quiet Saturday morning at home

alone. I do like that sometimes. I still have to finish Snow for the contemp world lit class (rereading it, have to write quizzes this time). and a small pile of essays to grade for Mon morning.

the boys are at the state wrestling tournament. the time has come for ben t. to move on to playing with the big boys -- this tournament is more for the little kids. only 3 registered in his weight/age, so it's not really worth a trip downstate. except that he and his dad are having a nice weekend together. it's the first time I didn't go.

but yesterday I had a teaching circle meeting that I didn't want to miss (and would have lost 20% of the stipend had I ducked out). we've been a good sounding board group for technological issues, including pain -- yesterday the topic was ergonomics and I was really looking forward to it.

in addition, almond joy asked me to stay home with her this time. she needed to chill before SATs (and she needed someone to wake her up. yup, that's me, mommy-alarm-clock). so we went out to dinner and had a quiet evening at home. we'll go to the speech banquet tomorrow and on Monday she'll know about the school newspaper editorial positions. some tension here. yup.

I'm working on both the ending of the semester class stuff and getting the summer classes up and ordering the books for fall classes. there's enough new to push me hard right now.

school has come through with lots of rewards lately to keep me motivated: back pay (a retroactive pay raise is always a good thing), a new tablet computer, and funding for not only the national conference for ws, but a different source of funding for the autobiography conference in Hawaii! (I did get the flight tickets with ff miles, but I didn't expect the college would pay that much over the usual stipend!). plus I'm excited about the summer classes and fall classes. I'm even thinking about the sabbatical the year after that (some program applications have to be in this year already).

so things are cooking along. meanwhile, just drinking coffee and reading the paper and the sun's out, finally.

have a good weekend.