SLAMMING INTO THE WORK-WEEK WALL

 I love my friends and family, but when they want to do things on Friday nights, I can't. I just can't.

Why?

Because I'm exhausted, that's why. My old body can't party like it used to, at least not without a nap. 

Teaching is an interesting gig. I teach five classes a day, sometimes six, and I have at least one meeting a day on top of that. What non-teachers don't know is that this is like putting on six or seven live performances, often ad lib, a day. Every day. Day in and day out. This week throw in a faculty meeting, a Union meeting, an afternoon of parent conferences, an evening of parent conferences, and an afternoon of professional development, in additional to closing and resolving term 2 grades, covering and juggling Covid absentees, and trying to make sure all of the accommodations are implemented to every student in every class. 

Don't mock me -- It's a great gig and I love it. But, it is freaking exhausting.

So, when a friend asked if I wanted to get together and play cards on Friday evening, I knew enough to decline ahead of time. Good thing. I dozed off sitting up on the couch Friday evening around 6:30 p.m. I woke up in a panic and thought, surely it must be midnight and I should just go to bed. Nope. 7:00 p.m. I forced myself to stay awake until about 10:00, a respectable bedtime, then crawled into bed and slept for about nine hours.

Right now we are in the earlier stages of a major snowstorm, so I have weather-imposed downtime to correct about a hundred essays. A day inside is not a bad punishment after an exhausting work week. Of course, I will have to clean off my car at some point, but for now I will enjoy a chance to recharge my batteries and do it all over again on Monday.

ANTI-MAGNETIC FRIDGES SHOULD BE OUTLAWED

 A friend of mine recently posted that her new fridge does not have a metal door front. Now, this isn't really anything new as plastic-like veneers are old-school for fridges, but even those old-school models had metal bases. 

How do we know this?

Magnets.  That's right: Magnets.

You see, my friend's new fridge does not hold magnets. Quite frankly, I find this shocking and ridiculously disappointing. What idiot fridge manufacturer produces an anti-fridge-magnet fridge? It's anti-American and probably some covert plan to drive us all crazy.

Think about it. 

Since Covid started, we have been confined for much of the time inside of our own homes. We have very little left that gives us joy as one can only do so many puzzles, only play so many games, only listen to so much music, and only watch so much television before we slowly start to lose our minds. 

One distraction is to play with fridge magnets. Little kids put magnetic letters on the fridge. Adults put magnetic calendars on the fridge. We put inspirational magnets on the fridge to make ourselves laugh and to keep ourselves sane.

A fridge with no magnets? That's just cruelty. It should be outlawed.

I have several fridge magnets (whittled down to "several" from "an insane amount no person should ever admit to owning"). In response to my friend's recent lament about her non-magnetic fridge front, I post a picture of several of my fridge magnets. Some are from travel, some from friends, and some from so long ago that I cannot even remember where I got them.

I do keep one prominent to remind me how to behave (most of the time), and, since this is an inspirational blog (stop snickering - I can hear you), I will share that wisdom with you:

"Today I will think evil thoughts and try not to say them out loud."

I suppose an "amen" here would be good. I will be honest with all of you though; when it comes to keeping my mouth shut, I can prewarn you that the possibilities are slim to none. 

Have a wonderful week, anyway . . . ya scallywags.

COLDER THAN A WITCH'S TEAT AND THEN SOME

On the heels of the lovely snow from last week, we are now experiencing skin-splitting cold. It's so damn cold out there that I won't leave the house. Nope. Not going to do it and you can't make me. 

I went shopping on Thursday when it was seasonably balmy -- mid 40's, which in winter is considered bathing suit weather here in New England. I bought all the fixings for today's project: soup. Delicious and easy vegetable soup with way too much macaroni in it.

All this to prevent myself from venturing out into the tundra.

I even put on exercise clothes (yoga pants and t-shirt) to remind myself not to go outside. No, girlfriend, you can't go out because you tied your sneakers and you'd have to remove them to change out of the yoga pants, and that's too much work, so stay inside. Just stay inside!

