Blizzard!

Oh my goodness, it has been so long since I last posted.  Let me fill you in on what's been going on in my life.  Well, for one, it was the end of the semester at my high school which means (for an English teacher) even more grading of essays on top of the already ridiculous amount of grading of essays we already do.  Every class I teach has an essay at the end of a unit, and the last unit must come at the end of the semester, and then every exam for every class I teach has an essay on the exam.  I have five classes and 127 students.  This means 2 x 127 or approximately 254 essays, give or take a few. (There are always a few kids who do not turn in their essays and I also accept late work at the end of the semester, so I have extra essays to grade on top of the new ones collected.)  I have honestly spent every waking minute of my life for the past two weeks grading papers.

Yesterday we were hit by the blizzard that hit much of the U.S.  Grades were also due yesterday (Wednesday).  I had all of my essays graded and my grades entered for four of my five classes by the time I left work at 5:30 on Tuesday.  However, I still had one whole set of compartive analysis essays (30) and one whole set of final reflective essays (30) to grade for my Advanced Writing class (a senior writing class).  I was worried I was going to have to pull an all-nighter, something I haven't done since grad school and something I was seriously doubting I still have the stamina to pull off!  The blizzard was knocking on our door, and I was hoping against hope that we would have a snow day so that I could finish my last batch of grading at a reasonable pace in the daylight hours.  I went home on Tuesday, got some dinner with the darling husband (kids were at their dad's house and mom's house respectively) and started grading.  School was cancelled by about 9:00 pm on Tuesday night for Wednesday.  Hooray!  I slowed down my pace, finished about fifteen comparative anlysis essays and went to bed.

When I awoke Wednesday morning at about 7:30, I headed downstairs to make coffee and hit the stack of work awaiting me.  My favorite place to grade is at the kitchen table and my favorite time to grade is in the morning, before the rest of the family is awake.  I have a beautiful view of the backyard and woods, the windows face east so I get nice morning light, and I can drink my coffee and make a lot of headway.  I often get up early on Sunday mornings to grade like this before church at 11:00. 

This was my view onto the back deck and of the backyard on Wednesday morning.

The picture of the deck doesn't really give you a very good perspective of how MUCH snow we got.  When the darling husband decided to go outside to dig us out of the blizzard I was able to get some better shots to show just how much snow there was.  (The darling husband works out of a home office AND just got a brand new snowblower.  He was very excited to go and try it out.)

I measured the actual snow in the driveway (not the snow drifts) and we had an honest 21" of snow at our house.  Holy cow, that is a lot of snow!

The darling husband was feeling pretty manly with his new snowblower!

These next two shots give you a good perspective of how deep the snow is.  The driveway and path were down to the pavement on Tuesday afternoon, so this is all from just 12 hours.

 This is our front path up to the front door.

By late afternoon on Wednesday I had graded all of the comparative anlaysis essays and made comments on them, graded all of the final reflective essays and portfolios and made comments on them, written each of my Advanced Writing students a personal note about their growth as writers over the course of the semester, entered and double-checked all of my grades and enterered comments for each of my 127 students.  Whew!  What a great feeling!