Where Am I? What Was I Doing?

Well, we are into the new house, and mostly unpacked (and Sisyphus, I promise pics as soon as I unpack the camera battery charger). The kids have returned to town and to school, and we are planning our first dinner guests for next week sometime. The water from Monday's torrential rains have basically cleared out of the basement, and the washing machine is installed. Oh, sure, there are boxes here and there to unpack, and contractors will be in and out over the next month before Junebug is born to finish the attic so the twins have their own bedrooms, but basically, the ripples are settling from that large boulder called "moving" thrown into the pond of my life.

And so, on this last day of exams, as I sit in my office collecting final portfolios that must be graded in 24 hours, I open my eyes, blink away the construction dust haze, note my mixed metaphors, and shout triumphantly to myself....

Harrrngnnn?

This process, of cleaning up the old house, finding a new one, packing, moving, signing paperwork, signing more paperwork, negotiating, haggling, unpacking, installing, contracting, and cleaning has completely consumed my life that I can barely imagine what I was supposed to be doing at this stage, or worse, what I might have been up to had I not spent the last 4 months on this process.

I got some writing done, and the course I taught was fun, if an occasional opportunity for logistical embarrassment, and while my committee responsibilities have not gone completely unshirked, they have been accomplished in due course. But I'm way overdue on an article, had hoped to be much deeper into the book revision, and honestly had imagined this semester as more intellectually productive than it actually was.

the upside of having been so consumed is that I've scehduled absolutely nothing for the rest of the month, so I'm hoping that rather than collapsing in a puddle of drool, I'll be able to muster my resources and buckle back down to some writing. If only I can find a clean surface on which to place the laptop.