34 - saturday

for the past few weeks, I've been driving down to my mom's on saturday evenings to cook risotto.  it's become our thing.  I look forward to spending time with her once a week (get it while I can!) and she looks forward to not having to cook for herself.  sometimes I'll crash there, since the church I attend is just up the road and it makes sunday morning that much easier.

however, this week church is off the books because of tomorrow's race, and I need to spend my 8 hours in my own cozy bed. which means saturday night risotto (and my mom and sister, too) is coming to me. instead of our usual risotto, I'm making granotto - the same creamy preparation, but using a whole grain instead of arborio rice. I fell in love with granotto working as the business manager at an italian restaurant last year.

the seafood granotto at la masseria, prepared using pugliese farro

I'm making mine tonight with pearled barley, cannellini beans, and curly baby kale, finding inspiration in this recipe. since I'm trying to maximize productivity and procrastination, I capitalized on the fact that my run broke up the middle of my day by taking my post-run sweaty self to the kitchen. I diced up my onion (without tears, t, be proud), measured the barley, rinsed and drained the beans, and am rehydrating the kale as we speak.  I'll be able to keep working on data analysis right until my family arrives and when they do, I'll have all the prep done and cooking will be a breeze. win win.

33 - friday

closet confessions.

(1) I am a british royal enthusiast. I woke up before the sun to watch the wedding. if you're not into it, that's ok. we can still be friends. if you are into it, and want to sit around gushing over kate's dress with me, that can also be arranged.

(2) I am loathe to hanging stuff up.

two pairs of dress pants, one blazer, two dresses, three cardigans, two button-downs, and seven blouses. that's like a third of my closet.  and it's been sitting in a (neatly laid) HEAP on my dresser for the past TWO WEEKS because the mere act of reaching into the closet and fishing out a hanger to put things back was so totally incomprehensible.

I have a tiny bedroom. I make my bed every day and it drives me nuts to have stuff on the floor, since there is so little floor to begin with.  but hanging stuff up? I can think of a million things I'd rather do.

(3) oh, ps. I'm racing this weekend, a half marathon. less than two weeks out from boston (yeah, the race report...it's coming. I promise.) I have an unrealistic time goal considering I ran a marathon 11 days ago. but since I'm airing it all out today:
plan a - 1:45 (8:00ish pace). yes, that's really fast for me. no, I don't care that you think I'm dumb.
plan b - 1:52 (8:30ish pace). this is much more likely. but who roots for their realistic plan b? not this girl.
"do or die" plan c - break 2:00/pr.  my half marathon pr is a really stubborn 2:06, and I will be a grumpy piece of shit come sunday afternoon if I can't bust the 2:00 mark. you've been warned.

32 - thursday

spring is beautiful in this city: stubborn at first, it must be coaxed out of hibernation by days upon days of cold, driving rain punctuated with bold, brilliant rays of sunshine just barely warm enough to put tantalizing hope in the hearts of all who call providence home.  eventually, the rain ends and sunlight turns the city aglow, green and swollen with the effort of rebirth; the daffodils and forsythia and dogwood bloom, and spring arrives, casting the misery of another bitter new england winter to the cobwebs of memory.   on one such glorious spring day nearly a decade ago, I found myself standing on the cracked, frost-heaved pavement of an empty parking lot, poking distractedly with a rake at a mixture of broken glass, soggy cigarette butts, and dead leaves.  I was thirteen years old and I stood, watching a young woman shout loud, urgent insults in spanish at her children, all four of whom she was attempting (rather unsuccessfully) to herd inside the apartment building across the street.  she caught my gaze – my stare – and returned it with a raised middle finger before disappearing into the shadows of the building’s interior.  behind her, between where I stood and the noisy din of coming and going on the elevated surface of the eight-lane interstate that slices through the city, an american flag the size of a tennis court snapped and whipped under its own weight in the wind, its chill the only reminder that this was a season of transition, and that summer had yet to settle, heavy and still, on the streets.  

