Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Or, La Fheile Padraig, as they say "as na gaeilge" in Ireland. My quarter is finally winding down, and although I have 4 more assignments to grade and a final to write before tomorrow evening, I am taking some time for some PEACE and FOOSTERING, because I need it, darn it. There has been waaaaaaaaay too much going on in this household for any sense of sanity of late, and I really need to take a few deep breaths and R&R before I plunge in to catching up on all the housework and spring cleaning that is desperately needed. The multi-tasking has gotten to an insane level lately, and my brain is crying out for some quiet and brain-dead activities.

Foostering, by the way, is my father-in-law's quaint term for sort of loitering around aimlessly, doing little things here and there that feel tremendously satisfying and like a big accomplishment personally, but are really meaningless little nothings that no one else sees or understands. My FIL is a master at foostering, and finds it particularly efficacious when he does so while others are waiting for him to do something else. My DH is working from home today and I know he is waiting to see me spring into cleaning action like I said I was going to do this week, or start writing that final that I have to give tomorrow and Thursday.

However, I feel like in honor of my FIL (or because it's as good an excuse as any), today is a foostering day for me. It feels quite Irish for St. Patrick's Day, although I have visions of (finally) making the Irish cream cheesecake that I bought ingredients for several days ago to enjoy with some nice (i.e. not run-of-the-mill) dinner concocted from various frozen cuts of beef or whole chickens or some such.

I just have been juggling too many balls lately. It is so bad on the housework side of the equation that I have had to do special loads of laundry at odd hours of the evening and morning just to have maternity underwear, people! And I can't get by with the regular underwear any more--this little one has grown too big for that particular trick. I have narrowly resisted the urge to buy more maternity underwear, several times, because I don't particularly like the style readily available in my ONE local maternity shop, and I am hesistant to buy such items, sight unseen, from online retailers at $30 per pair. Even with "Satisfaction Guaranteed", it just seems wrong to return undewear, KWIM?

I also fell face down on my baking for Paddy's Day. Is there any soda bread in the house? No! Did I get my barmbrack baked after an hour's rise? No. Of course, I blame the power outage for that one, how the heck can I bake the brack if the power is off and we have an electric oven? So it had a long, slow 24 hour rise, which ate up all the sugar in the dough and left us with a "sharp" loaf of barmbrack (as my husband delicately put it). Oh, yes, it's fine when toasted and slathered with jam, but for someone who is not used to a 'tangy' loaf of barmbrack, it represents a serious failure with expensive ingredients (have you priced golden raisins and currants lately? Yikes...I had about $3.50 alone of dried fruit in that bread!).

My grading has been very much at the last minute and harried, and an endless parade of students emailing begging sickness, theft, beggardom, hospitalized children (ok, ok, I am lenient with that one), etc as an excuse to turn in their pieces of missing assignments at the last stampede of the quarter or make up quizzes has not put me in a good mood. It means I have to wade through and find old homework answer keys and try to remember how many points I took off for various mistakes, etc. Students pestering me for grades on those piecemeal assignments do not make me happy either. Um, I have over 400 pieces of paper waiting for grading from this week's assignments ALONE, how the heck do you think I am going to make a priority of YOUR SPECIFIC LATE assignment over that?? Grrrrrr. *eye twitch*

I am testy. And my house's relative lack of cleanliness is exacerbated by the knowledge that we babysat 2 little girls on Sunday, one of whom is getting over a case of MRSA. Yes, that is the methicillin resistant bacteria that causes open wounds on skin, and can be fatal. Yep-per. Why did we do this? Well, first off, the little girl in question is only 10 months' old. Secondly, they are foster children, who were placed with some dear friends of ours two months ago. Thirdly, our friends are childless and have never been parents before, and it was their wedding anniversary. Fourth, they haven't been out without the kids since getting them, and were not told of the baby's MRSA until she had a wound on her leg and the pediatrician diagnosed it, and then the CPS people said, "Oh, didn't we tell you about that? It's been passed around in their house." Uh, so not cool.

Anywho, I know rationally that this little baby is not contagious (her lesion has healed up and it's not 'active', and was covered by her clothing), and basic hygiene like wiping down surfaces and such is all that is required to alleviate any concerns we may have. And I held the child and fed her and cuddled her, etc, without fear of MRSA bacteria crawling over my skin. But it still creeps me out a teeny, tiny, bit, and so I have resolved to do a thorough spring cleaning, and until I get that done I will not feel like we have been 100% proactive to prevent any wild outbreak of MRSA in our house. (Rationally I know the child was only in our house for 6 hours and really she played with baby toys and crawled on the floor, so it's not like she was coughing this dangerous bacteria all over. I KNOW this. But I still want to clean like a madwoman.)

*sigh* It's what friends do. They needed a break. But now, I worry. You understand.

Well, I suppose there is nothing for it but to quit foostering and get on with it. Not that I WANT to, but I know I NEED to, and that pesky responsibility thing just won't leave me alone! Maybe after my finals are given I will give myself permission to get a hair cut & a pedicure, something like that. We'll see.