not dead, just busy

A brief recounting:

- Working online, which is pretty much OK, except when there's no work when I want to work, when it's frustrating. The way it works is, I log in and "acquire a task." Sometimes there are no tasks to acquire. Sometimes after I've been logged in for a few minutes, tasks will start popping up, but it's pretty random. I'll have stretches where I can work for 3 or 4 hours (rare, for me), and then others when I work for 5 minutes and there are no more tasks forthcoming. Fortunately I am not dependent on this income for anything other than covering the kids' piano lessons, otherwise it would be stressful.

- Speaking of piano lessons, did I mention the barter arrangement I made with their teacher? We're trading cooking lessons for (part of) the piano lessons with some success. She would like to quit eating out pretty much all the time, but that's a huge transition to make. We're working on her cooking repertoire. I think she thinks that's an indulgent way to talk about it, but there it is: you have a repertoire of meals you rely on to get you through the days or weeks when you're lacking time, money, inspiration, or all three. So far she has liked what she has made, and that's good.

- Schoolwork -- finally knocked out the lesson plans and got good feedback on them, and attended my second seminar. Officially I have only 3 more assignments total and then I will be done with these two classes, and we'll see when I register for the next class or classes, because --

- I interviewed for a job on Monday. Last week I got a call, "Would you like to interview for the paraprofessional position?" I had to ask, "Which one?" because I had applied to so many different schools in different districts. It's not in the kids' school district but the calendar differences are manageable, so I said yes. The interview went really well, I think, and I think I would like the job -- Title I Paraprofessional, basically a floating instructional aide. I think. I should hear back on Friday. It's 6 hours per day so life would be much busier than it is now, but I think it would be really good for me to be working in a school again. I'm always so happy when I am teaching.

- I wrote a book last weekend, posted separately, for my RE (religious education) class, which started a couple of weeks ago. I'm teaching the same content as last year, and I'm sure we (me and the kids) will benefit from my having done it before. It's a smaller class and that helps, too.

- My own cooking, cleaning, shopping, working out; driving children everywhere; supervising kids' homework, reading, chores, piano & clarinet practice; wondering why the burners on the stove wouldn't light after I cleaned it (mismatched burner covers), cleaning up a quart of maple syrup that got all over the floor when the bottle was dropped and cracked... You know, that sort of thing. Oh, and laundry. Laundry is an afterthought now. I'm doing three loads a week instead of 5 or 6, and the drier is fast. I love those new machines. It is true that the clothes are a bit more wrinkled than with the old machines if I put the drier on "high heat" setting, but I really don't need to do that. The clothes look great. The whites really are whiter. Yes, I sound like an ad. I don't care.

- Watching, when I can, Top Chef, Project Runway, House, and Glee, and I almost forgot The Office. DH and I also are renting season one of Breaking Bad which is incredible. We're five episodes in and I'm thoroughly engrossed. The main character is such an odd dichotomy of normal good guy and amoral snake, but a terminal cancer diagnosis can have an odd effect on a person.

- Today, just to make things interesting, I went to school with DS1 for "shadow a student" day. There's nothing like being back in junior high. It was only a half day, thank God, and it went very quickly, but I can see why he chafes so about this new school. It is just not academically challenging at all. DH & I had thought this would be OK since he had so many other adjustments to make, but I'm wondering what the overall impact will be.

So you see nothing earth shattering, just a lot of things going on, the business of life. It's good.