opening paragraph of my anthropology honors thesis, 2009. today was that day as that day was in 2001. a wet, swollen day. a day of reflection about this city. a day of reflection about what's next. I spent the evening at the tenth anniversary celebration of the institute for the study and practice of nonviolence, an organization that has grown from humble beginnings in a south providence church to a robust, multi-million dollar enterprise.  the institute's street workers respond to shootings and stabbings across the city's troubled neighborhoods, helping dispel retaliatory gang violence and to encourage people to choose peace. this organization worked with me in 2006 on a project I was responsible for, performing a needs assessment of gang violence as a community health problem on the city's south side.  they were there for me during my thesis work, helping me gain sensitive access to gang members for long interviews and glimpses into a world that if you blink, you might miss, at least in this city. 

I've returned to providence time and again, as it transformed from a place I went to school to the place I call home. although I am ready, I will be sad to leave providence behind. 

31 - wednesday

it's no secret that I love food.  I run so that I can eat, and not the other way around. I love cooking, I love being cooked for, I love eating, I love farmer's markets, I love trying new restaurants, I love food shopping, I love reading food blogs, I love new recipes, I love when my chef brother cooks for me, I love with the kids I babysit cook for me. (I am starting to sound like this girl.) I especially love when t cooks for me. hello, I know I'm biased, but this man makes the most perfect omelettes in the world.

usually, when he's deployed, I feel bad talking to him about this or that thing that I've cooked or baked.  I feel especially bad sharing pictures, especially if it's been particularly elaborate or delicious.

all that fancy food loving aside, some days, you just gotta get back to the basics. and so if toasted peanut butter and jelly on grocery store bread is wrong, I don't want to be right:

 (and I don't feel bad sharing this, because technically t can make one for himself)

now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go make myself another.

30 - tuesday

as far as hellishly long days go, today was not that bad.  in fact, it was full of tiny moments of assorted excellence.

for starters, a successful four mile morning run.  negative splits and really eerie but awesome fog.

then a new frozen yogurt place opened just steps from my department.  this may prove problematic to the fit of my jeans, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm only here for another month so I should probably live it up.  the whole operation is self serve. they have eight (!) flavors of yogurt, from four machines.  each machine can be made into a "twist" - a classic example is the machine dispensing either vanilla bean, dutch chocolate, or chocolate-vanilla twist. so step one is you choose your flavor(s) and dispense as much or as little as you want into your cup. then you hit up the toppings bar, which includes just about every fresh fruit under the sun, cheesecake bites, chocolate candies, crushed up heath bars, cookie dough, the works.  if you can think of it, they probably have it. total cost is determined by weight.

I'm willing to forgive the blatantly misleading advertising ("probiotic treat" and "healthy alternative") - what is healthy about a sugar-yogurt blend topped with sugar? nothing. - because this is some delicious shit.

the froyo made me forget for a brief moment the indoors guilt I felt all day.  it was 80 sunshiney degrees outside, and I spent almost all of it indoors.  save for one major exception: five magical minutes spent recharging under the enormous new blooms of this magnolia tree.

I had four hours of constitutional law tonight, starting at 5, after having already spent 8 hours on campus working and in class. I don't know about you, but that's a lot for me.  I've been trying for two weeks now to eliminate mid-afternoon coffee from my life, with a lot of cranky success, but today it was an absolute necessity. I swung through blue state (home of the world's greatest grilled cheese) and hey, want to hear something amazing? they have these little tokens that customers use to vote for charities.  the blue state on campus donates to forty charities, and there was a press release taped to the counter today announcing proudly that they'd just doled out $250k.  that's an incredible accomplishment and a LOT of money for a tiny coffee shop.  hats off to those guys.

someone else's crappy iphone photo of the awesome charity voting system.  from blue state's yale location. scoff.

three cheers for surviving tuesday! it was long, and I'm completely wiped, but I'm all about finding ways to make the most of days like today. 

