My brother gave me a hard time for my lack of posts recently. It isn't that I don't like posting; it's simply that very little happens to me that is interesting. Life is fairly routine.

There are a few reasons I haven't posted much. The first is horrible, horrible shame. Despite all my chest-thumping and stand-taking on this whole weight-loss rejuvenation thing, I have been absolutely terrible the past few weeks. I've hardly worked out at all, and I haven't really been watching what I eat as closely as I should as we dive into the holiday eating season. Needless to say, I haven't bothered to weigh myself in at least a week, either. I'm afraid of what the scale will say. I doubt that I'm back into the 180's, but I'll be very surprised if I'm under 177. I guess part of me didn't want to blog because it would require that admission of guilt.

Another reason is school. I am a procrastinator first-class. When the students hand in their assignments (usually several at a time; I'm a mean teacher like that) I tend to grade the easy-to-grade ones first, the ones that take less time and less effort from yours truly. The assignments that require reading and thought on my part are the ones I save for weekends and moments of motivation. I had a serious backlog of work to grade, consisting of approximately 283 original poems composed by my students, 150 explication outlines of famous poetry, and 75 projects that included a powerpoint presentation, a podcast, and an outline each from every student. Needless to say, the past two weeks have been a blur of grading. I've stayed at school every day until it was time to head to swim practice (which is why there was no afternoon workout for me), I've taken assignments to swim practice and graded on the pool deck, I've taken work home with me to the chagrin of my husband and dog who've been feeling neglected...the work just hasn't stopped. I finally pushed through last night and finished the last assignment (with the exception of several students who have had prolonged absences and are turning in make-up work). Now I'm ready to grade EXAMS! Whoopee! Seventy-five 200-point tests! Hooray! Actually, I've made it as easy as possible on myself. The exams are all matching and multiple choice, so I can whip through these pretty fast. The first class actually took their exam yesterday, and I graded it in about an hour this morning. My next exam starts at 10 this morning, and I should have all their tests graded after lunch. Two exams tomorrow: I can grade one during the other, and have the other done by lunch; one exam Friday that I should have done in half an hour (only eight students in that class). So things are finally looking up, and I can break my self-imposed exile and start talking to people again.

And the last reason is, I'm lazy. I have to think of things to blog about and, as I've said before, not that much really happens to me. I have to be creative to come up with topics, and that requires effort.

So my apologies, Dear Reader, for neglecting you so these past few weeks. Things will start to improve. I promise. Tomorrow. Really.