Winding Up the Week

I get to spend the day at home today. The kids have one more day off of school before their 16 day Christmas vacation. It has been 2 weeks since their last day off of school ... and 2 weeks prior to that, they had another school holiday. Do I detect a pattern?

The week was a productive one.

I'm working my way through my Christmas cards. It seemed like an onerous task at first, but I started by addressing the envelopes. I am writing the cards in the order they appear before me. Each time I unveil the next name I think to myself 'Oh! I can't wait to visit ___!!' And so I go. I'm about half way through my pile. Slowly but surely, I'll get there.

I had to tackle the statements for my book keeping job this week. I had basically one free evening to accomplish the task. Between going out Tuesday night and last night being consumed with dancing ... I had one night to do my job. First off ... I ran out of statement stuffers about half way through the job. Next ... I needed more envelopes to complete my work. Then ... I got the statement stuffers and envelope supply replenished ... and I need more statement stuffers. Again.

I had a request to 'write a little something' about our dance showcase for our dance blog (http://dancedynamicssaskatoon.blogspot.com/) so I wrote that up while I was waiting for my hair to dry, after I'd run out of supplies to finish doing the statements. I love writing about dancing ... so I was thrilled to be asked.

Dancing last night was fun, fun, fun. My private lesson - great. Group lesson number one - I kept up (I'm still learning the lead, so I truly belong in the beginner class). Group lesson number two - my feet were starting to ache and the dancing was becoming much harder for a beginner leader in an intermediate class. But I persevered. The best part of the evening was the people. I love visiting with my fellow-dancers and I feel such a part of the group atmosphere. I was the last one out the door last night. I could have chatted all night.

Yesterday, I wrote an exam at school that I have been studying for all week. I kept forgetting that I couldn't go to school today so I thought I'd write the exam today. But I wanted to get it done before the week ended (for my sanity's sake). So ... I wrote it.

I struggled with the Lab Exercise at the end of the book. I really struggled with the practical part of the pre-test exam. But I worked my way through both of these monumental challenges and I thought 'If I can do that, I can do anything' ... so I wrote the test.

I felt like I had aced the exam and was so grateful that I had forged ahead. Then, the final score appeared before me. Ten percent higher than I needed to pass the exam ... but also ten percent short of the goal that I had set for myself. I was deflated.

My average plummeted four percent because of this exam. But it is my hope that it was one of the harder courses (the third level of 'Excel' ... I learned things that I have never heard about before). Oh well. It is done. Time to pull up my socks and do better from from this point on.

Now I have today. A full day to keep forging on to the next challenges of the week. Book keeping work will soon be arriving. I can keep puttering with my Christmas cards. I finally have the time and money to go shopping for some things that I have been putting off for the past month. The day should be broken up into many different pieces so that I can accomplish a little of this and a little of that.

It felt good to have a busy week. When I have too much time on my hands, I accomplish very little. But give me deadlines and short periods of time where much is expected and I can usually achieve what I set out to do.

This is the pace that I need in my life. It was a very good week.