29 - monday

I'm finishing up the first draft of my master's thesis this morning. it's a project I've been working on hard since late august (admittedly, some days and weeks spent working less hard than others). it's been intellectually challenging, because I am conducting original quantitative research, something I've never done before. it's been interpersonally challenging, because I am serving as a research policy fellow to an organization eight states away. as such, I haven't always had the greatest guidance on the project. it's made me a more independent decision maker (I ditched my training wheels months ago) to have to decide for myself what shape my own project will take.

in a few weeks, I will stand up in front of a room full of my professors, my classmates, and policy professionals from across the country to present and defend my work. the importance of this conference makes my summer practicum presentation seem like a puppet show. what? no. I'm not stressed about it at all.

and so, without further ado: an ode to fresh air.

"independent original research" and "working hard" really just means I often spend 14+ hours a day looking at my computer screen.  (and then I wonder why my back and neck and brain hurt so much all the time..hmm). 

this morning it was, for the third day in a row, foggy and rainy and dark and miserable.  I fought that 5am alarm clock like a champion, but it won me over. grumble, grumble. in some desperate attempt to get the teensiest bit of natural light in my life, I've moved myself to the dining room table so that I can see out the windows. 

and look! the clouds parted, the sun came out, illuminating the tiny white flowers covering the tree outside.  I flung open the window as dramatically as possible, pushed up the screen, and stuck my head outside. to breathe. and to take this picture of sunlight and new life and to capture what the glorious clean-scent of spring air looks like. is there anything more energizing?

28 - sunday

happy easter, y'all.

I celebrated by getting up at 5 and doing a few hours of work before church.  then I proceeded to cook up an enormous brunch for my family - mimosas, fresh fruit and yogurt parfaits, and asparagus pancetta hash with poached eggs over ciabatta toasts.  oh, and cinnamon buns for dessert.  can you have dessert at brunch? yes you can, and yes you should.

my freshman year of college, home for the holiday weekend, my mom unceremoniously walked into my bedroom and plunked a pair of fuzzy bunny ears down on the floor next to me and told me she was relinquishing her duties after years of cheerfully hippity-hopping downstairs in the cruel pre-dawn hours of easters past to make baskets of cavity-inducing treats for us kids. I've been in charge ever since. did you know that being the easter bunny for your own adult siblings is actually really fun? I've made some kick-ass baskets over the past 5 years, but this morning I was a little pressed for time. my brother wasn't even home, so the only person I was really making a basket for was my sister. after brunch she threw a mini-tantrum about her basket not being ready yet.  (she's nineteen years old. the drama was unnecessary.) but for baskets thrown together at the absolute last minute, I think they're pretty awesome. wouldn't you agree?

they say it's your birthday...

oh shit! look who's one already! (I know. they grow up so fast.)

this most important of holidays calls for celebration.  so for your birthday, blog, I am baking myself you a delicious batch of brownies. you are so welcome. no really, it was no trouble at all.

in all seriousness, I am grateful for my little blog and the opportunity to share something with t for every day that he's deployed.  he's on his third trip in one year.  that's a lot of back and forth for him, and a lot of hello and goodbye for us.  some days are significantly less sucky than others, but it never stops being difficult to have him away.

I've also enjoyed looking back over the past year and seeing where it's taken me.  I have a lot of new adventures coming up (finishing grad school, moving to georgia, getting a Big Girl Job), and I'm excited to share them here. I hope to continue the blog even when t comes home from this deployment, because it's become a fun way to stay connected with friends of mine who are scattered across the country.

happy birthday, mornings!

27 - saturday

new bananas, looking sad in the rainy half-light of today

it's really, really disgusting outside today. it's cold and raw, the kind of second-week-of-march weather that makes you wish spring would just hurry up and get here already.  except it's almost may, so wtf, mother nature? this is the kind of cold, soaking, driving rain that shoots like nails into the barely sprouting backyard grass and sends mud splatters all over everything.  it's the kind of rain for lying in bed, reading a book, and drinking tea.  and for making watercolor paintings of window screens.

