Random Brain Dump

I really want to get back in to blogging more regularly. Despite the fact that people seem to regularly declare blogging dead these days, I like it. I still have a lot of post ideas in my head. However, I worry about the fact that my posting this year has been about half of what it used to be, and most of those posts are declarations similar to this one. So now I'll stop dithering and dump some random crap on you (isn't that what blogging is all about?)

This weekend really kicked my butt. I should be in bed catching up on sleep since I still haven't made up for losing so much over the weekend. I'm teaching two classes that meet Monday and Wednesday. Last Monday my students turned in papers. Due to the fact that I'm working two part-time jobs, I didn't even get to the papers until Thursday. That gave me four days to grade 40 papers, which doesn't account for the fact that I also have a life. By Sunday morning I still had 20 papers to go. So I stayed up very late on Sunday finishing the grading. Now I'm tired.

I didn't grade papers on Saturday because I worked most of the day and then took off a few hours early to go to a mission reunion. I hesitated to go because Mr. Fob and I served in the same mission and we have many friends there who have no idea of what is going on. It turned out to be a wonderful time with only a few awkward moments. I got to see old friends, took home a bunch of leftover Cafe Rio food for free, and actually sat through a spiritual meeting in peace for the first time in a long while.

I totally love working at the library, and when I think of leaving I get sad, but I've been looking at and applying for other jobs. The chance of me getting a full-time position there any time soon is minuscule, and I am ready for something full-time with benefits and hours that don't include nights and weekends. Teaching is actually going really well this semester, but trying to combine that with another job is very draining. I can teach, but it's not my favorite thing to do and I'm getting tired of it. Hopefully something will pop up soon. Financially I'm OK for a while, but I'm ready for a 'real' job.

The hard thing about being tired and stressed is that I don't feel like I can give as much to the kids as they need. The two older ones have been having a bit of a hard time (obviously). In some ways they are handling things well, but we have moments that aren't so great. On Sunday Mr. Fob dropped the kids off after lunch, just in time for church. Little Dude is not a big fan of church lately anyways, and he really didn't want Dad to leave. So we had a lot of crying and screaming, although I went ahead and got him in the car and drove to the church. When we were almost there, I looked at him freaking out in the back seat, looked up at the mountains, and announced that we were going for a drive. We missed most of sacrament meeting because we were driving in the canyon, looking at leaves, and talking about a bunch of things. I don't plan to make skipping half of church a regular occurrence, but it was the right decision at the time. I know that they just need time to adjust to everything and we are both trying to make things as easy for them as we can. It still sucks to watch your kids have to go through something painful that you can't just make disappear. I'm looking forward to Thursday this week when they don't have school and we are just going to hang out all day and have fun.

And, speaking of Thursday, I am going to be on TV! Since I fell of the face of the blogging-planet I never mentioned that I got to fly to LA in August to tape the show Jeopardy! Well there is the fact that I wasn't supposed to talk about it either. So now I'm telling you that you can watch me on Thursday night. I will write up a full report of my experience this weekend, since I can talk about it after the show airs.