Not much longer...

I picked up the fourth paper from my classes, today.  And we started the lecture over the last paper, the research paper. 

It's due in 17 days.  After that, we'll do the blogging while I grade papers.  Any revisions needing done will be due by email during final exam time (adheres to the letter of the requirement that I schedule something for the final exam time set for a fucking skills class, the true final exam for which is the research paper).  While they're blogging, I'll have a four hour bloc where I sit in a quiet room, by myself, three days per week--about six class days. 

And then, we're done.  The last day of semester is the first of May.  The next week is finals. 

The kids will have three more weeks where they're in school, so I'll have three weeks of half days, on MWF, with no children underfoot. 

And, over the summer, I plan to pick a day every couple of weeks where I run the kids up and drop them off with my mother, and have the day to myself. 

One of the things I plan to do is work on refurbishing fountain pens.  I've got twelve, now, seven with caps, four that need them, and one that's not worth trying to mess with, with another twelve shipping from Chicago soon.  There is at least one Parker in that bunch, and two Sheaffers.  At the moment, though, I have one pen ready for sale right now, six pens that are worth refurbing (but two that I'll be keeping--the Waltham and the ladies' Eclipse), four that I'm not sure about because they don't have fitting caps, and one that was badly redone, and cannot be repaired without a new pen body. 

(One of the pens I found at a flea market yesterday is interesting, and quite pretty: it's a Remington, and looks like this...but lacks the cap for the fountain pen end of the pen/pencil combo.)

This fall, the imp will likely* start first grade, and the pixie will be in every day half day classes for pre-K for four year olds.  And I'll be back on campus (I think--I haven't gotten my class assignments, yet).  Odysseus graduates this summer (end of July) with an accounting degree, so I don't know what his schedule will be this fall. 

But for now, that's not really what I need to be focusing on.  Right now, I need to be focusing on watching my sick kids, and getting things around here ready to be gotten out of the way for the new washer, which will be coming in sometime Monday afternoon.  And the eight plus loads of laundry that are awaiting it.