26 - friday

it's ten o'clock on a friday night.  do you know where your girlfriend is? (for the full effect, you should ask yourself this question in your spookiest movie announcer voice. that's what I'm doing.)

what's that you say? is my girlfriend out partying the night away? much to the contrary, my dear. I am in bed, two nods away from sleep, because my life is exciting like that.

I won't bore you with the details of my day.  blah blah paper writing blah library blah.

I did go running, though, and hooo boy THAT was interesting. the first run I did after seattle, I ran faster than I had ever run before.  and I mean, ever. I didn't want that today.  not trying to break the landspeed record, just trying to shake out the cobwebs.  just a quick 2-3 miler, I told myself. just a loop around the neighborhood and call it a day.

after all my "I have no post-boston soreness" bragging chitchat, my run today could not have been more humbling an experience.  it felt like someone poured quikcrete in my shoes.  I felt like forrest gump before the braces go flying off his legs.  I could not move.  my left quad decided to spasm (really? after giving me no problems for four days?) and my right ITB was barking at me.  I made it just over a mile before I decided to turn around.  I stopped, stretched, and tried to continue on my way.  I found myself wishing that the running path was like the sims and there could be a little word bubble above my head saying "coming through. first run since Boston. seriously pathetic legs. don't judge!" but there wasn't, and so I shuffled along in shame.

when I got home it was time for some serious lower limb tlc.  I stretched, I kneaded, I foamrolled, I iced. I ibuprofened.  and I hope to the big man upstairs that tomorrow and the next day are better days.

25 - thursday

as I enter the final stretch of grad school (hello, only 1.5 more weeks of classes), I find myself letting other important tasks fall by the wayside.  for instance:

• laundry. I still have enough underwear to get me to reading period! that's gotta count for something.
• dishes. nothing bothers me more than a sink of dishes. and yet here I am, violating my own pet peeve.
• cooking dinner. cooking is something I love, but I have no time for in my life right now.  I'll let tonight's gourmet meal speak for itself:

mostly I am proud of myself for not burning popcorn for the first time since getting a microwave. 

• and last but not least, grocery shopping.

I have an amorous relationship with grocery shopping.  it stems largely from my (expensive) affection for vegetables allthetime, but it is fueled in no small part by the arrival, every thursday, of the circular.  I love the circular.  even if I don't need to go to the store.  even if there's nothing in there that I want, I will still look through the whole thing every week.  I never clip coupons, and I don't necessarily build my list around what's on sale. but I do look forward to it.

except...it didn't come today. seriously. I am not amused. I had to go online and log in (why yes I do have a username and password for my grocery store's website.  what of it?) in order to see this week's offerings.

the good news (?) is that I am precariously close to running out of coffee.  this is always the critical moment that brings to a screeching halt all the things keeping me from grocery shopping and gets my butt to the store.  what can I say? you don't want to meet me without my morning coffee. it's not pretty. so lame as it may be, I can honestly say I am so looking forward to food shopping this weekend.  (and finally getting some veggies back into my life!)

24 - wednesday

I'm going to the gym.  only to ride the elliptical for 20-30 minutes, very gently, but I know you probably still think I'm an idiot.  the truth is I finished on monday with a lot of race left in my legs, since my stomach forced me to run so slowly.  I feel about as sore as I did after my first hardcore lifting session with my personal trainer, which is to say I am VERY sore but in a very good way.  what helped me recover most from that muscle fatigue was gentle exercise.  and so that is the goal for today.

lest anyone in the gym think that chick doing 20 minutes on the elliptical and calling it a day is a wuss, I am wearing this outfit.  I think it announces pretty loudly the reason for my light cross-train day.

yes, this involved an awkward amount of at-home self photography.  no, you may not see the outtakes, which look like scenes from a bad remake of beyonce's single ladies music video. use your imagination.

