try to go, some of you would be disappointed. So I’m asking you to sacrifice with me, but also to share in the awesomeness, knowing that your letting go is fueling something incredible.

I didn’t intend to make this a fundraising post, so you can stop reading now if you want it to not be about money. But if you’re still with me, and you want to give a little bit to help me get to the assessment week, please contact me. Comment, call, email, text, smoke signals, carrier pigeon, dream invasion, note in study hall, whatever. But maybe don’t send me a pigeon. You know how I feel about birds.

Beachin’ It Up!

Y’all, I’m at the beach, and I could not be happier about it. I got to hang out last night with some good friends, and then I parked my car, got on a boat and left the real world behind. I have things that must be done, of course, but I get to do them in a bathing suit with no make-up on and my hair looking like the bride of Frankenstein because the only people here are my parents, who, let’s face it, have seen me looking much worse and still love me and invite me to hang out with them. They’re pretty great like that.

So here’s what needs to get done:
*lesson plans (necessary evil)
*sleep more than 8 hours a night (so far so good)
*tan my face and neck to match my new summer make-up (mostly my neck – How is it that the front of the neck is always so shaded? Stupid head.)
*read (I started “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” on the ferry.)

And that, my friends, is all. You can be jealous if you want, but don’t hate. Just work on your own neck tan, and have a restful weekend.

Weekend Update

I understand that some of you are upset by my lack of blogging this week. Here’s what you missed:

I joined the Y!! I applied for financial assistance and got it in a BIG way. Seriously, if you want to join but don’t think you can afford it, the application process is really easy, and you’ll have an answer within a week or two. AND if you qualify for assistance, they waive the joining fee altogether. In sum, you should join and be my workout buddy. If it sways your decision at all, there are lots of cute bearded guys there (and cute non-bearded guys if that’s your thing, and cute non-bearded girls for that matter…something for everyone).
We went to see The Social Network on Movie Tuesday, which is a weekly outing we’ve started taking because the $1.50 theater sells drinks and popcorn for $1 each on Tuesdays. Movie + popcorn + drink = $3.50? Yes, please. Anyhoe, The Social Network was really good. Justin Timberlake amazes me. How are you so flippin’ talented, JT?
Tuesday-Friday felt like the looooooooooonnnnggesssssst four days EVER. Seriously. We had Monday off, and the rest of the week felt like three whole weeks. I’m so glad it’s over. My problem, I figured, was at least twofold. I deviated from my normal lesson pattern, which basically meant that where I would normally have built-in things to do, I had to come up with new things to do. This makes planning more excruciating than usual. And the first round of students has started to thin out considerably as people decide that the class isn’t for them or that they don’t have time for it or whatever, so on Thursday (I think), I only had three students. That sucks.
Friday, however, was great. We had our second registration, and I got TEN new students!! They might not all get to stay in the program (some might test out on a test they’ll take on Tuesday), but at the very least, a couple of my old students came back, and that changed the atmosphere of the class for the better instantly. And speaking of old students, Sarah, if you’re reading this, where have you been? Don’t make me call you. Just come on back. We miss you.
I tried to upgrade my MacBook’s operating system from Tiger to Snow Leopard. I was unsuccessful. However, I know what the problem is, and I am well on my way to fixing it. Just give me a few weeks, and I’ll be running faster than ever.
Speaking of running, I bought my plane ticket to New Orleans!! That actually happened a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it.
And speaking of New Orleans, Amaris and I convinced two boys to go with us today. Boom. Peer pressure. It’s going to be a really fun trip.
I got a flippin’ sweet fisheye lens camera, and I’ve been taking pictures all over downtown Raleigh. I believe you can view the whole album here if you’re interested. Just don’t go pilferin’ none of ’em.
I bought (hopefully) all the groceries I’ll need for the rest of the month so I don’t have to spend any more money on food until I get paid again. Don’t ask me to go out to eat. I can’t. I have to eat all this food I bought.
I did laundry.
I started reading Water for Elephants. It’s very good so far. You can expect a book report when I finish.
I played a dance game on the X-Box Kinect. It is…really cool. You don’t use any controllers. You just move your hands to make selections, and it actually watches you dance and scored your moves. When you’re setting it all up and moving things around without touching anything, you totally feel like Tony Stark designing a new Iron Man suit or something. And then it has a “freestyle” portion of every dance where you just do whatever you want as it records you. Then it plays back a short clip of your dancing, but in super-speed, so you look like a total spaz. Good times.
I had a crazy dream that I was running and skipping at a very high speed through a field with my friend Adam. We jumped into a lake, which we had to do to get all the points. Then he was gone, and I was walking through this trippy desert holding hands with some guy while my sister, who was, as best I can describe it, a swirling sand hologram, followed us. We had to let go at some point because our hands got too sweaty, but we were clearly in love.
I had breakfast this morning with a really awesome couple from church who worked as missionaries in Italy for about ten years. Did I mention they were awesome? Because they were.

And I think that just about wraps it up. I would very much like to update y’all more than once a week, but between teaching, lesson planning, training for a half-marathon I’m supposed to run in THREE WEEKS (Lord help us) and sleeping at least eight hours a night, there’s not a lot of free time. Once I get a better handle on the lesson planning, things should improve. Keep your fingers crossed.

Vacation: Day 1 – Professionalism Fail

Well first let’s start with an update on my vacation to-do list progress. I spent the weekend with Rachel and Annabelle baking. And hooooo-boy did we bake! I think we made about 90 buck-eye balls, about the same number of pretzels with melted Rolos and pecans on top, roughly 50 Christmas wreaths, and when I left, Rachel was still rolling out and baking cookies. Christmas wreaths, by the way, are super-easy and very delicious. If you’re looking for something festive to make this year, I’ll tell you how to do it.

Basically, they’re like Rice Krispie treats, but you use Corn Flakes instead of Rice Krispies. So you melt the butter and marshmallows together in a pot, and then you add green food coloring until the whole pot of goo is green. Then you add the Corn Flakes and stir until they’re all covered in green goo. Then you plop them in roundish clumps onto wax paper and add a few Red Hots (you know, the tiny cinnamon candies) to look like berries on the wreaths. Then just let them cool and set a bit. Voila!

Oh, and the pretzel thingies were really easy too. We just got the sort of checker-board-looking pretzels (like these) and laid them out on a cookie sheet. Then I painstakingly unwrapped a whole mess of Rolos and placed one on top of each pretzel. We popped those into the oven for a few minutes, just to soften the caramel center of the Rolos. Then we took them out and smushed a pecan half on top of each one to make them a bit flatter and spread the chocolate across the whole pretzel. Let those bad boys cool, and you’ve got yourself a treat.

Oh, and also, I watched FOUR movies this weekend, so I’m very proud of that. It was also on my to-do list, if you recall.

But look at me. I’ve gone and gotten distracted by sweets and films. I meant to tell you about my first weekday of vacation, the first goal of which was to sleep in. Mission accomplished!!! The next goal was to get out of bed and go straight to the shower so as not to sit around all stank in my jabambas all day. BOOM! Showered.

Then, I was supposed to get dressed and put my face on as if I were going to go out to a real job in a real office because they say that’s what you should do if you work from home – treat your job like any other job – with professionalism.

Except when I got out of the shower, I realized that all my clothes were dirty.

So I put on clean jabambas and started a load of laundry. Oh well. I’ll get it right tomorrow. And in the meantime, I’ve got work to do. But hopefully, I’ll have something to say to y’all more often since all my brain power won’t be sucked out of me by the evil lesson planning fairies for the next few weeks.

Until next time (tomorrow??)…