I'm still here

My oldest just left this morning to go back to college and I have a second to come up to breathe. We had a great time with her being home, I just wish I didn't have to turn in grades on Tuesday morning. For some reason this year I have been doing more grading of papers at home. I changed my schedule at work so I'm not a late start teachers. That means I start work the same time as all the other teachers and get done at the same time too. I don't have as much time in the morning to get work done while everyone else is teaching. Now, when I have time to grade, everyone else is done working too and they all want to talk. Of course, I'm exhausted from teaching by the afternoon and don't really feel like grading papers either, so enjoy the excuse to chat instead of work. That gives me about 45 minutes extra a day less grading time which has to be made up somewhere. I found out where today, when I spent from 9am until 7pm grading papers and I still have more to do. I'm going to work for another hour tonight and what gets done will go in the grades tomorrow. Whatever is leftover will continue on into the next quarter.

I had to take a chocolate fondue break today and dip some fruit in chocolate or I never would have made it through the day and I also found 15 minutes to cut fabric and sew it back together again. I am determined to get the binding on those 10 or so quilts that have been sitting on the cutting table for months waiting to be finished. They are doing nobody any good sitting there. I haven't found the perfect fabric so I'm using the next best thing...fabric that I can find and that sort of goes with the quilts. Done is better than perfect!

Last week my washing machine went out on me. I guess it was about time. My parents bought it for us when we bought our first house 13 years ago. It stopped agitating and spinning. It would fill and drain and make noises, but not spin. I called a repairman and it was going to cost about $200 to repair and $500 for a new one. I wondered how long the repairs would last before something else went out on it so decided to get a new one. All the places said it would be another week before they could deliver so I headed to the laundry mat. 11 loads of laundry and 3 hours later, I spent about $25 for the week. I knew I couldn't afford to go without a washing machine for another week so went to the local apliance shop and they delivered one yesterday. I spent about $50 more on it than the big box stores to get it delivered the same day, but it was worth it! I've done 5 more loads of laundry in the new machine today. I don't understand how anyone can live without a washing machine. Makes me want to make friends with people who don't own their own washers so they can come over to do their laundry.