23 - tuesday

I am still on an incredible high from yesterday.  I am exhausted.  my legs hurt.  but I am not injured.  thank you, baby jesus: for the first time since I started running, I have finished a long distance race without injury.  I ache the way I've ached after a really hard long training run.  admittedly, my quads are crying more than usual about the downhill beating they took in yesterday's race, but I know I will recover quickly.

I'm also determined not to fall into the post-marathon slump I felt after seattle.  I have lined up a few local races over the next month to give me short-term goals to look forward to.  also, t signed up last week to run the savannah rock n' roll marathon with me in november! talk about the best long-term goal ever.  I'm so excited to have such a handsome training partner.

so, today? today I slept late (8:30 am feels luxurious when you were up at 4:45 the day before!) and crushed a delicious brunch with my mom and sister.  (wait a minute, this looks familiar)...

no, it's not ALL for me.  just most of it.  

#1 fans refueling after a hard day/night of spectating and celebrating

22 - monday

full race report with pictures coming, but for now:

the good
I did it! I am officially a boston marathon finisher. I achieved my "a" goal of finishing while having fun.  boston is a 26.2 mile party in the usa.

the bad
I added 23 minutes to my pr time from seattle (4:29), finishing today in 4:52.  my "b" goal was to best that time.

the ugly
...collapsing into the medical tent at the finish line.  I had some digestive tract issues, and because I was unable to, uh, empty myself out pre-race, all the water/gatorate/gu I took in during the race just sat in my stomach.  I threw up just after the halfway mark (behind a portapotty, so the medics wouldn't see me and make me stop!).  this totally effed up my electrolyte situation.  I busted into every empty portapotty I could find trying to alleviate my situation, to no avail. I ran/walked super slowly to keep my nausea in check.  I was annoyed because my heart/lungs/legs felt strong, but my stomach just would not let me go.

the takeaway
all that being said, I am so proud of myself for sticking with this race despite my february mcl injury and looking forward to sharing my experience with you soon. momma c and emily have all the pictures on their cameras, so it will have to wait!

21 - sunday

this morning after church, I did what any grown 24-year old woman would do: crafts.  that’s right, good old fashioned arts and crafts.

after a tragically failed attempt yesterday to get my name screen-printed on my race singlet at niketown (apparently, they don’t “do” that anymore. not cool), I was feeling pretty panicked about how I was going to get my name on my shirt. I had next to no time to come up with a suitable alternate plan.  I knew I needed to go to wally world to try and find a cheap pair of men’s sweats to wear over my race gear before the start (hello, 40 degrees and 25mph winds).  I went after church, looking much too fancy for the walmart near my house (which is in the hood).  I failed at procuring sweatpants, but I DID find a sweet set of iron-on silver sparkle letters.  

problem solved.

I ALSO successfully restocked on tri berry gu at the expo, so now I'm 100% ready to rock!

20 - saturday

marathon weekend is here!

this morning, momma and I drove up to boston for some packet pick-up/jacket buying, expo-going good times.

 

post-expo we paid a little visit to the finish line.  she laughed at me because I refused to get too close, but seriously, it seems like bad luck to get all up on the line before race day!

after grabbing a quick lunch, we drove out to newton to pick out momma's cheering spot at the base of heartbreak hill.

now, I'm home to pack like crazy and finish some last-minute schoolwork before heading back up tomorrow.  I've never been so excited to run!

