the silence here at whysper hasn't been deliberate. life has pretty much gone in a downward spiral, and i've been frustrated over lack of time, the constant feeling of crises, and now being sick as a dog. you'd think after the car bellied up, it would be time to let up, but no. instead a friendship went down the drain and now both my youngest (who's had a nasty hacking cough for well over a week) and myself will probably have to go to urgent care tomorrow.
welcome to the nightmare.
i'm muddling along with the long term position as best i can. most of the planning is done, i just have to do little adjustments every now and then. 3 of the 4 groups of kids seem to be getting it together at least a little. that last group makes me hate going to work though. it's almost over, thank goodness. next week we have conferences and all that, the week after i get 3 days off during the week plus the weekend for thanksgiving. mid-december we're done. grades have to be in by the 18th. thursday of that week begins christmas break, which means i'm through. i am sooo looking forward to that.
the car thing has at least temporarily been handled. we're using the truck my brother wants to sell. there's a possibility the sale will include a trade, which would give us a car we have to make payments on, but we'll see. i'm really not looking forward to that since the budget is already strained, but we'll manage.
jewel's alterego reared it's ugly head again and she'll be moving out. i'm not going through another 6 months of that same old crap with her. choir seems to have become the only thing that matters to her -- it matters more than her grades, more than her family, more than her job. i understand why she thinks this way, but i can't allow it to interfere with her education and responsibilities at home. we told her we were going to take her out of choir and she literally told us she wouldn't "allow" us to. somehow she has it in her head she can make the rules in my house and tell the parents what to do. so she got her ultimatum, after another huge screaming fight: we take her out or she's out of the house. she chose out of the house. she has a place lined up, the room just has to become vacant. we told her it better be vacant before school starts in january or she's out of choir anyway. i won't have her living under a pretense of moving and never have the move actually happen. jewel turns 18 in 5 months anyway, so it's not like this is that big of a push.
froogy's upset about all this, of course. she hates having kitten gone; knowing jewel will be leaving as well breaks her heart. but she and taz are part of the reason it's got to be done. they need the chaos jewel leaves in her wake when she's like this even less than i do. taz is particularly sensistive to changes. the sooner we get her out the better for him -- less arguing to distress him and the sooner he'll adjust to her being gone.
beyond all this, the one thing i really miss right now is writing. i just don't have time. even if i had been well this weekend (i've been hacking for about a week), i wouldn't have had time to write. the stack of grading is too high. gotta admit, though, all the time spent sleeping today could have been used for writing, but i probably would have been overly responsible and graded papers instead.
speaking of which, time for me to crawl back under the covers and either resume grading or napping. meh.
word of the moment: implosion
the violent inward collapse of a vessel or structure resulting from the external pressure being greater than the internal pressure; total economic or political collapse, e.g. as a result of poor management and financial insolvency; the initial occluded phase of a stop consonant