Thesisizing. Call back later.

As my lack of blogging would indicate, I have gotten fairly busy. While I am not blogging, you can imagine me doing one or more of the things listed below:

• Working on my thesis at the dining room table.

• Working on my thesis with my laptop on the couch.

• Working on my thesis at my desk.
  

• Reading articles for my thesis.

• Meeting with people about my thesis (see graduate adviser, see CBR professor, see neighborhood representatives, see graduate adviser, see group members.)

• Working on my thesis at the dining room table.

• Doing research for my thesis at work.
  

• Frantically catching up on work for my classes (at the dining room table).

• At the library doing research for my thesis.

• Interviewing people at coffee shops for my thesis.

• Writing my thesis in my dreams.
  

As anyone who has pursued a degree post-college knows, there are inevitably crunch times (especially if you have a job while going through the craziness). Nothing you can do about it, you just have to drop all to work. That time is now for me.

I am late in returning emails, I am not blogging, friend play-dates are sparse, and I am having a hard time not thinking about my thesis work constantly- so don't take it personally. I'll get back to you when I turn in the rough draft (end of April) and after I spend the month of May "shaking it off" in Europe.

The treasures of a lifetime

My in-laws are moving. Just across town, but it necessitates a huge amount of cleaning out, (being married to Jff, I am not surprised that MIL is a bit of a pack rat, albeit both of them in a lovable way). When we attend Sunday night dinners, lately there have been piles of stuff being offered to us. It is interesting to see treasures from a lifetime of collecting being put on the chopping block. (It also makes me itch to clean out the basement yet again to cull any possible extra junk from the house!)

Tonight as we were down in the basement playing with the 50 states puzzle (wood, states are different colors, and there are no guides for where each state goes-very fun!) and the Play Skool "Little Micro Explorer" I realized how much time the F family has passed in this house. It is sort of sad to think about how quickly time passes and that so much of that history can be tied to place. As we were sitting there talking about a desk the boys used to use, Jff said, "It is sort of sad to me that my kids will never be in this house. This is where I grew up." The house is an unsaveable part of his his life and unique history.

It is strange to think that there are parts of a house or a life that you cannot pack up in boxes or offer up to your kids. I even feel a little sad now about the move. Although I have only been hanging out at this house for about 3 1/2 years, I have had already a lot of important times here. It is hard to leave those places in your life behind.

So we will take the states puzzle and other various treasures to build our basement holdings with. Holding on to their attached history and possibly providing another generation with the opportunities to make their own memories with these things.

Reflections from Oceanside, OR

Jff and I are currently traveling in the Northwest. I have never been, and it is really amazingly wonderful. Yesterday afternoon we flew into Seattle, where we spent the evening with my cousins, Dave and Dana. Today, we spent part of the day in Portland and this afternoon drove to the coast. The days have been sunny and mid-fifties.The grass is green and the smells of the dirt and vegetation are so welcome after months of winter. Currently, I am listening to the waves of the Pacific Ocean right outside our window.

I am reminded why husband and I make a point to travel every year, no matter how frugally: we love it. I think the way we travel is rejuvenating and adventurous at the same time. We reflect, but we also do a lot of laughing and horsing around together. There is extra time for talking and playing together, and just being the two of us. We see places and things that are interesting and inspiring. I think we return home glad to be, but also glad to have been away.

Happy March

This is a celebratory blog post: The wicked witch of the west is dead. Elvis has left the building. February is over once again.

This year I emerged relatively unscathed. The month of doom went fast, there were no break downs, no fantasies of moving to the Caribbean, and no horrible, no good, very bad days. But it is still nice that it is over.

It is March! This means:

-"Ducklings and lambs are born on a sunny spring morning" according to Chloe, a student from Scotland who made the calendar I have on my desk.

-I have planted seedlings indoors in preparation for gardens this spring: tomato, eggplant, peppers, sweet and mammoth basil, spearmint, cilantro, cosmos, and other flowers.

-The snow is melting off our deck no matter what the temperature, because the sun has heating power.

-Husband and I have started running outside again. LLC and I have plans to.

-Day light savings times is next week. Yippee!

-I have seen shorts and short sleeve shirts out in stores.

-Husband and I are taking our annual spring trip. We leave tomorrow for the West Coast- Washington and Oregon.

-Frisbee play-offs are the next two weeks. There have been emails about summer league.

-I register for my last class of my master's program soon.

-Husband and I are preparing for our Denmark stay/jaunt around Europe. Only two months away!

-Leo is omni-present when he hears the front hall closet opening, keys jingling, or jackets being put on.

-Babies are being born left and right.

-Blankets are being taken off our bed.


Let's hear it for the beginning of spring, officially March 20th!!!

Pet Peeve #237

One of my biggest pet peeves are editing errors- misspellings, leaving out words like "it" and "the", and missing punctuation. (I really like commas and think they should be far more liberally used by the general public.) Anyways, I can't help it, I was a teacher for a long time.

I know that I am usually writing my posts too quickly and that I often have errors.
Because of this I have made a deal with myself, that small mistakes are not worth spending a long time editing for. However, when the post is unreadable and annoying because I didn't proof it well enough, it sucks. Why even publish something then?

I am writing this because I just looked back at my UW-Madison post and someone could really ask- "did you really go to school there?" All the changes I made to the post in my final edit didn't save, so links were wrong, words were missing, and it sounded like a forth-grader wrote it.

Ugh.Sorry.

Annuale

Although I find the following spoof somewhat stereotypical of women and pms, the fact that Saturday Night Live is making fun of drug advertisements is awesome. I hate the pharmaceutical industry and their stupid advertisements. Plus,very few things on TV make me laugh out loud and this did:



Tell me what you think.