19 - friday

we have an EMERGENCY on our hands.

someone's been playing favorites with her gu.  which means that SOMEONE is dangerously close to being all our of her favorite flavor of gu, with her big marathon just three days away.  realizing the precariousness of this situation, someone may have called every running store within a 20-mile radius and no one has tri-berry in stock.

because, as it turns out, I'm not the only one running boston on monday and tri-berry is apparently gu's most popular flavor.  [long, violent string of expletives].

it's...it's not that I don't love lemon sublime.  I do.  it tastes like licking your finger and dipping it in the tub of lemon-lime gatorade powder (I can't be the only one).  it's just that tri-berry has caffeine in it, and gives me the extra kick in the ass I need on long tough runs (like, for instance, a marathon).  and yes I have three and alternating with lemon sublime, it's more than enough for boston.  if lemon sublime were enough in life I'd have enough gu for 2+ bostons. but I (and now I'm just whining) like having extra.  just in case of I don't know what.  I guess I am just going to hope and pray that somewhere at the expo this weekend, gu has an exhibition slot with so much tri berry on hand that they don't know what to do with it except load me up.

end rant.  I blame it on the taper monster.

18 - thursday

thursdays are the busiest day of my week.  I'm on campus by 8am, and nearly every minute of my day is occupied with working, teaching, being in class, eating lunch with one hand while typing with the other, walking to the library, walking to class, being in class again, and again.  it's exhausting.  my last class of the afternoon is from 4:00-6:30, in a sun-filled room that overlooks the main green, brown's biggest open space.

this weekend is brown spring weekend, which means concerts, carnivals, free food, day drinking, and general revelry. none of which I will be taking part in, as I choose early sober bedtime over drunken raging for the days before a marathon.

today, all these things took place outside our classroom windows.  it was all we could do to pretend to pay attention for 2.5 hours.  worst of all, the class is on child development and we were talking about the importance of out-of-school playtime.  hello! we adult grad students need play time, too! let us outside!

 

I almost abandoned my scheduled four-mile run to challenge meredith to this:

if you're wondering to yourself, "hey, is that an inflatable obstacle course?" the answer is yes. yes it is.

and to try to break rocio's time record riding this:

that sure is a mechanical bull. 

but alas.  as boston is a mere four days away, I stuck to the plan and went home to run...after inhaling a double cheeseburger and a hotdog.  I KNOW.  not what the pre-race food plan calls for.  but I'm a poor grad student, and it was free! leave me alone! I paid for it dearly on my run, trying not to puke it up!

happy spring weekend, browntown! enjoy it for me B-)

is this thing on?

I can do a follow-up post to my earlier one, right, even though it's still the same day?


whatever.  it's my blog, I do what I want.


I'd just like to state, for the record, that today rocks my socks.  yes it started out funky and dreary and I was whiney, but it has only improved and is getting better by the minute. I just hated knowing how negative my morning post was, considering how fantastic the rest of the day has been.  that's all.


as you were. 

17 - wednesday

I had a complete taper meltdown this morning.  I woke up exhausted, feeling like I could sleep all day.  I was starving, I felt dehydrated. when, after snoozing my alarm for 45 minutes instead of getting up to do my scheduled 3-mile run, I decided to get my act together and swung my legs over the bed to get up, I felt a stinging pain in my back.  my knees felt stiff.  walking to the kitchen to make coffee, I rolled my head back and forth gently and cracked my neck. my ankles popped all on their own.  


do I sound like a ninety year old nursing home resident? want to trade lives? no? ok.

in case you're new around here, I thrive on organization and preparedness.  waking up five days before boston feeling like my body was falling apart is not exactly a reassuring sign. to top it all off, final school responsibilities are ramping up, my fellowship work is driving me insane, and I'm trying to stay calm and apply to jobs.  I know it's normal tapering blues: feeling cranky from the decreased mileage, feeling hungry even though I'm running less, feeling restless and exhausted at the same time, feeling irrationally irritable at the most minor inconveniences. reading about other runners' accounts of taper blues and the techniques they employ to push through this week of phantom pain and pre-race anxiety certainly helps.


so does cooking.


cooking, after running, is my favorite form of stress relief.  I did a lot of cooking last summer after the seattle marathon, when I was running less but still needed an escape from the pressures of school.  


this morning I found a way to combine cooking with time-management with advanced preparedness. I realize I'm making myself sound like a wizard, but it really wasn't anything glamorous. I stuck a cup of wild rice blend on the stove and set the timer for 45 minutes to do it's thing. 

not my most thrilling culinary venture, but that's fine. the end product is four ready-to-eat portions of my #1 fave carb - rice - that will save me from spending money on take-out (since clearly I have no time for the grocery store). everyone wins, even my panicking inner taper beast. 

