Snippets

Yesterday's Schedule

3:30 am -- Awake -- worry about all the stuff I have to do. Gratefully, I fall back to sleep.

5:30 am -- Wake up, read emails, answer students' questions, grade online papers, write 1/3 of new syllabus

6:30 am -- Walk dog

7:30 am -- wake kids, eat breakfast, drive to summer school

9:15 am -- Sculpt and Tone class at the Y, read 3 pages of a journal article waiting for class to start

11:30 am -- pick up kids from summer school, drive home, fix lunch

1:45 pm -- drive to library, realize we forgot library books, drive back home, drive back to library, drive back home.

3:00 pm -- Work on syllabus

3:05 pm -- Stop working to diffuse meltdown because one twin took something from another

3:15 pm -- Work on syllabus again


3:45 pm -- drive to swim lessons


4:00 pm -- stamp PTA address on envelopes as part of volunteer obligation

5:00 pm -- drive home, make dinner

and on and on and on


I'm smiling because I love this. Did my syllabus get done yesterday? No. Did it get done today? No, but it is getting done, a little at a time. This means that things get done M U C H S L O W E R, but I get to be involved in so many things. It's all worth it.

I've been learning to do my job in between the myriad of activities that my kids need schlepping to. Working in snippets, I call it.

It's interesting how the "Mom Taxi" has such a bad rap. Yeah. It's a lot of miles and running around, but can you make it more interesting? How nice is it to sit and read a magazine, or get a little bit of work done while waiting for your kid to finish soccer practice? I find it an opportunity to work on projects one little bit at a time. Yesterday is a prime example. I watched my kids playing in the back yeard while I set up an online course interface platform. My friend brought over her kids to swim, and we took turns watching the kids and completing our "snippet" work.

I'm a classic procrastinator. When I was in college, I had to get a full time job so that I ONLY had certain times to do my homework. Now I HAVE to grade papers, answer emails, write, plan lessons in between taking my kids from here to there.

And I couldn't be happier about it.