Winter Break 2011

Everyone out there is probably counting down the days until Christmas when they get to open all of the presents under the tree and spend time with family and friends. I, on the other hand, am counting down the days until winter break, where I get a whole 2 weeks to myself. Most of the surrounding counties let out last Friday, but we have to hang in there until Thursday before we can officially take our mind off of school work. Well, sort of... we all know a teacher's job is never "done" just because the bell rings. And, even though it is considered "vacation," I don't have any plans to do anything spectacular over break. Here is a little breakdown of what I have on my agenda:

• Health
• Go to the radiology facility and have my ultrasounds done (no, I'm not pregnant - they are for another long-standing health problem that I might share one day...we'll see)
• Have my blood drawn
• Make a follow-up appointment with my doctor once all of the results come back
• Wedding Stuff
• Write all the thank you cards for our wedding gifts (is it bad that the wedding was over a month ago and we still haven't sent out one card yet??)
• Name Change
• Go to the Social Security office and get my name changed on my card
• If that comes in, make a trip to the DMV to have my license changed
• If that happens, then go to my bank to change my name on that account
• Call around to the different utilities that we are subscribed to and figure out how to change my name with all of them (this whole name change thing is becoming a bigger pain than I anticipated...)
• Christmas Eve & Christmas Day
• Celebrate our first married Christmas together Christmas Eve morning
• Spend Christmas Eve Night with the in-laws and stay the night at their house
• Spend Christmas morning with the in-laws
• Go to my parents house for a late morning Christmas celebration
• Go to my aunt's house to see the rest of my family for Christmas
• Figure out what we're doing for New Year's
• School Stuff
• Finalize some stuff for my AP course (lecture notes, powerpoints, all that fun stuff...)
• Finish updating the website for the AP course
• Finalize my lesson plans for the first couple weeks back
• Get prepared for my first formal observation of the year
• Around the Apartment
• Clean the apartment & try to organize our guest bedroom closet
• Set aside stuff for a yard sale (we're hoping to have one sometime in January)
• Blog Maintenance
• Try to empty out my blog draft box
• Write a post about our recent weekend trip to St. Augustine
• Write posts about Christmas & New Years as well as anything else that comes to mind

So far those are my plans. Not really a whole lot of time left over for relaxing, though I'm sure I will make the time. But, if you don't hear from me for a while, you can bet I'm probably working on something mentioned above.

What about you? How much time do you get off for the holidays? The hubby only gets the day after Christmas off from work. Do you have any big plans for the holidays? Traveling to see family? Or maybe everyone is coming over to your place. Or maybe you could just give me some encouragement about this whole "name change" thing - sometimes I really feel like I'm losing a part of my identity.