the right thing?

I hope I did the right thing here. I tend to be really committed to my "job," even stuff that's auxiliary to it, so I never know:

I came in this morning to several e-mails. Two of them were questions about things, easy enough. The third was from a student who lost a scholarship (I won't go into details). I don't remember the student all that well but I could go spelunking in my files to see how they did in my class. The thing is, they want me to write a letter of recommendation for them for the appeal, which is apparently tomorrow evening.

Okay. It's the last week of the summer semester. I collect the "big" ecology papers today and I need to grade them. The students do their oral presentations today. I need to go over my ecology final to be sure it all makes sense before sending it to the printer. I have another exam to give in the intro class (It's written, but still, I will have to grade it).

I told the student "no" because of time pressures. In truth, I possibly could have made the time to do the letter, either by delaying my grading a bit or by staying up here later this evening. But asking a prof to do something with essentially a 2-day turnaround seems a bit much (the students know, I have told them many times, it is in my syllabus and has been for years, that I don't generally check campus e-mail on weekends and NEVER on Sundays).

I dunno. I feel a bit like I'm flaking but then again, at least I said, "No, I can't do that" up-front. (I called the guy who's supposed to come and clear out the alley again....still haven't heard back from him and if I don't by tomorrow morning I'm calling another service because I just want this DONE and I get tired of wrestling with logistical issues that are far more complex than they should be.)