I did venture to the front lobby of my building to get my mail. It was about 20 degrees (must have heat somewhere near that front door) down there, which is forty degrees higher than the wind chill temperatures on the other side of the door. 

I am not crazy. I will not open my porch door to switch on the string of white lights decorating the railing. No way. Screw that! I'm not going to sit out there tonight, anyway. I shut the blinds and go about my business, which is sitting in front of the gas fireplace enjoying the fact that it's almost 70 degrees inside and the only frostbite I hope to encounter this evening is because an ice cube in my drink sticks to my lip.

Tomorrow will be better, though. It is supposed to hit 27 degrees tomorrow. If the wind dies down, it will feel forty degrees warmer than today. By Monday, when the temperatures reach the mid-40's again, I might even break out my shorts and go for a walk. 

TAKING WHAT LITTLE MOTHER NATURE DOLES OUT

 

It's not much, but we'll take it.

We finally get some decent snow, but it's only about six inches of super-fluffy snow, not even damp enough for snowballs. It's better than nothing.

All of you who live in New England, or any other snow-belt state: If you're old enough to live on your own and you hate snow or cold . . . MOVE. That's right; I said it. MOVE. Stop putting a damper on those of us who love, love, LOVE snow.

I went sledding recently with some of my family. We filmed in slo-mo, and the results are hilarious. You can't do that crap in Florida, I guarantee that. How can you laugh so hard that you almost pee your snow-pants unless you live where snow-pants are a necessity?

First significant snow = Lame. Enough to cancel school but not enough to snowshoe. 

Oh, well. It'll do. For now. Bring on a blizzard of epic proportions. I know in my lifetime I won't see another blizzard of '78, but it sure would be fun to experience it again. For now, I'll take what little Mother Nature doles out and be happy.

PURGING OUT THE OLD YEAR

It's resolution time again. But first, take out the old before bringing in anything new. 

Right now the only resolution I feel like making is to stop eating. I mainlined so much junk over the last two weeks that I feel like a tub 'o' lard. Okay, so I guess that means I have to get back to moving around more. I stopped going to the gym when the mask mandate returned. Not a political statement -- I simply cannot exercise with the mask on. It's a textual thing.

So I decide to move furniture around, instead. In doing this, I need to downsize my office supplies. Yes, you read that right: Office Supplies. I honestly have enough supplies to start my own ten-person business. So, I start with the highlighters. How I have accumulated dozens and dozens and dozens of them is beyond me. I keep two or so of the colors I need and put the remaining thousands into a bag to take to school. 

Then come pencils, both mechanical and standard. I believe keeping about three dozen should do the trick. The rest go into another bag. Pens? Oh, boy, this is going to be good. But, I try each and every one and decide if I have the slightest hesitancy about using the pen (flow of ink, ease of grip, etc.), then to school it will go. 

Crayons are another challenge. I go through and keep only the Crayola crayons, and only one of each color. I cannot even begin to explain how or why I have six red-orange Crayola crayons. It's like some kind of waxy conspiracy. The rest? To school they go.

Everything is going along just fine until the colored pencils.

No bullshit: I must have 400 or more colored pencils. It's like Charette's (an old artist and drafting supply company) puked up colored pencils all over my office. I have more colored pencils than any sane person has a right to own. The truly ironic thing here is that I am not particularly good at coloring. One of my sisters manages to stay in the lines all the time, but I never mastered that in coloring nor in life. 

It takes me two hours to go through the colored pencils. First, I sort them by brand. Then I try them out to see which ones I want to save: Prang? Pentech? Crayola? Faber Castell? Rose Art? Then I sort by color. Good gawd, how did I end up with ten sky blue colored pencils? What. The. Heck.

The good news is I can actually see and use my office supplies now. Oh, sure, I still have enough paper clips to build a fence around the living room, but at least they all fit into a plastic food storage container that also fits in a drawer. The better news is that my students will inherit enough pens and pencils to never have to return to their lockers for forgotten utensils for the rest of this year. Maybe even for the rest of their lives.

Purging feels pretty good. Bring on 2022. If it truly helps me to get the fat out, both personally and professionally, I'm already a big fan.