Actually, I could do some weedeating in the garden area, too.

sort out a bag of stuff for goodwill
pack 3 boxes per day for moving (I like to break up packing into a little per day because I loathe it)
Clean kitchen

- Tidy up the living room for some friends who need a place to crash tonight. (The Fella did the front room and bathroom while I slept in.)
- Make quiche and coffee cake for breakfast.
- FIIIIIIIInally sort out the huge heap of clothing piled at the foot of the bed. Maybe buy a small bureau to cram it all into.
- Make a crazy-long grocery list. The Fella's been doing all the shopping lately, which is great 'cause he buys delicious foods but is not-great because we're out of things like baking soda and sponges.
- I already cleaned the kitchen, more or less, yesterday. Go, me!

Son visiting after 1.5 weeks of college. All chores postponed.

Weed the front yard.

The rest of the chores - I already did 'em.

Clean litterbox
hang up clothes
sweep
scrub tub
buy tub plug
scrub coffeetable
do something about laundry mound
grocery shopping
Make pasta salad and pesto and other food for the week

Submit résumé.
Get plates.
Get blackout blinds.
Do laundry (I haven't done the laundry since...ha, July. I have actually bought new clothes instead of doing laundry. This is not optimal.)
Get a haircut.
Do homework.

* Find out why the mower won't start
* Do something about the dishes that have somehow appeared in the past week when I was in too much pain to seep, much less eat. How did dishes happen?
* Look at couches maybe--this is Labor Day, hey, sales.

Got the hard part done!
mow lawn and weedeat

- work (three short shifts at the clinic Sunday/Monday)
- catch up on Organic Chem homework/studying
- laundry
- catch up on sleep

Anything else that gets done will be gravy.

Work (oncall over IM) - done.

Yardwork, cleaning up after the remnants of Irene. Lots of tree litter, some branches. I stowed all the stuff that was on the decks, need to put some of it back. Continue heroic battle against bamboo. Housecleaning, if I get energetic.

Find somebody to tell me if my small outboard motor is repairable.

Attend to some financial paperwork, esp. if it's raining.

There's another thing I know I have to do. I wonder what it is, and if I will remember before Monday evening.

Did the grocery shopping! ChaCHING.

--put groceries away (we ordered from Peapod/Stop & Shop -- very convenient)
--make dinner (steak for Jon/frozen deep dish pizza for me -- don't feel like steak myself)
--order more work clothes (my old stuff's beyond shabby)
--bleach mustache (new students love to comment on such things -- it's good to have a sense of humor in my job)
--shower (I get so tired, this feels like a chore sometimes)
--post a new DonorsChoose proposal for classroom library books, which we need desperately; I might make a special request for a set of Kindles for my AP class, which cost a lot up front, but we could then get a lot of books for free (worth a shot)

(right now, though, I'm just watching tennis and Jon's on the porch drinking beer and listening to music -- I like ignoring chores)

Pips, when you say "classroom library", do you mean "one copy" of a title or "copies for everybody"? Are you open to actual book donations? Or, at least, pick through what I have to see if you can use anything? Don't worry about postage.

If all you want is a simple library with an assortment of books in fine to excellent condition appropriate for reading/literature classes (maybe not exactly what you want but certainly in the ballpark), just tell me how many, give me some basic guidelines, and where do you want them shipped. I do have (damn near) a degree in German Literature, after all. Also, if someone falls in love with a book I send, give it to 'em.

Please tell me they've at least read The Lottery.

Pips, do you need books for your AP class? I could send you many if I sell my house in Pa. I intend to donate about 500 to a charity or to my local college as my house in Florida is too small to accommodate all the volumes I have. I have taught many of them, so they could be appropriate for very advanced students.

Get a few more people, pips, and you could start a class in library science. That would be a good thing, in my book.

And also post your donors choose page when it's up, pips! I'll fund some of it for sure.

I have decided I need to spend about 3 hours just picking up stuff and putting it where it belongs. That's my major project.

Also:
- change the sheets
- put away clean clothes
- write a few thank you notes
- dust
- research a few classes I still need to take before I can apply for my therapy license

Ardiril, Macduff, and gaspode... that's so sweet of you all to offer to help. I really appreciate it. For the AP class, I'm looking to add to our selection of class sets (25 copies of a single title, like Kafka's Metamorphosis, for instance), which is not something I'd expect folks to have on hand. We do have quite a few titles to work with, though, so it'll be okay.

For the classroom library, for our daily independent reading, in my regular classes, I'm looking for high interest books at various reading levels that might appeal to reluctant and/or remedial readers and/or English Language Learners (high interest for 14 to 17 year old city kids, that is). They love teen romance, street lit, horror, graphic novels/comics/manga, books about sports (the Yankees), pop music, some science and history. With our class books that we read together, I work in the meatier stuff, so to speak, while still keeping their interest as much as possible, with authors like Tim O'Brien, Toni Morrison, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, J.D. Salinger, and Art Spiegelman (Maus), to name a few.

