He never hands you more than you can take

You know how people say that God doesn't ever give you more than you can handle? They're lying to you. There's a caveat. IF we are awake 24 hours a day, and IF we have two heads and four hands, then the premise is true. However, since we are humans with little flaws like the need for sleep and no desire to travel with a circus freak show, we sometimes cannot possibly handle all that is expected. We should sometimes shower (at least for the sake of the people who live with us) and peeing is an obligation which should not be ignored for eight hours at a time.

THREE FREAKIN' WEEKS between me and freedom. Actually, five because I have two more weeks of classes to teach and grade before then, but that will be a breeze after this.

In the past seven days, I have

• graded 45 research papers (15 pages in length),
• evaluated the same number of project presentations,
• graded 10 sets of assignments for each of three sections of tenth graders (catch-22 - you teach, give people assignments, do your job...and then by God, you have to grade the shit),
• done two birthday parties (you should experience the joy of the Zap Zone with a dozen 7 year olds and a slumber party with 12 year olds...really),
• supervised a school play,
• edited 52 pages of my thesis,
• reformatted the dang thing three times,
• learned how to generate a table of contents using Word 2007 (much easier than I thought, but still, that's hours of my life I won't get back),
• written three assignments for the class I'm taking, and edited three other classmates' thesis papers.
• filled three orders for stitch markers
• spent at least an hour a day driving the beasties all over town
• tutored a bunch of teens (because we just can't get enough time locked in a room with a bunch of teens) for at least two hours a day

eta: Forgot to say...No...that's not all that I was supposed to do. Double that list. I still need to write the last chapter of my MA paper. Anyone know how to do z- and t-tests? I don't even know what the hell they are anymore, but in my infinite wisdom I announced in the paper that those tests would be part of my final analysis. Who would have thought that they would actually expect me to DO MATH to finish this?

I'm sleeping on the couch this week because it's my turn to keep Atticus (the newf) company at night because he can't do stairs while he recovers from his knee surgery (hubby refers to him as "that gold-plated beast" now...ETA: I call him my trip to Paris). Thankfully, my children recognize Mama's need for her bed and her hubby and take over on the weekends. They can't help me or hubby with hauling Atticus' giant butt out into the yard in a sling (he weighs in at 140 lbs.) three times a day for his quality time.

I'm not done yet and three weeks seems like three years right now. Scratch that tray of jello shots I wanted after graduation. I'll be needing a swimming pool full.

So why am I here blogging away, you ask? It's simple. I have worked myself around in a circle into total inertia. I can't do another damn thing that's remotely productive right now. In the meantime, I've been adding sunshine to my hellish weeks by purchasing yarn that I don't have time to knit. Each week, some gorgeous box of yum has been landing on my doorstep in the ghetto to tell me "hey gurl...I know it be hard, but you just hang in there and stay strong. You da bomb, you know." Hubby has not said a word about it. He knows that each night, the yarn closet door explodes open, an act of the yarn gods tempting me away from my purpose. He knows that there is yarn in boxes all over the house, that knitting books are competing for space with the literature and education books on the shelves in the living room, and that I've already bought more yarn than I can knit before I die. It's okay, he says. Soon, really soon, I can start looking for another job while I knit my life away.