Too Much

Whine, whine, whine....I am a big ball of stress these days.  I feel like I'm wound so tight I'm gonna explode at the slightest touch.  I've taken on too much and I know it.  This is my biggest problem:  I can't say no.  Its all school-related stress, and I try *really* hard to leave it there, but it sneaks up on me a lot of the time.  I am teaching a math intervention class for my 6th grade students two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday.  This takes place during my planning period, of course.  On Tuesdays, as soon as the students leave, I meet up with a 4th grade student who needs tutoring as well.  On Thursdays, I go straight from tutoring my 6th graders to a weekly grade level meeting with our principal.  So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have ZERO planning time.  Also, I am finishing up (two more weeks!) a hospital-homebound tutoring job with a student I've been working with for a couple of months.  Yes, I am getting paid for all this extra work, but still...its a LOT.  By Christmas break, though, I will have finished up with my homebound student and can focus on the tutoring I'm doing during the school day and not worry about the after-school stuff.  Its just all the paperwork that stresses me out.  Being a special education teacher, I am in charge of monitoring IEP's, classroom accommodations, and testing modifications.  I have to make sure everything that needs to be done is being done for each student.  I have to keep copies/records of everything we do.  I have to track testing data to prove that my students are (or aren't) learning anything.  I have to go to special education AND math department meetings.  Its a lot.
Teachers get a bad rap these days, getting blamed for students' lack of success, but getting no credit when the students are successful.  (Well, maybe I'm exaggerating, but its how I feel at this point in time.)  Our pay is getting cut, but we are expected to do more and more each day.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed and just want to explode.
Then I come home to my husband and kids and they make it all right.  Home is a good place to be.  And teaching isn't all bad...Heck, if I can stand the stress for two more weeks, I'll get two weeks off for Christmas!  I'm a lucky girl.