Enjoyable day off?

Here it is, Thursday, and I find myself sitting at home at 1:17 in the afternoon actually wishing that I was at work.

Crazy, right? I stumbled upon this day off by accident: my school district is paying for me to attend a conference tomorrow, and as such, will pay for a substitute. When the district offers to pay for a sub, it is not taken from your Personal Leave banks, but instead is allocated as "Educational Leave" and is essentially a free day off. Being ever so attentive as I filled out the substitute request form, I noted that my educational leave day was set for November 7th (today), instead of November 8th (the day of the conference). As I'm sitting in my classroom during first block, getting my materials ready for the day in walks a woman who informs me that she is my sub for the day.  I immediately called the secretary to clear it all up, but since the sub had already signed the payment paperwork, she was legally bound to get paid for that day. So, what does that mean for La Tejana? That to pay for her day of work, I was charged a Personal Leave day. So, sitting in my classroom, I figured that if I am already getting charged for the day, I might as well go home and enjoy it.

The morning proved to be very productive-- it's crazy how much you can do on a weekday with no work! I was able to pick up my paycheck from the restaurant, deposit it, and even renew my library books! So far this afternoon, I rode my bike to the jewelry store and had a pair of pearl stud earrings fixed (for only three bucks, too!).

But let's get back to the real issue, the fact that I would rather be at work then enjoying a day off.  Let me preface this by saying I LOVE my job and am blessed to teach the kiddos that I do. Today, I was going to introduce a holiday sock drive that my school is holding for a local clothing bank. The class that raises the most pairs of socks will receive a free cupcake party.

Here's the deal, I teach high school and I know my kids would go NUTS for cupcakes (especially free cupcakes). I had this whole introduction planned and had even decided to sweeten the pot by telling the kids that if they won, they could order pizza and that I would preform a reasonable dare decided upon by the class (I was going to try and plug  doing crazy hair/wardrobe/makeup or that I would take them all to the football field and do a back flip).

Alas, instead of hyping my kids up for donating to a good cause, here I sit. Out of errands. And shall I dare say-- bored? So...what do I do? Of course! Pull up Nelnet, login and stare at my loan balance.

With the paycheck from the restaurant and one nigh'ts worth of tips, I put another $218.34 to my smallest loan. With this payment, I've currently paid a whopping total of $2294.86 on loans this month. Sick. I mean that both in the way of "that's a disgusting statement" and as "that's sick awesome bro!".

It's just crazy how much money I could be putting to a savings account each month if I wasn't paying so much on loans. But--- we're making progress. Sick awesome progress, bro. And to that, I will be content knowing that I am working really darn hard to get my debt paid off as quickly as possible.