Work: Progress Report

It's progress report time at work.  So, in the spirit of reporting progress, I decided to take a look at how I am faring in my year of balance and despite a slightly bumpy start, it's going well. 

One of my biggest concerns, that shaving two-and-a-half hours off of my day wouldn't justify hacking 40 percent off of my salary, seems unfounded.  I've always noticed that if I take an extra two minuthere es to get Big E and I out of the house in the morning, those minutes seem to somehow repoduce along the way until I'm well more than two minutes behind schedule.  We will inevitably get stuck behind a school bus, my harried rush will cause Big E to cling a little longer at drop-off, the parking lot at work will be choked with other frazzled parents blocking the travel lanes with their own drop-offs, and on and on.

Amazingly, it actually works the same way in reverse.  Those extra two-and-a-half hours are amplified in the same way the two minutes are: fewer hours at work, fewer classes to prep, fewer papers to grade, less time wasted complaining, fewer hours spent panicking, and on and on.

And since my field has taught me that undocumented success is not success at all, here is evidence of my progress:

More playing fetch,

more playing house,

more apple picking,

more bike riding,





more tire riding,




more llama feeding,

more playgrounds,



and even more soccer (because there should always be room for improvement).



Not bad.  Now to work on the less photogenic details that I may have neglected, like more floor-mopping and more toilet-scrubbing...