The remains of the month

Whew.

Got the manuscript of my book FedEx'd to my series editor yesterday. But it's not over yet. See, that was a revision in response to the reader's report and the series editor (an academic) has to approve of what I did and then, if she approves, I have to get it ready to send to the press by the 15th (my contract deadline). Knowing my luck, the series editor will e-mail me on the 14th; and frankly, I don't know what will be worse -- a flat-out rejection or the scramble to get it to the press on time. I think I'll prepare for the best-case scenario and have it ready to go. UPDATE: Oh but it is over! See this post.

So other than that, I can relax now, right? Especially since I'm not teaching?

Nope. Wrong. Not even close.

Here's what remains to be done this month:

• Revise an article for submission by December 31st. (Thank god it's pretty close to a full piece already.)
• Write the acknowledgments and do all the formattting and printing and futzing around with the book manuscript to get it ready for the press. (It's currently saved as one document, for example, and needs to be saved in separate chapters, but the notes pages still need to be numbered according to where they'll fall at the end of the book. So confusing. At least there's no crazy margin-measuring involved, like with the diss.)
• Write easy-to-write letters of recommendation for fabulous former student from previous institution for graduate programs in my discipline (Basic letter written, one version in the mail, the rest to follow.)
  
• Write slightly-more-difficult-to-write letters of recommendation for extraordinary student at current institution for graduate programs complete unrelated to my discipline.
  
• Clean my pigsty of a house.
• Do laundry and dry cleaning, especially of winter clothes. It's 8 degrees Farenheit out there!
• Put the rest of my storm windown down finally. See last bullet point.
• Buy some food.
• Help Boyfriend get ready for work-related party he's hosting on Friday. Buy Christmas tree for his house and bring over decorations. Hang ornaments.
• Hang own Christmas lights. OK, this one is just not going to happen.
• Finish doing laundry that was in laundry chute to clean off insulation that somehow got blown down from the attic to the basement, through the chute, into the cage three floors below. (My landlord said he'd come and vacuum up the gi-normous pile of insulation now sitting in the basement, where I left it after digging out my laundry.) Thank god it's cellulous insulation and not fiber glass.
• Celebrate Boyfriend's birthday.
• Buy Christmas presents. Send presents to far-away loved ones.
  
• Send awesome holiday greeting cards with my marathon finish picture, which is not quite as annoying as a holiday letter-o'-achievements, but still is a little mildly braggy. Almost done with this one, so I'm crossing it off my list now.
• Take the Christ out of Christmas. (Just kidding. Just wanted to see if you made it down this far.)
  
• Visit old homestead with Boyfriend over Christmas. Introduce Boyfriend to most of family for first time.
• Get ready for next semester, which will include 3 courses (one of which I've completely redesigned, another of which is partially redesigned), 1 independent study, and 1 mini faculty-in-residence gig at a local junior high, where I'll guest-lecture on The Hobbit to at-risk 7th graders. Can I tell you how excited I am about that!!! Weeeeee!!!
• Talk to fellow medievalist in French deparment (but speak in English!) about our plans to apply for summer fellowship to design team-taught general ed course on "Saints and Sinners in Medieval Literature." (This could wait until January, but I should at least drop her an e-mail.)

Right. I better get to work!