The more I can get them reading, the more successful they tend to be in English and in school overall. And it may not sound like it at first, but there are actually a lot of good books out there that fit the bill, by authors like Walter Dean Myers, for instance. Again, not stuff I expect anyone to have around. Still, I appreciate the offer. I will be putting up a proposal on DonorsChoose (I was browsing through teen titles one of their book suppliers had and drooling; I wanted to order them all! -- there's nothing like seeing students who say they hate to read grab for a title), but I don't want to put anyone on the spot. I can probably make do with some stuff from our school library at first; unfortunately, the shelves are more than half bare (gee, that sounds sad). I get mad when I see the mayor spending hundreds of millions of dollars on test data of questionable value when my students need books and basic supplies. Some come to school with nothing, not even a pen. Ah, well. We do what we can. There are schools in the world that don't have floors, and so many children in the world don't even get to go to school, so it could be worse.

I think I'm tired and need to go to bed.

Pips, I too often end up with a bunch of books that I'm trying to sell off; I'd be happy to donate them. Maybe you can set up a blog with titles you're looking for? I'd *love* to send them to you and your students rather than just leaving them on the street if the used bookstore doesn't take them.

Metamorphosis is in Project Gutenberg, and I can format it in 10 point Times New Roman to fit on 24 pages (2 columns, landscape view for easier reading). 25 copies is just over a ream, about 6 pounds, and I can mail that media mail. Plus, the kids can highlight and markup the copies and keep them when they're finished. If my laser (!) printer wasn't such a pain to do double-sided, I could cut the cost in half.

I think I just got a great idea for a kickstarter. Anyone interested in helping? Email me.

≡ Click to see image ≡ ≡ Click to see image ≡

Awe, Ardiril, you're so kind, I'm blown away, truly, but I don't want you to go to such trouble. I won't even know my schedule for sure until likely Wednesday, with classes starting Thursday, so I have to wait and see if I'm even definitely teaching AP, or if it's even definitely being offered, given budget cuts.

You did give me an idea for Metamorphosis, though; I may well be able to have my school make copies, especially if I provide the paper. That was just one title I thought of off hand (Brothers Karamazov might be a little tougher to copy). Anyway, thanks again, truly. Sorry to be publicly fussing about this stuff. Guess I'm a little anxious for the new year (I ate almost an entire Entemann's cake today; I haven't done that in awhile). I really should try to get some sleep.

(And thanks, occhi... I'll give that some thought. Much appreciated, truly. You guys are great.)

You'd be surprised at how little space you need to print a book once you adjust the margins. I once saw posters that each featured a Shakespeare play; Romeo & Juliet was one of them.

Project Gutenberg has so many great classics, all formatted for whatever you need. If the school will let you make copies, especially if you can get 2 sided copies, you could save some major bucks to apply toward current books.

(... and a short story can often be printed on 2 sheets.)

Cleaned out the closet! I now have half as many clothes, and it's all fall. I'm going to be boiling, but my dresses are mostly summer.

Thanks, Ardiril... I just bookmarked Project Gutenberg (I'd heard of it, but never really looked into it before). I can't quite figure out an efficient way to format and print a book out, though. Metamorphosis, for instance, opened beautifully in my iBooks library on my iPad, but there's no print function from iBooks that I can see. I can copy and paste into Pages (my iPad word processing program), but seemingly only one page at a time, which is a bit tedious, though doable. I'm sure there's an easier way; I am only minimally techie, I'm afraid. I tried HTML and Plain text, too, hoping it would give me the option of opening the file in Pages, like emailed documents, but no dice. In any case, one way or another, I will be using this resource. Much appreciated.

I use the plaintext files and then strip out the line breaks. This way, each paragraph is one line. When I import that into whichever word processor I want, that word processor will then handle the paragraphs in the way it wants.

I do this all the time. If you want, I can always format one to take the least paper and still be teachable, and then email you the file to print yourself. (The best of part of P.G. is the files have been extensively proofread.)

I am preparing a version of Dracula right now.

(Sorry for rambling all. I don't often get to talk about books just as books.)

Hey, cool... I viewed the file in plaintext and then copied it over to the text tool you linked to, removed the line breaks, then copied it into Pages and reformatted into columns, changed the font, etc.

Worked like a charm. I already got "Bartleby, the Scrivener," too -- one of my favorite stories (I can relate).

If you're ever in the neighborhood, I owe you a beer, for sure. (Don't say you'd 'prefer not to' ; )

(and yes, sorry for the derail, folks)

They'll live. They'll just have to *think of the kids*. I'm working on a kickstarter now to put this into more teachers' hands. In fact, that's my "chore".

UNPACK MORE OF THE THINGS!

I wish I'd thought of you sooner, Pips, like in the summer when the boyfriend was getting rid of a lot of his books. I ended up taking some to jonmc's place (and getting a pittance) and the rest to Book Off (and getting more of a pittance). Of the ones we couldn't sell, maybe they could have been of use to you. I'm so sorry for not thinking of you.

That's sweet of you, TL... No worries, though. Enjoy the new apartment!

I have a few YA books that I'm looking to get rid of. I think there might be something by Walter Dean Myers (Somewhere in the Darkness?) in there. If you're interested, I can send you a list of what I have.