Holiday Cheer

My friends/colleagues came over Tuesday night, and I'm just now recovering. Haha! It was great fun - there were 13 of us crammed into my living room (and porch...) and I just loved having them over so much. We exchanged gifts, ate, drank, and then a brave 7 stayed around to sing karaoke. It was pretty fantastic. I didn't enjoy doing it myself as much as I did watching the others - they are very funny people.

This is exam week, and it's been more tiring than normal because our curriculum team (the 9th grade teachers) decided to give a group project/paper/presentation final rather than one you can grade through a scantron machine. Hoo boy - it has been a whirlwind to get those essays graded. But I've been such a GOOD GIRL, grading a little every day (except Tuesday) to stay on top of it, and now I won't have any grading to do over break. Can I get a "hallelujah?" Don't bother - I'm singing 'em myself. Of course I'll have to lesson plan a ton, but no grading? That's beautiful.

I'm going to Greenville Sunday for 6 days - I'll come back to Nash the day after Christmas, so I hope that amount of time won't be TOO long away from Nash. I think I'm going to sleep all of Saturday just to gear up for it because I'm so freaking tired right now. I've got four books to read over break (so far) that kids told me about in their book talks - one of them is Anne of Green Gables - can you believe I've never read that? I know - shocking.

I probably won't blog for the week - blogging from Greenville is just too weird. I have to be in my home, you know? But this is a good season right now, and I'm so grateful to be experiencing joy in my life right now. It's nice. I kind of don't know what to do with it. It's weird to feel this exuberance going through my day, and to feel self-satisfaction is so - strange. I hope this is something that I will get used to. I would like that very much.
(Hey - what's going on with this post? Where's the venting?)

And I'll leave it at that.