Good Day, Sir

Spring semester: day fifty-nine

Daisy is coming down on Sunday instead of Tuesday. Tonight she was officially offered (and she accepted) the promotion she'd been trying to get, and with it comes different hours and a different work schedule. She will now work Wednesday through Saturday nights, from 6PM to 5AM, and that schedule starts next week -- she still works her normal shifts on Friday and Saturday night this week. That means, obviously, she has to come down between Sunday and Tuesday.

As of right now, it's the same hourly pay she's been making at that job for well over a year; it's an interim position that makes her a supervisor on the shifts she'll be working (which, basically, is what she did anyway, with the bonus that she'll have to do a lot less of her current job's duties) with the bonus that she's in this as a placeholder until the position gets "officially" created and posted, more than likely with a substantially higher salary. And she'd already be in line for and primed for that position if she wants it and they choose her for it.

The entire transition is bittersweet for both of us. I'm extremely proud of her -- kickin' ass and takin' names and whatnot -- and while the number of hours worked are the same and the schedule is marginally better, right now (and probably continuing for a while after we're married) all that's really changed are the days she works. She'll have somewhat different duties, yes; she'll be in charge of keeping everyone else on her shift in line and doing their work, but in the big picture finances-and-time-wise not a whole lot is really changing here.

I, meanwhile, am still teaching through most of May, or at least will be doing teaching-related duties for the majority of the month while I clean and pack this house, so I'm going to be busy as well. Her coming down on Sunday instead of Tuesday evening means I'm shuffling around all of the work I'd be doing this weekend -- lesson planning, grading a stack of papers, etc -- to today and tomorrow at the latest. I clear my docket when Daisy visits, so that I don't have anything hanging over my head or any other pressing, somewhat concerning responsibilities I need to take care of. This means that most of my grading I'll have to do in the morning/afternoon hours today, and if I'm going to clean out the garage (or most of it) this weekend, that has to be done on Saturday at the latest. That can be done, yes, but it also completely fills my weekend and time off with tasks to do, so I'm not even getting any real downtime.

More than that, it also gives me a short window to pay whatever bills I need to pay and (hopefully) receive my state tax refund check in the mail to cash so that I can use that for our activities and give her most of the rest of it, in addition to whatever other money I can afford to give her to cover some expenses for the wedding and apartment stuff. That money will primarily go to the cost of the wedding photographer and the security guard at the venue, as mentioned before. Most of everything else is covered or will be covered without much issue. On the plus side, though, she's going to do me a big favor and pick up/bring down some extra boxes so that I can kick my packing into overdrive in the next few weeks. I asked her to, because apparently it's like pulling teeth to get boxes from the places here unless I want to get up or be awake at dawn on the weekends.

My conferences for my 102 students yesterday morning went well; those kids tend to be pretty bright and on-the-ball, and all of them showed up and got their requisite points and feedback on their upcoming essays based on their Proposal/Annotated Bibliography assignment. Some of them have great paper topics, topics that I'm really excited to read about. They can now sort of rest easy for most of the weekend; next week we're covering a few articles out of their textbook, and for the rest of the semester they're simply writing their papers and finishing up their journals.

As the semester ramps up for all of my students, it winds down for me -- my classes all know at this point what's coming up between now and the end of classes, and they're all working on those things. My 210s turn in their final papers on Wednesday, and then have their oral presentations in two weeks. My 011s have one more paper after the one they're working on now, then their practice final and final exam. My 102s are hip-deep in their final papers now as it is before their own practice final and final exam. I will be doing my last bit of lesson planning for the entire semester this week and next week, and after that? They just have to do their work, and I just have to show up to get it and cover what needs to be covered. It's really freeing for me, to be honest with you, especially with the upcoming move and the like when I'll have to carefully meter out all of my time anyhow. The more I can get out of the way now, the better.

I get paid today, as I mentioned in my last post, and said pay is on par with normal paychecks -- so that certainly helps me when it comes to bills and the like along with my tax refund. I'll also get my Amazon order today, which contains my external HD for backup and several of my groom's party gifts. The rest of the party gifts come next week, as they were somewhat, ahem, custom creations that need extra time. I need to get one more thing for one of the members of my party, but everything else is done on that end.

Last night I did all of my laundry and washed the bedsheets/blankets as well. I removed the electric blanket from the bed, unhooked it, and washed it (since it can be washed and dried) to put it away for the summer in its bag with its controls, which I found in the upstairs spare room closet. I was also able to pack another box full of clothes -- the clothes I'd washed, in the one box I got from Walmart last weekend -- so that's out of the way, at least. Well, it's still in the way, as all of the boxes in the spare room are, but at least it's packed up. This is why I can't wait for Daisy to bring down more boxes -- there's something purifying and centering about packing everything up and eliminating as much clutter as possible. There's at least one or two boxes in the garage, along with a tub, that I'll be able to reclaim when I clean out the garage/storage room tomorrow, provided that they aren't all full of spider eggs/nests. Because that would be bad.

And, of course, over the next few weeks I'll be saving paper boxes from West campus as well, provided I can get them to save them for me. I need to email the sweet administrator lady over there this afternoon to see if she can save whatever comes available. If she can't or they don't really have any, eh, no biggie -- but it would be helpful, at least, if even in a small way.

The weather is gorgeous and has been for several days now -- right now it's 77, and tomorrow the temperature could reach 85 according to the Weather Channel...and then it will rain (possibly even snow) and be cold and shitty for most of the next several days afterwards -- basically the entire time Daisy is here. I mean, that can't really be helped, but it'll seriously piss me off if it gets so cold I have to kick on the furnace again, since I've not had to do that at all since basically the week after Spring Break. My electric bill for April should be really low -- less than $60, I'm guessing. The lowest bill I've ever had was $40-something, and that was about this time last year, soooo...

Ahem. Anyway.

I slept until around noon today, despite the neighborhood wild turkeys (because yes, I do have those; welcome to semi-rural Kansas) gobbling loudly outside my window in the yard for about an hour at 8AM.

The rest of my day will be spent grading and getting a shower, as well as possibly ordering a pizza -- I haven't decided yet. I need to do my normal weekend chores as per the usual over the course of the next day or two, which includes emptying the cat box, vacuuming, and doing other minor cleanup before Daisy gets here on Sunday. Tomorrow? Again, cleaning the garage as much as I can; it'll be somewhat long and dirty, as I told Daisy, but maybe I'll find some interesting stuff down there that I can "reclaim," so to speak, that I've forgotten about.

It feels good to be getting things done, to be cleaning and packing and getting all of my affairs in order. Daisy asked me this morning if there was anything I was nervous about regarding the move or the wedding.

"Money," I said. "Being able to pay for everything without us basically needing to fight for survival."

"Aside from money."

"Nope. Not really, anyway."

And there's not. I'm not nervous about anything, especially not anything involving the wedding -- I can't wait to marry her. However, I do dread all of the work and physical labor that will be involved with the move and cleaning this house -- as that will more than likely make me sore and fatigued for days, but I'm not nervous about it. Not in the least.

On that note? Time to go take care of my Friday tasks. I'll keep you updated on everything as it happens.