I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Up until this week, no amount of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel thinking was helping me. I've been too exhausted and too overwhelmed to deal with anything. I even - for the first time ever in my life - didn't turn in a weekly paper because I just couldn't find time to write it.

In addition to All The Theory and All The Jobs, I've been working on submitting an article for publication (not getting my hopes up) and prepping to present at an upcoming conference (which will totally rock). This hasn't left time for any form of sanity or, say, breathing.

But this week? I can see the light! And it looks like this:

See the Denver city skyline?

I've decided to quit my grading side job after this semester. Pretty much everyone in the world knows about this decision except the professor I grade for (or for whom I grade, if we're being English major-y). I get along with him really well and I think he's come to depend on me quite a bit - to the point that he's asked me to guest lecture in his class (I said no) - so I'm trying to tip toe around him and find someone to take my place before I break the news to him. I'm not having much luck. Also, I'm still buried in grading, but there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, this one has still been feeling great! She loves to listen to the washing machine fill up, and since we spend a lot of time doing laundry, she's begun to spend a lot of time sitting in front of that room. Like this:

My view if I peek over the back of the couch.

She hangs out while the water fills up. As soon as the machine kicks in, she gets bored and hops away to chew on things.

I have also decided to take the summer off. No work for me. We have lots of things planned and lots of family coming to visit. I somehow have to create a brand new syllabus for a brand new (to me) class. My students have gotten sneaky and have stopped asking me if I'm teaching Comp II. Instead, they just looked it up and registered for it! So I have students from this semester and even past semesters in my fall classes - I really look forward to that!

I heart Denver.

And I'm registered for fall, myself! I think it will be my best semester of grad school, so I've decided to cut back on work, just for that one semester, which was another contributing factor regarding quitting the side job. I'm only going to work about 15 hours a week at the writing consultant job, just for the fall. I'm taking a very intensive Virginia Woolf independent study (so intensive that I'll do about half the work for it over the summer) and a Contemporary Feminist Thought class that serves, essentially, as Feminist Thought II. It is going to rock so. much.

After next semester, I will only focus on one or two remaining credits (such as Medieval Literature, kill me now, and my final capstone project, kill me again).

My nephew gets me.

But, Japan.

And a visit from by bro and SIL.

And a trip to see Gama.

Lots of family time.

Summer reading!

NAPS!!!!!!!

Yard work.

See? There's the light.