A nice weekend

What I needed to do this weekend:

• grade 30 tests
• solve a design project that I assigned to students a month ago, to be sure I have covered necessary material before the semester ends
• grade 90 lab reports
• prepare lecture notes for 2 different classes on Monday
• prepare a meal plan for the week and grocery shop
• dig out the kitchen counter from the mound of accumulated papers (kids' school work, medical bills, church committee notes, and random junk mail)
• laundry
• rake and bag leaves
• clean the cobwebs from the corners of the house, where they are taking over

What I actually have done so far this weekend (Saturday night at 9:50 PM):

• spent all of Friday evening visiting with good friends we haven't seen since summer
• took a long nap in the recliner Saturday morning
• folded 2 baskets of laundry
• watched the 3 kids play a new make-believe game together that involved all of them getting dressed up in headphones and safety goggles and carrying around foam swords or plastic light sabers as they moved piles of toys around the house and negotiated which ones were in their "store" and which they were keeping
• sorted through all the baby clothes up to size 3T, collecting 3 bins full (18-gallon size) of boy-only clothing to pass along the new Harrison cousin due to arrive next month and making room for a few girl items that they are sending our way
• packed away, in the correct storage bins, a mountain of too-small clothing that has been pulled out of the kids' drawers and closets in the past few months and stacked on the laundry table, driving Jeremy and I nuts
• cheered Jeremy on as he finished raking and bagging all of the back-yard leaves and hung up all the bikes in the garage for winter
• got three kids bathed and ready for bed
• sat on the couch under a blanket with the whole family to watch a 1-hour documentary film about a family's 6-month trek across Canada via canoe, van, train, plane, sailboat (Finding Farley). We actually all found it pretty interesting, except maybe not John, who fell asleep instantly and kept me content by snuggling his sleeping, drooling body up next to me.
• caught up both of my blogs a bit
• oh, yeah! I also grabbed a kleenex and wiped up the dust over the boys' bedroom doorframe where it had collected into a long cobwebby thing hanging down to eye level. That almost counts as dusting the entire house, right?

So, some of my list got accomplished. Notice how little of it is Calvin work, compared to my "need to do" list. Oh well. Some semesters are like that. I canceled my first class of the semester on Friday afternoon. I had good reason - I am ahead in the syllabus, and the students used the day to stop in and talk to me individually about two big assignments they are working on. But still, it felt so good that I am in danger of wanting to just keep doing it until the end of the semester. Four weeks of classes to go and it seems to stretch out impossibly long right now. I have two more tests to write and grade before the end. I have another lab to conduct and then 35 more reports to grade. I have 12 design project reports coming in to grade. All before I can turn to writing final exams. But then, maybe I can finally make some progress on my research? Ahh, well.

So, if I don't think so much about the paid work that needs doing, I can focus on the good stuff I did get done at home this weekend. Tomorrow, I think I will read to the kids a while, and maybe bake cookies. That sounds like a lovely ending.