16 - tuesday

I've come to accept that one of the best ways to get myself to stay on task is to use bribes.  sometimes this is necessary when I'm running ("if you persist through this hill session and run every repeat hard, you can have a muffin on the way to school this morning").  sometimes this is necessary when I'm doing work ("if you finish writing this paper you can watch two episodes of 30 rock").  


today, I'm applying to jobs.  ah, the old the j-o-b search.  this process is always daunting.  seriously, you'd think it'd get easier over time.  no such luck. and so, you're probably wondering, what's the bribe of the day?

"if you work hard on cover letters until 2:10, you get to go have FREE ben&jerry's ice cream!" yep, today is free cone day aka one of my most favorite days of the year. I rarely eat ice cream, so the promise of FREE ice cream is especially good for bribing me into doing my work. 

(funny side story: I set my alarm and when it went off, accidentally hit "snooze" instead of ending the alarm.  nine minutes later, walking to my car... AWOOOOOGA.  AWOOOOOGA.  my phone started going off, making car horn noises in my backpack.  my hands were too full to pull it out and turn it off, so I just let it go.  I laughed all the way to my car. slightly embarrassing but so funny.) 


and then it was time for my sweet reward! I met rickie there. we had to wait in line...

but it was sooo worth it! 

15 - monday

I'm just getting home from the library. I spent the last 9 hours tucked away at a second-floor carrel with a view of the city, the highways and the bay that made me nostalgic for my senior year of undergrad, when I spent hours and hours gazing out over the same scene as I wrote and polished my thesis.  I could have spent all day today looking out and daydreaming. 


here, time-lapse pictures of my view at 3:45 and again three hours later: 

 

I unexpectedly bumped into not one, but two of my friends I haven't seen in ages.  one is a high school classmate who also went to brown for his undergrad, but who's now at yale law school.  he told me that whenever he's home and needs to do schoolwork, he makes a point of coming back to brown. 

the other person I bumped into was one of my favorite sorority sisters (my little.  hi kat!) who is a senior and in the throes of final thesis stress.  I gave her a big hug and told her that the most important part is knowing when to let go and to enjoy the rest of her senior spring. we chatted for a while before I had to leave her to finish my work.  I hope we can get together between now and commencement, while we're still in the same place. 

as the work stretched out, so nightfall crept in.  7:30 and 8:30, respectively:

it lightened my evening tremendously to bump into people I haven't seen in ages.  maybe I should start hanging out at the library more often!

14 - sunday

hey t, wanna hear a neat joke?  I spent $62 on gas tonight.  you must be thinking, what's she doing driving my big super duty pick up truck, right?


wrong.

wrong, wrong, wrong.  that's how much it cost me to fill up my little saab tonight.  ouch.

13 - saturday

simple pleasures come from simple things.  this morning, I took pleasure in spending a few extra minutes in bed, stretching my toes out to feel the curve of the mattress under my cozy flannel sheets, letting my head rest for a few extra moments on the pillow. I felt like I was getting away with sleeping in for hours, just lying there. 


it just so happens to be a textbook-perfect spring day, and I'm inside taking an exam. (playing the world's tiniest violin. woe is me.) but I reject you, self-pity! while I can't enjoy the beautiful day outside, the possibility of joy is not completely dashed.  


today, it's as simple as this tiny notebook I found yesterday that is the little sister to the bigger one I use for class notes. the little one is perfect for writing lists: grocery lists, to-do lists, things-to-send-to-t lists, jobs-I'd-like lists, and on and on. keeping lists - and keeping them in a beautiful little book - is part of keeping stress at bay and finding joy in even the most task oriented of saturdays.