Feeling Stressed, Feeling Loved

I am writing this blog post 90 minutes before Monday, June 11, 2018 ends. This is not like me at all. I usually write my posts on the weekend and it goes public early Monday. However, I can barely catch my breath, despite having the previous Friday off work as a report card writing day. (Boy, was I grateful for that time!)

Here's some of the things that have kept me busy this past week, in no particular order. I finalized my report card grades and comments for all the classes that I'm responsible for. On June 5, my OSLA partner in crime Alanna King and I went to Ontario Library Association headquarters to select which conference workshop applications would be accepted, which was a day full of intense decision making and negotiations. Alanna and I then attended the OSLA Council meeting to give our Super Conference summary and update. This weekend, there were also a lot of tasks to complete related to Maker Festival Toronto - I distributed the promotional material to every secondary school in TDSB and TCDSB and spent four hours on Sunday with Aedan and Nathan rewriting the volunteer role descriptions and calculating the number of bodies we'd need per shift during the festival. Hubby and I spent two hours on the weekend editing the research paper that my research assistant, Terry Soleas, and I hope to have accepted by a peer-reviewed academic journal. I tinkered with Moodle in preparation for my Library Additional Qualification courses that I'll be teaching for York University this July. I can't forget the Volunteer Tea invitations that went out today. My daughter and I spent 3.5 hours on Saturday searching for the costume I need for tomorrow's So You Think You Can Dance celebrity judging, and 2.5 hours tonight sewing parts that will make the outfit look more authentic. (I'll post pictures tomorrow via Twitter and Facebook.)

I don't list these things to make myself look super-human or to brag. It's more of an explanation why it's taking a lot longer for me to process instructions or comments, as my brain madly sorts through the various "tabs open" to determine what's being discussed. It's an apology for the "deer in the headlights" look or the tired gait. When people ask "How does she do it?", I answer "Not particularly well" and that it's possible for me to do many of these things because my teen children don't need me as much as they used to, and my husband runs the household single-handed.

Despite all these jobs and all the stress, I'm feeling very loved. My family made a point of going out to breakfast together on Sunday at our favourite local morning eatery. On June 9, while at the OSLA Council meeting, I was shocked and surprised when Kelly Maggiarias, OSLA President, presented me with a cake with my face on it and a wonderful framed poster created by the talented Lauren Hummel, my OLA staff liaison for The Teaching Librarian magazine. I didn't expect it at all.

Thank you to everyone who was involved in the surprised presentation, to those who took the pictures that I put on today's blog, and also to all those kind people who said such nice things on Twitter in response to those tweets. Your caring fuels me and makes it possible to push along despite the frantic, hectic schedule and demands.