A Healer’s Geste

Rainy Spring Break

The weather today is preparing me for my trip to Western Oregon. :)

It is here! Spring Break! Every April, however, I wish Spring Break were two weeks…I could always use it. Oh well, I guess next April I won’t be wishing it! :)

Today I have quite a to-do list in order to prepare for my overnight trip with the boys to Oregon City to visit Elly and her two boys. Our friend Meghan with her one girl and two boys will also be coming for the day from Olympia. Three old college friends (though Elly and Meghan are childhood friends, I didn’t join up until 17) getting together…with seven children, all told! One almost-four-year-old, three two-year-olds, and three under a year. All our children so far have been born in this order: Meghan, myself, and Elly — so now we’ll have to wait on Meghan again! :) That would be oldest to youngest, reverse order of engagements, but messed up on wedding order. We were all, including our husbands, at UI and in Moscow for two years together and transitioned with one another away from home one year and into our own households the next. We were engaged within several months of each other, married within 3 weeks of each other (first us, then Meghan, then Elly, although she was engaged first!). Ah…it’s all so fun! :)

Anyway, if I want to leave my house in any semblance of order and take what I need, today I have to do three loads of laundry, vacuum, cook up and freeze some baby & Hans food (beginning of the month chore), and plan dinners for the week (sans Tuesday and Wednesday, for which there will be leftovers for Matt). Of course I have to pack and clear out the vehicle, as well. Also, no matter how I feel after dinner, I am going to leave the kitchen clean before going to bed. I plan on leaving around 6 in the morning, so I want the car packed, clothes and food laid out, so all I have to do in the morning is get dressed, grab breakfasts for the car, put the jammied boys directly from bed in to their carseats, and then be off with a quick detour through a coffee shop drive-through! :)

That will leave me Thursday and Friday for Spring Break at home. My goal will be to have complete lesson plans for the remaining 13 days I have to teach a lesson and get a jump-start brainstorming questions for review-day, jeopardy, and the comprehensive final, as well as working on the last paragraph assignment and quiz. I have some grading to complete as well. If I can get all that done, it will make the remaining weeks of class much easier and smoother, and it will be more efficient. I have to get into “literature mode” to come up with good lessons, and it can’t always be forced…so if I can get into the mode and stay there and get it all done, it will be best. I might have to see what grandmothers’ plans are when I get back! :)