Drudgery

We're slogging toward spring here in Wisconsin, and that's an apt metaphor for how I'm feeling about Spanish since my breakthrough. (By the way, it did continue, as long as I was teaching. Since that time I've been doing more bilingual support and less lead teaching, and so some of the effects of the breakthrough have dimmed.)
I've been really busy, subbing every day, and then doing textbook editing after getting home from that. And I've fallen out of the habit of practicing at home as much as I had been. This week, I have Tuesday and Thursday off (!), so maybe I'll get back in the swing of it a bit.
I'm finding the podcasts Showtime Spanish, to be less useful than the Coffee Break Spanish ones - although it is much more at my level, so it's good to be able to listen to their more lengthy and complex conversations.
One thing I did do recently, was to finally find some Spanish books written at my reading level at school. (God, I think they're second grade.) Anyway, I read about 20 of those last week, and took a lot of notes on idioms. My favorites so far: Feliz como una lombriz. (Happy as a clam - sort of.) and Mas soso que un huevo sin sal. (Duller than an egg without salt.) I'm in the process of memorizing about 20 of them.
I'm getting anxious to take the Written Proficiency Exam again soon, before my long term subbing starts, and I have NO time to write. I think I'll schedule it for the week after next when the girls have all their spring music concerts that I want to go to anyway.
Hopefully, that will give me a little time to practice - assuming my new class (Paradigms) doesn't kill me first. I'm so not in the mood for meaningless schoolwork.