Excuses, Excuses

I know, I know. There's been a shocking lack of new posts around here. If you must know, I got distracted by my day job (something you've never heard here before...) The bad news is that I had an epic load of grading, remnants of which are still haunting my desk area. That's right. Nothing says "fun" like a stack of Animal Farm journals still waiting for my attention...

The good news? (Yes, there's a "good news" reason I've been remiss on this blog.) I passed National Boards!

Now, for those of you not in the teaching world, this is a rigorous process that involves a year or more of endless navel-gazing. We tape ourselves teaching, we watch the videos ad nauseam, we send our reflections out for other teachers to evaluate, and we take tests in our subject area. During this time, candidates are hard to live with. We're also not the world's best teachers.

Go figure.

There's all kinds of hooplah around What This Means. But let's set aside the official scoop and take a trip in Kate Land, shall we? Passing my Boards means that I have a valid certificate for the next ten years. I have a decade off from certification hoop-jumping! Hurray! Perhaps that will give me more time to write... assuming, of course, that I can force myself to stop celebrating and hunker back down with my manuscript.

So. There are some of my excuses for (a) not blogging and (b) not working on my novel.

What are some of your favorite excuses for slacking off on your writing and PR?