Saturday = Slackerday

I'm taking the weekend off from the world. I'm still sick. I've been kicking the bronchitis can all week. I think it's just a vengeful sinus infection, and this madcap week of weather is the reason for it. We went from warm, clear days to a sudden deep-freeze with a few days of snow and now we've settled into a cool, wet pattern that will last the next couple weeks.

Me, I'm exhausted and a little sick. I could be a lot worse, but I've been sleeping a lot all week and keeping to myself without missing work. I cancelled all my OT this weekend, and I'm going to spend my two days sleeping a lot, watching television, and lightly cleaning up.

I've just made some bread and it's rising -- about 35% wholewheat flour, the rest white. Brown sugar for a niftier flavour. When I'm flush with cash in a couple weeks, I'll buy a big thingie of honey and start melting a mix of butter-honey on the stove and brushing the bread with it before baking. I've done it once and it's sensational. But I usually make 70% whole wheat, so I'm misbehaving a little. The flour's 'white, all-purpose', which I bought because I was unemployed and terrified, and $2 less than unbleached. Next time I get unbleached flour. I think it's a much more sophisticated taste. After all, Ecco il Pane agrees with me, and they're the final say on bread in this city -- and even according to David Steingarten of the New York Times. Unbleached is as good as it gets for bread, next to organic.

I guess I haven't filled y'all in about the new job. It's different from anything I've worked before.

I'm the office manager of an arts school that teaches everything from ballet through to painting. I man the front desk, tackle phone calls, solve administrative problems, do all the publishing for making new signs around the school and invitations and notices (which I've brought my artistic flair to, and is already yielding a lot of positive comments from the administration and faculty).

I deal with problem parents, keep the faculty in order, and toe that line between being a light-hearted morale boost to the office and being a firm, authoritative leader. It's really allowing me to show a lot of my better colours, and it offers me challenges every day. I've been there three weeks now, and I'm finally feeling like I belong a bit.

And through all the challenges, I see some of the cutest, sweetest little kids coming in and out all day long. It's hilarious. I have great camaraderie with youngun's, so I really enjoy the mix. The little kids call me "Miss Steffani". And I like that. :)

So, yes, I'm sick, yes, it sucks, yes, I want to be over it, but whatever. I'll be well soon, and my life's looking better all the time. The end of my stress will arrive on March 15th, when I finally get a FULL paycheck for the first time in almost two months. I haven't had to borrow from anyone or juggle too much. And in another month I'll be caught up on all my bills. Then it's easy living. But it has been anything BUT easy for the last several weeks. The relief will wash over me like I won't believe, I bet.

The school's talking to me about having a week off from the desk duties in order to lead a photography camp for kids during the summer. :) That'd be pretty neat. I really dig teaching kids. I'm just nervous about teaching photography. I shouldn't be, though. I used to be the lab supervisor in college, and I'd have to help people with printing problems and teach them the finer points of manual developing.

I watched the movie Born into Brothels not too long ago, about a foreign worker living intermittently in India who decided to give a couple dozen cameras out to a bunch of poor kids being raised by parents in the sex trades of Delhi, I think it was. I loved seeing the impact that being able to photograph made on those kids' lives. I like the idea of introducing an art to kids. I could teach them about different photographers, we could talk about the pictures and what makes 'em good, then go and take in some of the local sites in a field trip, and take photos, then go back and load 'em onto computers and workshop 'em. Fun fun!

Anyhow. Consider yourself Enlightened as to the Affairs of the Sick Steff. Now it's chill time.