Back from busyland...

A post from some of my friends on Facebook reminded me of my neglected blog, so I came back to  post about my busy month. Truly, I felt badly about being gone, but there was a lot tugging on my attention. Here's what I experienced in March and early April:

1. Grading. My school runs on trimesters, so we finish about the 10th and start the new trimester immediately. As an English teacher, this bogs me down for a variety of reasons. Last trimester involved a researched argument, and this trimester started out with a process paper, so every night I have been reading 10-15 student papers. There's a lull right now--I am only scoring theses and topic sentences--so I'm back!

2. Spring Break. For the first time ever, we shared a spring break with my SIL and BIL and families, so we met in Michigan and Chicago for some fun.

Truly a lark, but planning for this trip took some energy, as did the drive back, through blizzard conditions. Yowza.

3. Easter. I know this is a busy weekend for many, but as a church musician, I need to be at just about every service, from Good Friday to Easter Vigil to every service Sunday. This is why my husband and I decided years ago to always eat out on Sunday, which we did at Hell's Kitchen this year.

BONUS! We managed to get tickets to the Guthrie Easter night, one more wonderful memory making adventure:

4. Reading. This will sound crazy, but since I knew I would be unable to scrapbook much this month with my hectic schedule, I decided to put a dent in my To Be Read (TBR) pile. I've read January First, My Favorite Plant, Crimson Shore, Buried Prey, Empress Orchid, The Invisible Man, and The History of Love in the past month and a half. I'm hoping my bedside pile will be gone by September so that I can read some new books that have piqued my interest.

5. Scrapbooking. Truly, I have scrapbooked! In the next few days, I'll share pages I've made for Write Click Scrapbook and Simple Scrapper, plus some pages I made while on a retreat in Pine City, Minnesota. Here was my view from my scrap spot:

The Pine City Scrapbooking Retreat is a wonderful place, not too far from the Twin Cities. I went with a group of ten ladies and had a wonderful time. Here we are:

I will post pages and projects I made later this week.

There were a lot of other things that occupied my time--piano lessons, violin lessons, taekwondo, and I think there was a recital in there?--but I did some memory making and memory recording this past month. I'll share more this week.