Hurried, harried, and.... what's the word I'm looking for?

Well, our first week of summer has quickly become a rather busy one for me. Pete has been at a conference (thankfully coming home today!) and Rayna has been at my parents' for Cousins Camp, so I've just been hanging with my 3 sons. And by hanging, I mean running around like crazy a lot. This week I'm scheduled to teach 3 sessions of 3-hour marketing classes, tutor an SAT student, and tutor a GMAT student -- so it's not the best week for Pete to be gone.

Monday night I had to teach a class, so after having wolfing down half of a dinner, cleaning the house before the sitters came over (while Colsen was simultaneoulsy emptying large cartons of items in another room), helping Strider set beer traps outside for the invading slugs we've been dealing with, barely stopping Colsen from putting the metal corkscrew in an outlet before he electrocuted himself, and having Miles spit up all over my freshly donned professional outfit.... I was finally out the door.

Unfortunately, my brain must have been leaking all day, because by the time I got to class I was only operating at about 20% of normal power, I estimate. I spent a lot of the class saying things like, "So a core competency is something that can give you... um... oh, competitive advantage.... over....well, your competition." At one point I was writing "eco-friendy" up on the board because a student had suggested it as an answer. I wanted to expound upon it, but suddenly found myself thinking, "What does "Eco" stand for again? Economics? No, wait, that's not right.... Ok, just keep calling it "eco" and don't expound. Keep it simple, Stupid."

But the low point was probably when I wanted to make the room darker so the students could read the slides on the projector better. It was still light outside, so I walked the whole perimeter of the room, trying to see if any the blinds could be closed any tighter. As I walked I tried that very difficult trick of talking while I was walking.... and by the time I got the front of the room, it was no darker since all of the blinds were as closed as they could get already. As I was expressing my resignation to this fact to the class, telling them they were going to just have to do the best they could in our still-light room, a kind and gentle voice from the back said, "Well..... you could turn out the lights!"

So now I'm fully expecting to see "This prof is a FLAKE" on my course evaluations someday.

Thankfully yesterday's tutoring session went much better -- although it did take every minute from 4 pm on to get ready for a 7 pm session. Again, just as I was about to walk out the door, Miles spit up on me. I'm beginning to think this child always, and only, wants to spit up on nice clothes.

Unlike my harried state the last few days, Strider has been quite relaxed today. He's been begging me for months now to let him have a "staycation." Even though I've insisted that everyday is a staycation for him, he's maintained that he wants just one day to whatever he wants -- no chores or even making his bed, or anything. So I finally caved and told him today could be the big staycation day.

So far, from what I've observed, his staycation has primarily consisted of not getting dressed, lying around watching tv, and making homemade lemonade. In about an hour he's having a bunch of friends over, so that should liven things up.

And in about 2 hours I need to start the long process of getting ready to teach again! Hopefully the students still think there is value in my class and actually show up...