A Warm Fleece Blanket, My Rocking Chair, and "Vampire Diaries"

...or NOT.

Yes, when I went to bed last night, all I could think about was waking to three hours of  lovely "down time" with a warm fleece blanket, my rocking chair, and "Vampire Diaries." It has been a long and tedious few weeks, with essays flowing in, in groups of 25ish, one group after the other, relentlessly, and never ending. Four composition classes are really too many to tackle in one semester, especially as a part-time instructor. It would be one thing to teach four if a couple of them were less writing intensive, such as a reading class or business communications or technical writing or rhetoric. But four freshman composition classes? Shoot me now! Anyway, I somehow managed to reach a point yesterday where I had nothing more to grade. It was around 4:30, and Shulamith and I were headed out at 6:00 to eat a super delicious free dinner in honor of "Friends & Family Weekend" at Matt's new place of employment, Longhorn Steak House. I knew that when I arrived at school today, I'd be greeted by yet another stack of essays, but in that moment, I hardly knew how to handle myself, with not one single essay hanging over my head.

Dinner was superb. Seriously scrumptious. From the baked macaroni & cheese appetizer; to the fresh garden salad with blue cheese dressing; to the tender fillet Mignon, cooked perfectly to just medium rare; to the loaded baked potato; to the "Chocolate Stampede" dessert (six layers of different kinds of chocolate!), the entire meal was wonderful. They pretty much had to roll us out of there, and I came home and fell lifeless into bed. But lifeless or not, in my mind was the quiet three hours I would have the following morning before my afternoon classes. Visions of fleece blankets, rocking chairs, and "Vampire Diaries" danced through my head all through the night, and I awoke at 8:00 am, ready. I gathered my blanket. I placed myself comfortably in my rocking chair with the foot rest lifted. I picked up the remote control and began to access Netflix,...

And what do you think happened? At that very moment, a text came in from my personal trainer (aka Shulamith Webster) announcing that we we'd be leaving for the gym in 15 minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? Now granted, our gym attendance has been a bit sporadic lately. There are so many variables that need to align just right in order for us to go. Most of them center around Swen, who needs to be well fed and happy before his mommy can leave him. And then we need someone to leave him with. If both of us are going, that leaves his daddy. But Daddy works and goes to school, so yeah, it's difficult to make it happen. We did well during the summer before Matt and I went back to school, and we even had one really great week last month when we went five days (yay, us!). But that quickly fell apart the following week when Matt began this new job, which required five 8-hour days of training.

I guess Shulamith decided we would hop back on the wagon today, but did it have to be first thing in the morning so as to upset my glorious plan? Hmmm. All I can say is I hope it was worth it. We better have burned off every single calorie from that Chocolate Stampede.

A warm fleece blanket, my rocking chair, and "Vampire Diaries." Forever just a dream.