9-80 Day

My work has gone to a new schedule - I work 9 hours Monday thru Thursday, 8 hours on the first Friday and the second Friday is off. Nine days to work 80 hours. When my kids were younger I didn't do it. I really wanted to rush home for homework before dinner. Little kids don't do well with late evening homework in my experience. My kids aren't so young anymore. I don't help with high school homework beyond asking if it's done and maybe some help in scheduling longer term projects. Msk is often out with b-d until 6:30 and even if he's home he prefers to do homework with child #2 rather than me. My evening is freed up, and I now work 9-80.

I usually worked beyond an 8 hour day in the past, but it was at my discretion. Now I have to stay that hour or take personal time. I've also got a very long commute (at least to me) these days. All of that is to say that my days feel very long to earn my every-other-Friday-off day. But earn them I do.

Today was one of my "off" Fridays.
Here's what I actually did (hubs was indisposed, luckily on an off Friday):

• Take HS students to school (40min round trip) with msk in tow
• Take msk to school
• Drive to my mother's apartment to help her with some stuff - my mom is 88 years old
• Drive to Ellicott City to pick up 26 cases of Girl Scout cookies
• Organize count and pack said cookies into my car to allow me to have 2 passenger seats open for kid pickup
• Catch up on on-line book-keeping related to Girl Scout cookies - this took a few hours
• Pick up msk from school
• Clean up the kitchen at least a little and load & run the dishwasher
• Pick up HS students from an after school activity at 5pm
• Stop by a neighborhood store to confirm they are OK with a booth sale tonight
• Drop off cookies and table and forms and junk to the mom who's running the booth sale tonight
• Watch the drama of hit and run accident and a subsequent fight complete with cops and an ambo
• Collect money from a mom after dinner
• Have a drink to celebrate the fact that I didn't have work today

Chaotic? Yes, but I actually felt pretty good at the end of the day.

In the credit where credit's due department - this post was inspired by this post from Maryland Math Madness

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine