Thank God for Christmas Break!

Woo hoo! My Christmas break officially begins today! I administered my last final yesterday morning, graded it, did swim practice last night, and I'm pretty much free for the next two weeks. That is a benefit of being a teacher; you don't have to request vacation time. Of course, there are downsides (people think teaching is an 8-3 kind of job. HA!) like taking grading home, and coaching sports, and sponsoring clubs, and other things that end up happening outside that 8-3 window. I leave my house at 4:30 every morning, and come home at 9:15 every night. My mother wonders why my husband and I don't have kids. We have to SEE each other to have kids. Maybe in the summer...

Of course, I still have things to do. I left some packages at school yesterday that must be taken to the post office (I couldn't carry them for all the swag the students gave me; it's part "I love my teacher" and part "Can I get an A on my exam?" One year I got a bottle of wine. That kid got an A!). I also need to print off more entry cards for the high school swim team, and I have to deliver their entries for a meet in January. See? Even on Christmas break I have things to do.

Then I get to go shopping. I'm hitting the outlet stores in Batesville, MS (for those of you outside of the South, it is pronounced "Batesvuhl". I don't know why. Most cities with "-ville" on the end are pronounced that way, with a few exceptions (most notably Huntsville, AL--I think because they have a lot of smart people working there at the NASA center).

Here I go...