Where did Suisan go?

OK, so I started writing this post last week, and, well, just never got back to it. Understanding of course that what was current then is now a week old, here's an update.....

originally titled: Reading, Knitting, Meeting-ing and other ings.

Reading:

I'm trying to do the TBR challenge. I have Julia Ross's Night of Sin, but I can't get past page 13. I have three more non-romance TBR's which are authors new-to-me, so I may do those. But I'm kind of in a "Meh. Not so much" kind of reading mood. So I'm thinking I'll just write about Kate Rothwell's two romances I read in Tahoe Feb 2 and 3.

Knitting:

While I was in Tahoe I knit my cabin-host a thank you gift of socks. And then I started a pair for myself. Had a round of kids' doctor appointments recently, so I've managed to almost finish them. Except for the last maybe ten rows of the second sock. Now they've fallen to the floor of my to-do list. "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up." I know how this goes: project almost done and I don't finish it.

Talking:

Gah. I've been assigned to sit in on union negotiations with our school district. I've never talked so much to so many people wherein we all say repeatedly, "I agree with you," only to end the conversation back where we started at the beginning. And then I spent all Friday in an email back-and-forth with a parent who wanted clarification of what I had said. I clarified, he asked for further clarification: round and round we go. I've been doing so much of this, I actually found myself saying to a friend on the phone the other day as we tried to set up a coffee date, "I'll need to check my calendar to resolve this." Resolve this? Resolve what, you arrogant twit. As soon as the phrase came out of my mouth, I laughed and said, "Apparently I REALLY need to go to coffee with you, because I cannot stop talking like a politician. Rescue me!"

Meeting-ing:

Yesterday was just too much.

I had a City/School Liaison Committee meeting which started at 8:30 am. The main topic of discussion was a Joint Use Agreement which we have negotiated in the Liaison Cmtee for at least two years. We discussed it until 10:00 am. Then I met with the School Board president until 11:00. (Then I went to the bookstore to pick up the Tamara Peirce books my daughter had ordered and grabbed lunch.) Then I went into a meeting to prepare for negotiations at 12:15, and went into negotiations at 1:00 pm. During this meeting we learned that the employees had questions about the Joint Use Agreement. So we negotiated until 3:00 pm, and then the Superintendent came in and we went over the JUA (line by line) until 4:30 pm. At 5:00 pm we went into a joint meeting (televised) including the City Council and the School Board to review (line by line) and adopt the JUA. Which, thankfully, we did at 6:30pm.

Then the School Board retired into Closed Session. (I love that phrase--makes us all sound like limp tulips drifting out of the room, losing petals as we walk.) Closed Session lasted until 7:30, whereupon we came out into Open Session (televised) to have a public meeting which lasted until 10:20 pm. I was barely coherent there at the end.

Recent comments added to the end:

So this was one ridiculous day, but the pace just hasn't let up. I've gone into prep meetings for negotiations, all day negotiating sessions, school site visits, email "conversations" with irate or annoyed people which have taken all day to settle. This Monday we had no school, so we spent all day celebrating my older daughter's birthday. I truly enjoyed myself, but I swear by Tuesday I was dragging again.

I remember reading once that women usually write when they feel lousy, and that it's a challenge to sit down and write when you are feeling happy. Partly, I think that's true. I think we use writing as a tool to deal with discomfort. But on the other hand, I get so busy that when I'm feeling good I just keep cruising, a hamster on its wheel, until I run out of gas, sit down, and blog. Hmmm. Must find way to write about good stuff. Note.